Pardoned Convict's Attorneys Want Legal Fees From City Lawyers
CHICAGO (CBS) -- The case of an elderly man who claims Chicago Police forced him to confess to a rape more than 60 years ago is not settled yet.
As WBBM Newsradio's Bob Conway reports, Oscar Walden Jr., 80, spent decades in prison before being pardoned in 2002. He then sued the city for $15 million.
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A jury ruled against Walden in the lawsuit last year, but U.S. District Judge Ruben Castillo set aside the decision and ordered a second trial, while criticizing the tactics of the city's lawyers.
Now, the Chicago Tribune reports, Walden's attorneys are asking that the city or the law firm that represented it – Andrew M. Hale & Associates – be forced to pay legal fees, amounting to more than $330,000.
The court filing by Walden's attorneys claims that the lawyers who represented the city – Andrew Hale and Avi Kamionski – were also criticized by judges in other cases, the Tribune reported. In the Walden case, they supplied the jury with a graphic narrative of the rape and other evidence that was not supposed to be admitted, the newspaper reported.
In his criminal trial, Walden said he had to sleep on the floor in the old "death row" in the basement of the Cook County Jail, where an electric chair was once located. He also testified that he had a forced circumcision when he arrived at Stateville Prison to serve his sentence after conviction, according to published reports.
Andrew M. Hale & Associates has since been removed from the case, and calls the request for fees unwarranted, the Tribune reported.
