Residents, shake your heads

I dare you to read today's Northwest Herald story about the deposition of McHenry County State's Attorney Lou Bianchi and understand what's really going on. Don't speed-read it; slow down. Take it one sentence at a time. You might even start a flowchart or other outline.

At the outset, let me state that I like Lou Bianchi. I like Donna Kelly. And I like Zane Seipler and Blake Horwitz.

Sheriff Nygren? That's another story. Until he pulled that dumb stunt in the Jewel-Osco parking lot (and, as I later learned, lied and told people that I had been following him around that day). If he told the Woodstock Police that lie, then he made a false report to police. I was at a conference at MCC all day.

I didn't particularly dislike him up to that point. I didn't like many of the things he had done, but my dislike didn't move to a personal level until his stupid act that afternoon in the parking lot. I later learned that something very significant in another case may have happened to set him off shortly before he pulled up alongside me in the parking lot.

Back to the recent deposition. Bianchi has been unwilling to take on a role in which he might have to investigate and prosecute Nygren. A blind man could see that the State's Attorney can't prosecute the Sheriff, who is his client. It's clear-cut. If a sheriff is believed to have committed crimes, then a special prosecutor is needed.

A book could be written just from the Northwest Herald reporter story today. First of all, look where the editors put it. Section B. Not even on the front page! This petition (Case 10MR000011) for a prosecutor is almost two years old. Stalling tactics would have bankrupted many petitioners, causing them to abandon their cases. But Seipler and Horowitz have hung in there, fighting against the bottomless pit of County dollars.

I know that I need to read the deposition itself and not rely on the Northwest Herald article. Why is that? For example, the article reads, "Instead, (in the deposition) Bianchi said he made the decision not to investigate the sheriff in order to save money through in-house handling of cases involving Nygren's office, rather than hiring private attorneys."

If that's what he really said, it doesn't make any sense at all. Were these words carefully crafted (as attorneys are trained to do), so that a whole sentence could be uttered and be meaningless? I've read that sentence several times. It didn't make any more sense the last time than it did the first time!

Then Bianchi is quoted as saying "I don't want to jeopardize our (the State's Attorney's Office (SAO)) successful representation of the Sheriff ..."

Does that mean that, if the SAO investigated the Sheriff and found wrong-doing (and then had to prosecute the Sheriff), many old cases would be at risk for review and possibly new/different decisions?

For example, what if, during an investigation, it turned out that Nygren wasn't even eligible to hold office and then the case would be that McHenry County had had no elected Sheriff for years? Would every defense attorney run to a judge and ask for convictions of his clients to be vacated, because deputies had had no duly-appointed supervisor (sheriff) and therefore couldn't arrest or otherwise act?

Finally (for this article), look at this carefully-crafted statement, as quoted in the paper today, "We don't have any specific written policy or unwritten that says in this case we're not going to [investigate the sheriff]."

Why was "unwritten" placed after policy, rather than before it? And look at the words "in this case". Every planned word coming out of a lawyer's mouth is important. The choice of words is important. The order of the wording is important.

What will happen on December 22 at 10:00AM in Judge Meyer's courtroom? Let's hope he puts a stop to this nonsense and grants Seipler's request for a Special Prosecutor.

And then what will happen? Will Nygren resign, head south to Cape Coral and hope this all blows over if he is no longer Sheriff?