Jason Van Dyke lawyers ask for month delay on new trial hearing

Lawyers for Jason Van Dyke this week asked for a 30-day delay for a hearing on whether or not the guilty verdicts against the former Chicago Police officer should stand.

In a motion filed Monday, defense attorney Daniel Herbert requested the extra month to review transcripts from the trial, which ran three weeks long and included testimony from more than 40 witnesses, including Van Dyke.

Cook County Judge Vincent Gaughan last week set deadlines for Special Prosecutor Joseph McMahon to file a reply to the defense motions seeking to overturn the verdict or grant Van Dyke a new trial, and a Dec. 14 date for in-court argument.

The motion for a new trial is routine after any guilty verdict, and a separate motion filed by Van Dyke’s lawyers seeking to throw out the verdict entirely slightly more rare. Both are unlikely to win over Gaughan, who would set a schedule for motions and a sentencing date in the event he decides not to overturn the case.

Van Dyke has been jailed since the jury returned guilty verdicts on second-degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery with a firearm in the 2014 shooting of Laquan McDonald.

Cook County Sheriff’s officials had Van Dyke transferred to a jail in Rock Island, Ill., some three hours west of Chicago. There, Herbert said, the veteran police officer is separated from other inmates and spends 23 hours a day in his cell.