Van Dyke prosecutor on taking the case: ‘Nobody thought it was a great idea’

Around noon a week ago Friday, Kane County State’s Attorney Joseph McMahon and his special prosecution team watched at the administrative building adjacent to the Leighton Criminal Court Building came buzzing to life.

News bulletins announced the jury in the Jason Van Dyke murder trial had reached a verdict. Schools were closing. Sporting events were canceled. Police were on high alert. McMahon and his lieutenants, encamped in office space on the 11th floor borrowed from the Cook County State’s Attorney, watched as Kim Foxx’s staff were told to go home. Assistant Special Prosecutor Dan Weiler got a text from his girlfriend.

No one called McMahon.

“We thought that there wasn’t a verdict, because we figured they would have told us,” said Jody Gleason, McMahon’s top deputy. “You’d figure we’d have been one of the first people they called.”

Finally, an official call from the courtroom came. McMahon, Gleason, Weiler and fellow prosecutors Marilyn Hite Ross and Joseph Cullen headed to Judge Vincent Gaughan’s courtroom — walking past throngs of courthouse employees who were leaving the building.

By now, the verdict against Van Dyke for McDonald’s murder is old news: guilty of second-degree murder of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, as well as 16 counts of aggravated battery.

“I think it was the right verdict, and it was a just verdict,” McMahon said during a recent interview with the prosecution team in his offices in west suburban St. Charles, about a three-hour round-trip from Leighton.

The verdict was also a rare conviction of an officer charged with murder for an on-duty shooting. Statistics compiled by Bowling Green State University law professor Philip Stinson show Van Dyke is just the 34th law enforcement officer convicted of murder or manslaughter since 2005 in the United States.

In May 2016, then-Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez opted to turn the case over to a special prosecutor. At that time, it did not look like any of McMahon’s peers were eager to replace Alvarez at the helm of a prosecution that was sure to garner national attention — and possibly end with an acquittal.

Searching for someone to appoint as special prosecutor, Judge Gaughan sent letters to collar-county state’s attorneys; McMahon let his sit on his desk for several days. He called his suburban peers to ask about their interest; none wanted the case, and no one advised him to take it. He consulted Gleason. Her answer: No way.

“Normally, what we do is, we support law enforcement,” she said. “There was some concern about how law enforcement officers in Kane County would look at us taking this case.”

McMahon, like many state’s attorneys, has opposed legislation requiring that private lawyers be appointed to prosecute law enforcement officers accused of wrongdoing. To farm Van Dyke’s case out to private attorneys would have sent the wrong message to legislators and minority communities who believe they can’t get a fair shake from police or elected prosecutors, McMahon said.

“One of us had to step up,” McMahon said. “We are independent of law enforcement. We do work with them, and we do rely on their investigative work to build cases … but we are independent.”

“Nobody thought it was a great idea,” he admits.

Soon after he was appointed, McMahon realized he did not have the full confidence of the victim’s family. McDonald’s mother remained skeptical of the soft-spoken Republican throughout the trial, McMahon admitted. Tina Hunter, who moved to the western suburbs after her son’s death, was in the courtroom only a handful of times since Van Dyke was charged in late 2015.

“Tina has a real fear of going into the city of Chicago,” McMahon said. “She witnessed, through the videotape, a Chicago Police officer in full uniform, surrounded by a lot of police officers in full uniform and marked squad cars, (and) one of them was shooting her son. I think the emotional scars are real.”

During the trial, when Hunter was not in the courtroom gallery, she often watched a live video feed in an office on the 13th floor. She remained skeptical of the prosecution team, McMahon said, until late in the trial.

After weeks of bunking at a hotel near Midway Airport during the trial, McMahon and his team have returned to work among the subdivisions and occasional cornfield around St. Charles. Ross, a former Cook County prosecutor, has been catching up on work in the Winnebago County state’s attorney’s office. The next time they are scheduled to be in Chicago is Oct. 31 for a hearing on post-trial motions.

McMahon would not comment on what sentence he will recommend for Van Dyke, noting that he is aware of legal experts debating if the convicted police officer should receive only probation — or a prison term that could stretch into triple digits.

“That ultimately is Judge Gaughan’s decision,” he said. “We will make our position known in court.”