“Grand Jury Indicts Hanrahan” was the headline that greeted us after we returned to Chicago. The indictment charged Hanrahan, his assistant Jalovec, the fourteen raiders, and the police personnel who conducted the investigation with “knowingly and willfully, fraudulently and deceitfully, conspiring, combining, confederating, and agreeing to obstruct justice,” to prevent the criminal prosecution of Daniel Groth and the other raiders as well as to obstruct the criminal defense of the survivors. Police Superintendent James Conlisk was named as a coconspirator but not indicted.
Hanrahan and company would have to face criminal charges, but the obstruction of justice charges hardly matched the seriousness of what they had done.
“I don’t understand how the grand jury could believe that Fred’s death from the two parallel gunshot wounds to his head at close range could be anything but deliberate murder,” I said to fellow PLOers congregated at our office the day after our return.
“Who knows?” Dennis responded. “Maybe Hanrahan or the police had a grand juror or two in their pockets from the start.”
“Or maybe they recruited some along the way,” I answered.
“Well, I think it’s amazing Hanrahan was indicted at all,” said Susan Jordan.
When I considered the events of the previous year and how long it took to get Hanrahan charged, I realized she was right. The time frame was in stark contrast to the five minutes of a cop’s grand jury testimony that had been sufficient for Hanrahan to indict our clients.
In December 1970, Barnabas Sears convened a special grand jury, and the survivors testified for the first time before a government body. Publicly, Sears kept his distance from us at PLO. He didn’t want to be tainted by appearing to be too close to our radicalism or a Panther sympathizer. Privately, we worked with Cedarquist and Reid, his assistants. This cooperation included allowing them to review our files on the raid. We didn’t give their access a second thought.
In April 1971, when rumors were circulating that the special grand jury was about to return indictments, Hanrahan and the other targets of the grand jury hired attorneys to represent them: Thomas Sullivan, the former U.S. attorney; George Cotsirilos, one of the best and most polished criminal lawyers in Chicago; and John Coghlan, the infighter from Daley’s area of Bridgeport who already was representing Hanrahan in our civil suit. Sullivan had distinguished himself as U.S. attorney, and later as an advocate for civil liberties in representing protesters from the 1968 Democratic Convention. His background as well as his cool, precise courtroom style added prestige and skill to Hanrahan’s defense.
In May, at Sullivan’s urging, Judge Power ordered the grand jury to stop deliberations and hear Hanrahan and the raiders’ side of the story. This was unprecedented. Persons being investigated have no right to present any evidence to the grand jury. When Sears criticized Judge Power for this intervention, he was fined for contempt.
In June, despite Power’s efforts to prevent it, the grand jury announced they had returned an indictment. Judge Power immediately ordered the indictments sealed and suppressed, another outrageous and unprecedented act. Not only the liberal Chicago Council of Lawyers but also the more staid Chicago Bar Association condemned Judge Power for his interference and urged Hanrahan to step down as state’s attorney until the grand jury was completed.
The position of presiding judge of the Cook County Criminal Courts, the largest criminal court system in the United States, was a political appointment directed from the mayor’s office and Judge Power knew who provided his gavel. He was a close friend, neighbor, and former law associate of Mayor Daley. Clearly, Daley and the machine did not want Hanrahan charged, and the usual prohibitions against interference with the grand jury did not apply.
At one point, Power even cut off funding to the special prosecutor, and went so far as to appoint Mitchell Ware, head of the Illinois State Police, to investigate Barnabas Sears. Fortunately, Ware never got started. On August 24 the Illinois Supreme Court overruled Power. Their unanimous opinion, written by Justice Schaefer, the same justice who had granted Fred Hampton an appeal bond, concluded that “the interests of justice would best be served by opening the indictment and proceeding pursuant to the law.” The opinion further ordered that Mitchell Ware’s appointment be revoked.
Unfortunately, the Supreme Court turned down Sears’s request to appoint a trial judge from outside Cook County. Judge Power’s last ruling before transferring the case was to appoint Judge Philip Romiti, a friend of Mayor Daley and former dean of DePaul Law School, to be the trial judge.
“What’s Judge Romiti like?” I asked, continuing the conversation with Dennis and Susan. “I’ve never had a case before him.”
“He’s pretty tough on defendants in a regular criminal case,” Dennis said. “But here, with Hanrahan on trial, and Romiti’s ties to the Democratic Party, I’ll bet the defendants are licking their chops. I’m sure they’ll take a bench trial.”
I didn’t feel optimistic, either. “I think Sears is outgunned, particularly if, as you say, the defense lawyers have Romiti in their pocket.”
“Thomas Sullivan is as good as they get,” Susan pitched in. “He’s cool and calculating and Coghlan will be the hatchet man.”
“Romiti will be looking for any excuse to acquit Hanrahan,” Flint said.
Sears had an uphill fight. To my knowledge, cops had been charged with bribery, drugs, and burglaries but never for incidents where they wounded or killed civilians while on duty. State’s attorneys worked with the police in their criminal prosecutions. Hanrahan, like all the Cook County prosecutors before and after him, granted police officers de facto immunity from criminal prosecution, no matter what they did on the streets.