Federal court enjoins Chicago Police and Cook County State's Attorney from barring contact between lawyers and witnesses at Chicago police stations
Ruling in a lawsuit that the MacArthur Justice Center brought on behalf of First Defense Legal Aid (FDLA), federal District Judge Milton I. Shadur on September 9, 2002 ordered the Chicago police, several high ranking Police Department officials and the State’s Attorney of Cook County to cease and desist from holding witnesses incommunicado in locked interrogation rooms at police stations and barring access between the witnesses and attorneys who come to the police station seeking to represent them. The Court’s order requires the defendants to inform witnesses at police stations when an attorney appears at the station and to allow a consultation if the witness desires it.
In the litigation, the police had admitted that it is their practice to refuse attorney requests for access to persons the police are holding as “witnesses” on the ground that the witnesses are not in custody and are therefore not entitled to counsel under the Fifth Amendment, as interpreted in the Miranda decision. The Court held that witnesses – who, in theory, are free to leave police custody – have a First Amendment right to associate with counsel and that counsel have a correlative First Amendment right to associate with them. The Court’s order contains extensive findings regarding the police procedures, which include locking the witnesses in small, windowless interrogation rooms, sometimes for over 24 hours, while refusing attorney access.
FDLA is a not-for-profit defender organization whose mission is to represent persons who have been arrested and are in the custody of the Chicago Police at police stationhouses. FDLA has responded to over 10,000 requests for assistance on behalf of persons in police custody
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Update: The MacArthur Justice Center argued an appeal in the FDLA case before a three-member panel of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals
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Update: The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit issued an opinion on February 19, 2003 reversing the District Court's injunction
In a Feb. 20, 2003, Chicago Sun-Times article, MacArthur Justice Center legal director Locke Bowman highlighted the larger policy issue still remaining. "The Chicago Police Department has an unconscionable practice of taking free Chicago citizens whom the police have no reason at all to suspect of committing a crime and locking them up in interrogation rooms for many hours, sometimes overnight, until they provide the police with information about a criminal investigation," Bowman said. "That practice is shameful and it has to stop."
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