Courts
The trial, set to start Dec. 8 and last 10 days, represents a high-stakes gamble for the city, whose lawyers typically recommend settling civil cases involving actions by the police that led to criminal charges and are ruled to have violated department policy.
Judge’s Footnote on Immigration Agents Using AI in Chicago Area Raises Accuracy and Privacy Concerns
U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis wrote the footnote in a 223-page opinion issued last week, noting that the practice of using ChatGPT to write use-of-force reports undermines agents’ credibility and “may explain the inaccuracy of these reports.”
The decision by the state’s highest court keeps the system Chicago officials used for 60 years to hold officers accused of the most egregious misconduct in a deep freeze. Oral arguments will take place in 2026.
Cook County Chief Judge Tim Evans said his office is “reviewing all actions” after a Chicago man who had been out on pretrial release allegedly doused a woman in gasoline and lit her on fire on board a CTA Blue Line train this month.
The Wisconsin woman who won release from a mental institution after almost killing her sixth grade classmate in the name of horror villain Slender Man only to flee the state weeks later won’t fight extradition from Illinois.
Mohamedou Ould Slahi testified he was treated well at the U.S. detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, until then-CPD Detective Richard Zuley took command of the investigation into his ties to al-Qaida and the torture began.
The consent decree is a binding court order granting a federal judge oversight of the police department. WTTW News Explains how that works in practice.
The rulings from U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie amount to a stunning rebuke of the Trump administration’s efforts to target Trump’s political opponents. It also highlights its legal maneuvering to hastily install a loyalist prosecutor willing to file the cases.
A Wisconsin woman who admitted to nearly stabbing a classmate to death at age 12 to please the online horror character Slender Man has been found in Illinois after she cut off an electronic monitoring device.
U.S. District Court Judge Sara Ellis used a blistering 233-page ruling to painstakingly detail how agents falsely asserted in court and in official reports that they had been confronted with unrelenting and life-threatening violence every time they attempted to carry out President Donald Trump’s mass deportation effort.
Nearly six decades after becoming a lawyer, former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan has been disbarred following his convictions on federal corruption charges earlier this year.
Judge Weighs Whether to Toss 1992 Murder Conviction
Circuit Court Judge Adrienne Davis is weighing whether to overturn the conviction of Anthony Garrett in connection with the murder of 7-year-old Dantrell Davis, who was shot and killed by a sniper at Cabrini-Green in 1992 as he and his mother walked to school.
Texts from the Border Patrol agent who fired at Martinez revealed he apparently bragged about the shooting to others, stating in one message that he’d “fired 5 rounds and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book boys.”
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Cummings had ordered the release of as many as 615 people based on a 2022 consent decree outlining how U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement can make so-called warrantless arrests.
The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has agreed to stay an order issued by U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis that sought to rein in agents’ use of tear gas, pepper balls and other crowd control measures against protesters, journalists and others.
Lawrence Reed, 50, was charged in a federal complaint Wednesday with a terrorist attack on a mass transportation system, two days after he allegedly doused a woman with gasoline and ignited a blaze on a CTA train.