COOK CO. DEMS’ MOVE TO DUMP JUDGE SURE LOOKS LIKE RETALIATION
Democrats link call to dump judge to juvenile justice, not Jussie Smollett
The Cook County Democratic Party voted Monday to oppose retention of the judge who appointed a special prosecutor to investigate State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s handling of the Jussie Smollett case, bringing immediate accusations of retaliation.
Party officials denied any connection to Foxx’s election and said they are seeking to oust Judge Michael Toomin, presiding judge of the county’s Juvenile Justice division, over what they said was his “imperial” temperament and “outdated approach” to juvenile justice.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot was among those who questioned the party’s move, saying she was “deeply concerned” about it.
“The optics of this are terrible,” Lightfoot said. “It looks like retaliation.” It sure does. The move to dump Toomin had the support of Cook County Democratic Chairman Toni Preckwinkle, who lost to Lightfoot in the 2019 mayor’s race and served as Foxx’s mentor when the prosecutor was her chief of staff. But Toomin’s potential ouster was also backed by Ald. Leslie Hairston (5th), who passed along Lightfoot’s concerns to party officials before the vote.
Toomin accused party leaders of retaliating against him for his decision to name attorney Dan K. Webb to reopen the Smollett investigation.
Toomin called it a “blatant rejection of judicial independence.”
Webb brought a new indictment against Smollett and later issued a report that was highly critical of Foxx and her office, although it cleared the state’s attorney of accusations of improper influence by outside parties.
Toomin declined to make Webb’s full report public, but that hasn’t prevented it from providing campaign fuel to Republican candidate Pat O’Brien, a former top prosecutor and county judge who is opposing Foxx’s reelection bid.
Toomin previously had named Webb as special prosecutor to investigate the death of David Koschman, resulting in the prosecution of R.J. Vanecko, former Mayor Richard M. Daley’s nephew.
It is very unusual for the Democratic Party to oppose any judge for retention, although it did so two years ago in the case of Judge Matthew Coghlan over his past involvement as a prosecutor in a wrongful conviction case. After successfully dumping Coghlan from the bench, Preckwinkle said the party would undertake more such efforts in the future.
“This is not about optics,” Preckwinkle said of Toomin on Monday. “It’s about judicial accountability.”
In addition to Toomin, another judge Democrats will oppose for retention is Mauricio Araujo, who is under fire over multiple sexual harassment allegations and for issuing more than 80 search warrants to two Chicago police officers convicted of using them to commit crimes.
Elected Circuit Court judges in Illinois face a retention vote every six years, requiring approval of 60% of voters to keep their seats on the bench.
Eamon Kelly, Evanston Township Democratic
committeeperson and chair of the party’s Judicial Retention Committee, said he singled out Toomin for closer scrutiny after he was found “not qualified” by the Chicago Council of Lawyers.
Although the Council of Lawyers later reversed itself over the weekend and now supports Toomin’s retention, Kelly said his own confidential interviews with “juvenile justice advocates” caused him to conclude Toomin was “obstructing efforts at reforming” the juvenile court system.
Kelly’s report on Toomin cited the judge’s personal experience in the juvenile justice system, when he stole a car as a teenager and subsequently entered the Marines, to suggest that his views — “as a white male, from a privileged community”— were outdated.
Toomin said he was caught by surprise by the effort to dump him. Toomin was first elected to the bench in 1984 and became presiding judge of the Juvenile Court in 2010.
“This whole thing has been kind of an eye opener for me,” Toomin said, noting he has always had the support of the bar associations in his previous retention bids.
Toomin was originally elected to the bench as a Republican, another point Kelly raised in his explanation for why Democrats should oppose his retention.
Toomin said that shouldn’t have any bearing on whether he remains a judge.
“If we’re following the law and do the right thing, that should be it,” he said.
Being outside the Democratic Party apparatus has made Toomin a convenient choice for Cook County Chief Judge Tim Evans when looking for a judge to appoint to decide whether to bring in a special prosecutor in politically sticky situations.
Only two Democratic committeepersons voted against the effort to dump Toomin — Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd) and Ald. Tom Tunney (44th). Lightfoot is not a committeeperson, so the Democratic mayor had no vote in the matter.
Unlike in Coghlan’s situation, there has been no grassroots movement to get rid of Toomin, at least none that has surfaced publicly. And unlike Araujo, Toomin has not been the subject of any disciplinary investigation by the courts.
Kelly said the Foxx situation “didn’t have any role in my consideration of the issue,” except to cause him to consider not pursuing Toomin’s ouster because of the potential fallout.
“I thought it was important for the children in the juvenile system that I play it straight,” Kelly said.
I should have known. It was for the children.
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren fired the police chief and suspended her top lawyer and communications director Monday in the continuing upheaval over the suffocation death of Chicagoan Daniel Prude.
Chief Le’Ron Singletary announced his retirement last week as part of a major shakeup of the city’s police leadership but said he would stay on through the end of the month.
Instead, Warren said at a news conference that she had permanently relieved him while suspending Corporation Counsel Tim Curtin and Communications Director Justin
Roj without pay for 30 days following a cursory management review of the city’s role in Prude’s death.
“This initial look has shown what so many have suspected, that we have a pervasive problem in the Rochester Police Department,” Warren said. “One that views everything through the eyes of the badge and not the citizens we serve. It shows that Mr. Prude’s death was not taken as seriously as it should have been by those who reviewed the case throughout city government at every level.”
Officers found Prude running naked down the street in March, handcuffed him and put a hood over his head to stop him from spitting, then held him down for about two minutes until he stopped breathing. He died a week later after he was taken off life support.
His death has sparked nearly two weeks of nightly protests and calls for Warren’s resignation after his relatives released police body camera video and written reports they obtained through a public records request.
Warren said the review had produced eight recommendations, including that the city’s Office of Public Integrity investigate whether she or any other employees violated city policies or ethical standards.
The review by Deputy Mayor James Smith also recommended that the U.S. Justice Department conduct a review of the Rochester Police Department, including a review of all body-worn camera footage for use-of-force arrests over the past three years.
Warren said she would move forward with those and the other recommendations, which include having outside agencies review police training manuals and Freedom of Information Law procedures.
“I have apologized to the Prude family and this community for the failures that happened along the way, including my own,” Warren said. “As mayor, I own these failures.”
Amazon will hire another 100,000 people nationally, including 5,500 in the Chicago area, to keep up with a surge of online orders.
The company said Monday the new hires will help pack, ship or sort orders, working in part-time and full-time roles. Amazon said the jobs are not related to its typical holiday hiring.
The local hiring will be spread among seven sites: two each in Joliet and Channahon and others in Monee, Crest Hill and Wilmington, a company spokesperson said.
Amazon is building fulfillment centers in two south suburbs, Matteson and Markham. The new facilities will bring to 11 the number of fulfillment centers it operates in Illinois, most of them near Chicago. A fulfillment center is a major hub for Amazon, which also operates smaller distribution centers for “last-mile” service around the region.
The Seattle company reported record profit and revenue between April and June as more people turned to it during the pandemic to buy groceries and supplies.
The company already had to hire 175,000 people earlier this year to keep up with the rush of orders, and last week said it had 33,000 corporate and tech jobs it needed to fill.
This time around, Amazon said it needs the people at the 100 new warehouses, package sorting centers and other facilities it’s opening this month.
Alicia Boler Davis, who oversees Amazon’s warehouses, said the company is offering $1,000 sign-on bonuses in some cities where it may be harder for it to find workers, such as Detroit, New York, Philadelphia and Louisville, Kentucky. Starting pay at Amazon is $15 an hour.
Things are about to get a lot busier at Amazon’s warehouses. In addition to the holiday shopping rush, Amazon plans to hold one of its busiest shopping days, Prime
Day, in the fall this year after postponing it from July.
Amazon will be monitoring whether it needs to hire more workers for the holidays but doesn’t have anything to announce yet, Boler Davis said. Last year, it hired 200,000 ahead of the holidays.
One company is already preparing for the spike in orders: UPS said last week that it plans to bring in 100,000 people to help it deliver packages during the holiday season.