Chicago Police Officers' Lawsuit Against Sun-Times Will Continue

Five Chicago Police officers suing the Chicago Sun-Times will get their day in federal court now that a Court of Appeals has refused to dismiss the case and affirmed a lower court’s ruling on the officers’ claims, saying the Sun-Times “intruded on their privacy and threatened their safety.”

Reports the Cook County Record, a legal journal:

While within its rights to pursue allegations of corruption, the Chicago Sun-Times may have violated a federal law in obtaining and publishing certain identifying information of five Chicago Police officers who the newspaper alleged were put in a police lineup to confuse witnesses in the investigation of the 2004 death of a man punched by Richard Vanecko, a city cop and nephew of former Mayor Richard Daley.

The U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago on Feb. 6 ruled in favor of the police officers, upholding the decision of U.S. District Judge Harry D. Leinenweber to reject the Sun-Times’ motion to dismiss the case.

Judge Joel M. Flaum wrote the panel’s opinion that rebuffed the Sun-Times’ constitutional concerns and sent the case back to Chicago’s federal court for further proceedings on the officers’ allegations against the newspaper. Judges William J. Bauer and John Daniel Tinder concurred in the ruling.

Vanecko is accused of punching David Koschman in a drunken altercation on Division Street in April 2004. Koschman, of Mount Prospect, was out with pals celebrating his 21st birthday. Much smaller than Vanecko, Koschman died 12 days later.

Initially, witnesses failed to pick Vanecko out of a lineup and Chicago Police did not charge him with a crime. Later, a special prosecutor was appointed and Vanecko eventually pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter. He was sentenced to 60 days in jail and ordered to pay Koschman’s family $20,000 in restitution.

Koschman’s mother tried to sue the police, City Hall and Cook County prosecutors for wrongful death. In August 2014, a federal judge dismissed her suit, saying she’d waited too long to file. Her lawyers argued that an ongoing conspiracy prevented her from filing the suit in a timely manner.

Ironically, the five police officers who appeared in the lineup with Vanecko will be allowed to press their case against the Sun-Times. The newspaper published its story about the lineup in November 2011.

According to the Cook County Record:

In the November 2011 article, the Sun-Times critiqued the police lineup, noting that the five innocent cops chosen to stand with Vanecko in the lineup – the so-called “fillers” – bore close resemblance to Vanecko in most respects, which the newspaper said made the witnesses’ task of identifying him difficult.

To support the assertion, the Sun-Times published with the article the names and photographs of the officers legally obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, as well as the officers’ birth dates, height, weight, and eye and hair colors allegedly obtained from motor vehicle records kept by the Illinois Secretary of State’s office.

The Sun-Times argued that prohibiting the use of such information violated constitutionally guaranteed free press and speech rights.

The entirety of the Sun-Times investigation is collected in a special report online, The Killing of David Koschman.

» a detailed review of the legal arguments can be read at the Cook County Record

WHO WAS DAVID KOSCHMAN?

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