Lightfoot accused of trying to water down pivotal criminal justice reform

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration was accused Monday of attempting to water down a pivotal criminal justice reform recommended by the Task Force on Police Accountability she co-chaired after the police shooting of Laquan McDonald.

Ald. Leslie Hairston (5th) wants to follow the task force’s lead by requiring anyone arrested by Chicago police to be informed of their right to be represented by free legal counsel and allowed to make a “reasonable number of phone calls” to attorneys and family members “within one hour of arrival” at the place where they are being held.

The Chicago Police Department would be required to abide by the one-hour rule “unless exceptional circumstances ... make it impossible to do so.”

Hairston’s ordinance would further require arrestees be provided with a “complete list” of the names and phone numbers of “nonprofit and government legal service providers.”

Exceptions to the one-hour rule would need to be recorded in the arrest report and in CPD’s internal computer system, along with the justification.

At a hearing Monday of the City Council’s Committee on Public Safety, Hairston said Lightfoot was trying to weaken the one-hour rule in an apparent attempt to avert costly litigation.

“My ordinance just basically says that … you’re entitled to a phone call within one hour of being arrested. That has been rejected by the city and they have been adding more layers of difficulty to the ordinance that is proposed as a substitute to my ordinance, which I have rejected and will continue to reject and I think my colleagues will feel the same way,” Hairston said.

“I will continue to resist the Law Department’s and the Police Department’s efforts to try to make it convenient for them when people are unable to go free. … We need this. This is progressive. Anything else is not progressive.”

Deputy Cook County Public Defender Peter Parry said data compiled by his office shows half of all arrestees are given no access to the phone. For the other half, the average wait is “over four hours,” he said.

“Most of the calls don’t come from those in custody. Only about 20% do. Most of the time, it’s the relative or the friend of the arrestee who is calling our hotline. They haven’t received any calls from their loved one. They often don’t know what district the person is even being held,” Parry said.

Public Safety Committee Chairman Chris Taliaferro (29th), a former Chicago police officer, said he knows from experience it is “difficult, even on a routine arrest” to process suspects within one hour.

“If we were to make this hard-line rule, would we be digging ourselves as a city financially in a greater hole than the $600,000 that it’s costing us to defend?” Taliaferro asked.

Deputy Corporation Counsel Jeff Levine said there’s good reason California has a three-hour rule and New York City and Philadelphia impose “no uniform standard.”

“Any time you put in place a hard hour requirement or a time limit, it creates an opportunity for litigation against the city,” Levine said.

“I don’t want to buy into a dichotomy of having the discussion be between people who are seeking to avert bad treatment versus those who promote it. But rather, trying to collectively arrive at a result here that promotes reasonable, appropriate, prompt rights coupled with a uniform standard that is capable of being applied in a functional fashion.”

Randall Darlin, CPD deputy chief of operations, said there are a “myriad of circumstances that directly relate to the amount of time it takes for individuals detained to be processed and given access to a telephone.”

Darlin said the “reasonable standard” set forth in Illinois law is the time frame by which CPD “would like to be measured.”

University of Chicago Law professor Craig Futterman didn’t buy it. He argued that Black and Brown arrestees are being “held incommunicado without access to attorneys” on a regular basis.

“Just this last year, we looked at every one of the Chicago public defender murder cases…More than 50% of those folks who were held for nearly 48 hours before they saw a judge never got a single phone call. … And of the less than 50% who actually got a call, the average wait time was more than 12 hours,” Futterman said.

“Why the city needs to act right now, is because the city is paying out $50 million for stuff like this. Why the city should act right now, is because it’s the right thing to do — not wait for a judge to tell you you’ve got to do it.”