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VII. CHIRAQ

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Everyone against Us
This chapter is in the book Everyone against Us
VII. CHIRAQMy very fi rst case was a gun case. It wasn’t a shooting; it was a posses-sion with three upgrades: the gun was loaded, and it was possessed “upon a public way” by a member of a street gang. I was just an intern with “licensed student practitioner” status, not even a fully licensed lawyer or full- time PD, but I was allowed to present cases under the supervision of experienced attorneys due to Illinois Supreme Court Rule 711, which permitted students to assist in public- interest roles (mostly governmental agencies like the offi ces of the State’s Attor-ney, Attorney General, and Public Defender).The idea of these Rule 711 internships was to gain invaluable ex-perience while reducing the workloads of public employees, and it served as a great pipeline into these jobs after graduation. In my case, the pipeline was so direct that when I was eventually hired two years later, I got my fi rst felony assignment to the very same court-room where I interned. The cases in that courtroom were all from Chicago— the city itself, not the suburbs— and mostly from the North Side of the city that included the housing projects of Cabrini- Green and the Lathrop Homes. All the cases carried the threat of peniten-tiary sentences, but many allowed for the possibility of probation, or even lesser punishments like a dismissal or conditional release that could be earned by successful completion of treatment or classes. The stakes were high, there was an endless supply of complex cli-
© 2023 University of Chicago Press

VII. CHIRAQMy very fi rst case was a gun case. It wasn’t a shooting; it was a posses-sion with three upgrades: the gun was loaded, and it was possessed “upon a public way” by a member of a street gang. I was just an intern with “licensed student practitioner” status, not even a fully licensed lawyer or full- time PD, but I was allowed to present cases under the supervision of experienced attorneys due to Illinois Supreme Court Rule 711, which permitted students to assist in public- interest roles (mostly governmental agencies like the offi ces of the State’s Attor-ney, Attorney General, and Public Defender).The idea of these Rule 711 internships was to gain invaluable ex-perience while reducing the workloads of public employees, and it served as a great pipeline into these jobs after graduation. In my case, the pipeline was so direct that when I was eventually hired two years later, I got my fi rst felony assignment to the very same court-room where I interned. The cases in that courtroom were all from Chicago— the city itself, not the suburbs— and mostly from the North Side of the city that included the housing projects of Cabrini- Green and the Lathrop Homes. All the cases carried the threat of peniten-tiary sentences, but many allowed for the possibility of probation, or even lesser punishments like a dismissal or conditional release that could be earned by successful completion of treatment or classes. The stakes were high, there was an endless supply of complex cli-
© 2023 University of Chicago Press

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter i
  2. CONTENTS vii
  3. PREFACE ix
  4. I. JAIL RULES 1
  5. II. INVESTIGATIONS 13
  6. III. REDEMPTION 28
  7. IV. TRIALS 43
  8. V. DNA 63
  9. VI. PLEA DEALS 84
  10. VII. CHIRAQ 103
  11. VIII. DOMESTIC VIOLENCE 126
  12. IX. DRUGS 148
  13. X. DEATH 170
  14. XI. REGRETS 196
  15. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 211
  16. INDEX 213
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https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226826240-008

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter i
  2. CONTENTS vii
  3. PREFACE ix
  4. I. JAIL RULES 1
  5. II. INVESTIGATIONS 13
  6. III. REDEMPTION 28
  7. IV. TRIALS 43
  8. V. DNA 63
  9. VI. PLEA DEALS 84
  10. VII. CHIRAQ 103
  11. VIII. DOMESTIC VIOLENCE 126
  12. IX. DRUGS 148
  13. X. DEATH 170
  14. XI. REGRETS 196
  15. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 211
  16. INDEX 213
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