City seeks gag order in police neglect case

City seeks gag order in police neglect case


Lawyers want to keep Christina Eilman's family from speaking to media

By David Heinzmann, Chicago Tribune reporter
12:49 AM CDT, April 30, 2012

In the wake of a damaging appellate court ruling against the Chicago Police Department, lawyers for Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration have asked a judge to keep the family of a mentally ill California woman from speaking publicly about the case.

The move was prompted by a sharply critical statement Christina Eilman's family issued after the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that their lawsuit could proceed after a two-year delay, a legal opinion that likened police conduct to throwing her in a lion's den.

The family blamed the city's legal maneuvering for dragging out the lawsuit, which seeks as much as $100 million for the devastating injuries Eilman suffered after police released her into one of Chicago's highest-crime neighborhoods. She was sexually assaulted and fell from the seventh-floor window of a public housing building.

City lawyers filed a motion Friday asking U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall to enter a formal gag order in the case after emailing Eilman's lawyer to accuse the family of violating a previous, informal agreement among the parties to not talk to news media.

The family's attorney, Jeffrey Singer, responded that the January 2010 agreement was made in anticipation of a jury trial that was scheduled to start soon in the case, and "all bets were off" once the city filed a last-minute appeal that Kendall warned might simply be a stall tactic, according to a portion of the email exchange that the city attached to its motion Friday.

Although Singer has not himself commented publicly since the agreement, in the interim his clients have made public statements at least twice, including Thursday's written release. However, Singer told city attorney Matthew Hurd in the email that his clients have had no obligation to remain quiet since the city moved to delay the case.

"You guys chose to do this and essentially assured no imminent trial. In my view, all bets were off once the trial date was vacated — over two years ago. That was your decision — not mine," Singer wrote in an email Friday to Hurd.

City officials said they want the judge to clarify whether her informal agreement of should be interpreted as a gag order. "The fact that it was issued orally doesn't make it any less an order," said Roderick Drew, spokesman for the city Law Department.

City lawyers said they planned to appear in court Thursday to argue their motion, but Kendall on Friday scheduled a status hearing in the case for Monday morning.

In the court filing, Hurd noted that the statement by Eilman's parents appeared in a front-page story in Friday's Tribune. The motion also referenced part of a transcript from the hearing in January 2010 when Kendall asked the parties to enter into "a gentleman's and ladies' agreement" to no longer speak to the news media as the parties prepared to pick a jury.

At the time, the city had filed a motion to delay the trial because of publicity. Kendall said she didn't think a delay, or a formal gag order, were necessary but that they would need to question the jury pool "to know whether the jury's read these articles, and the articles are front-page articles with a lot of detail."

The details of the Eilman case shocked many and raised further questions about police oversight at a time when the department was already dealing with multiple misconduct scandals.

Eilman suffered what experts have described as a bipolar breakdown while she was in Chicago in May 2006 and was arrested at Midway Airport. Police took her from the airport to the nearby Chicago Lawn police station. They contacted her parents, who informed officers that her behavior was due to mental illness.

Instead of following department policy requiring a hospital evaluation for mentally ill people in custody, officers booked her and transported her seven miles to a lockup facility in one of the city's highest-crime neighborhoods. The next night, they released her without any direction, and she wandered the neighborhood before being lured into a public housing high-rise.

Eilman's catastrophic injuries included a severe brain injury with permanent damage. Now 27, she lives in California with her parents and is dependent on state aid for her around-the-clock care.

dheinzmann@tribune.com


http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-police-lawsuit-eilman-0430-20120430,0,4971455.story

Editor's note: Typical Chicago style freedom of speech! Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com