Fight Between Public Defender, Prosecutor To Be Tried In Different Courthouse
CHICAGO (CBS) -- An assistant public defender won't have his day in court at the same place where he was charged for attacking a prosecutor.
As WBBM Newsradio 780's David Roe reports, Criminal Court Judge Raymond L. Jagielski on Wednesday sent the case to the Skokie Courthouse.
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The case involves a fight between Cook County Assistant State's Attorney Michael McCormick and Assistant Public Defender Henry Hams, who got into a fight outside a snack job on the main floor of the main Cook County Criminal Courthouse, at 26th Street and California Avenue.
Sheriff's deputies say when they tried to pull Hams off of McCormick, Hams continued choking the prosecutor with one hand while trying to hold off the deputies with the other.
Hams is charged with battery and resisting arrest.
The Skokie Courthouse is the only one of the seven Cook County criminal courthouses where neither has ever worked. Thus, that is where the case will be heard.
The case was already moved from 26th and California to the Bridgeview courthouse, since McCormick and a sheriff's deputy who is a prosecution witness both work there.
Jagielski denied a request by Hams' attorney to have the case moved out of Bridgeview, on the grounds that the Criminal Courts building.
Then his attorney argued Wednesday that McCormick had prosecuted cases in Bridgeview before the assigned judge, John J. Hynes, on four occasions. Jagielski said that was irrelevant, since the Illinois Attorney General, and not the Cook County state's attorney's office, will be prosecuting the case.
But Jagielski then moved the case to Skokie on a Wednesday hearing, he said, so as to eliminate further distraction and get the case rolling more than a year after the scuffle happened.
The Chicago Sun-Times contributed to this report, via the Sun-Times Media Wire.
