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| Sheriff asks for investigation into attorney after jail brawl |
| By Chicago Daily Herald |
| Published: 06/14/2004 |
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Cook County (Ill.) Sheriff Michael Sheahan is claiming that calls between Cook County jail inmates and a civil rights lawyer presented a "pattern of questionable conduct" that merits an investigation into the attorney's behavior. The calls in question were placed from a prison unit housing some of the jail's most dangerous inmates to Jean Maclean Snyder, an attorney with the University of Chicago MacArthur Justice Center. Sheahan said they may suggest Snyder and some of the inmates conspired to incite a July 29, 2000, jailhouse brawl. Last Thursday, Snyder called Sheahan's claims "completely ridiculous." Snyder is representing five inmates involved in the fight in a lawsuit against sheriff's officers. The suit, which is ongoing, claims as many as 30 officers "hit, kicked and stomped" inmates bloody and unconscious during a cell shakedown gone awry. More than two weeks before the fight, Snyder took a seven-minute phone call with an inmate in the area where the violence occurred, said Sally Daly, Sheahan's spokeswoman. She received approximately 30 phone calls from the jail tier after the fight, Daly said. Snyder said last Thursday she was contacted before the fight by Nathson Fields, who was a client of hers before the suit and is one of the suit's plaintiffs. Fields is awaiting a retrial on double murder charges. After the fight, Snyder said she was barred from interviewing prisoners in jail so she asked Fields to give her phone number to anyone involved in the incident. In separate but similar violent jail incidents in July 2003 and April 2004 at the jail, the sheriff claims calls were made to Snyder prior to the fights between inmates and officers. Snyder, Sheahan claims, then publicly called for attention following each incident. Snyder said violence in the jail was a problem because of "lack of leadership" at the jail and the officer's actions, not because of a lawyer filing suit. Daly said last Thursday there was "extensive evidence" that Fields planned then incited the 2000 attack, bragging about a "big payday" after. |
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