Remember back in September when Island Lake Police chased Seth Pederson, and newspaper articles gave a lot of space to the 55 tickets that were issued? And then a couple of days later, Algonquin grabbed Pedersen and charged him with DUI?
You can expect these cases to wind their way through the McHenry County court system and some day, if folks live long enough, they might learn what happened.
What didn't get reported in the Northwest Herald was that Algonquin dropped six charges against Pederson. Algonquin had charged him with Resisting a peace officer, DUI, Improper lane usage, Fleeing/Attempt to elude, Driver transporting alcohol, and uninsured vehicle. All those charges were nolle prossed on January 13, 2011, by Judge Charles Weech.
There must be a story behind these charges being dropped. Why would Algonquin ask for those cases to be dropped? In the spirit of fairness to any person charged with so many violations and given considerable newspaper space, when the charges are dropped, it is important that the public be informed (and not on Page 86).
A September 23rd article in the Northwest Herald stated that "at least 55 charges" were filed in regard to Pedersen's driving, after Wauconda Police asked Island Lake Police to stop him. Were some of them Lake County charges?
How long did it take the officer (s) to write up all those tickets? Is there a better way? Is Island Lake Police Department policy to write a ticket for every violation that occurred? Or, in the interest of efficiency (and economy), do you just write up the major ones and document all the others for your courtroom testimony?
Will Pedersen's public defender ask the judge to call each case separately? Let's say each case gets two minutes for the P/D to ask the judge for a continuance and explain why. Fifty cases at two minutes .... almost two hours, and then you add all the time for the court clerk to update each and every record.
Pedersen's next court date is February 2nd.
There must be a better way...
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5 comments:
Well, there are several reasons the charges may have been dropped. He may have have turned into an informant on a greater crime in exchange for dropping of charges. I am not saying he did, but that is just one reason for it to be done without publicly saying why.
As for the 55 tickets or more? When you have a chief that is nothing but a numbers guy, that wants his numbers to be better than the last chief, you end up getting officers writing dozens of tickets that they know will be plea bargained down or just dismissed. The officer still gets to say he wrote 70-80-90-100 tickets for the month and it will help his yearly stats, too.
It all rolls down hill. Boss says he wants a lot more tickets written, you write a lot more tickets or find yourself collecting unemployment.
In the first place, a Judge does NOT dismiss charges against anyone. The State/village drops charges, sometimes to re-indict (sp) at the grand jury, raising the charges to felonies. How did Algonquin get involved? The chase, I thought, started in Wauconda, and an Island Lake cop chased him from there, through Prarie Grove, Crystal lake, through County areas, McHenry, McCullom Lake and Wonder Lake. If you think a case takes a long time to proceed through the courts now, try and get each and every one of those villages and the county to proceed forward with each and every citation, on numerous different court dates that those villages are scheduled to be in the courthouse, and how many jury pools
would have to be chosen to try them all? You and I and everyone else who reads these posts would be dead and buried and reduced to dust before those cases were done. Want to bet that the driver is soon judged to be mentally ill, and most of the charges will be dropped completely. To save the court's time, I would have dropped most of the minor tickets, and proceeded with the most serious and important charges. It's easier to prove one or two bad charges, and just use the others as mittigating (sp) offenses at the sentencing phase.
The Algonquin charges were not related to the Island Lake chase. Pedersen was stopped by Algonquin two days later; this is why I'm curious about the reason for dumping all those charges.
Do you think, maybe, that it actually is the judge who dismisses the charges? In this case it looks like the charges were nolle prossed upon the State's Attorney's motion.
I was joking about the public defender trying to separate the 50 charges.
I'm having a hard time swallowing a decision by an officer, and apparently supported by his department, to write 50 tickets. Reckless Driving, Speeding in a school zone, and Driving 40+, plus maybe one of the illegal passes should have been sufficient.
No, the judge cannot dismiss tickets. In a bench trial, he/she CAN find the defendent guilty or NOT guilty. But, as you stated, they were Nolle Prossed by the State's Attorney's motion. The idea is, that unless there is a complaining body (the State's Attorney), there can be no charges to proceed forward. The judge does not have the authority to overrule a nolle pross. In this county, in the past, most judges have held that several minor traffic charges from the same incident, basically is, Reckless Driving. Smaller department officers do have a tendency to write numerous tickets simply in the theory that the village will get more money from all the fines and court costs. In reality, it just makes them look silly to larger departments and outsiders. Forget the chase in such a minor offense as this-since you already probably had the license plate and knew who the offender was, instead of taking a chance in a chase if hurting someone else on the road, back off and wait. You'll find the moron another time and place; charge him then with a warrant and complaint.
According to a newspaper article, now archived, Pederson's wife called the Wauconda Police. The newspaper article said she said he had been at her house wanting to see his kids, had been drinking and had tried to force his way into her house. Pedersen was gone by the time they got there. They called Island Lake P.D.
The Island Lake PD officer stopped him, but he said Pedersen took after, when the officer got out of his squad car. And the chase was on.
The officer was very, very lucky that no kid got killed as they tore through a school zone and through morning traffic. There are times when you abandon a chase, as you said, and just go and pick the driver up later. That was one of those times.
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