Randy Barnett is an American lawyer and legal scholar who began his career as a prosecutor in the Cook County State's Attorney's Office during the late 1970s and early 1980s - a time of widespread crime and corruption in Chicago.
Randy Barnett
Barnett grew up in Calumet City, Illinois, a town of about 28,000 south of Chicago, on the border of Illinois and Indiana. Calumet City was largely a blue collar Catholic town, and Randy, who's Jewish, attended and had his bar mitzvah at Temple Beth El, across the border in Munster, Indiana.
Barnett graduated from Northwestern University and Harvard Law School, where he prepared to practice criminal law. After getting his J.D. in 1977, Randy went to work in the Cook County State's Attorney's Office in Chicago, and experienced the nitty gritty of prosecuting wrongdoers.
Barnett writes, "In this book, I will tell the tales of my rise from felony arraignments, to misdemeanor branch courts, to misdemeanor jury courts, to auto theft court, to Felony Review, and finally to the felony trial courts at 26th and California. There I went from a 3rd chair to a 2nd, before ending my tenure as a 1st chair in a felony trial courtroom."
Chicago's Criminal Court Building at 26th and California
Barnett became a prosecutor at an auspicious time, because the criminal courts were expanding in response to the rising crime rate in the U.S. in the 1960s and 70s. On the downside, law enforcement in Chicago was rife with graft and corruption. Barnett writes, "My career as a criminal prosecutor was not only the story of fighting crime; it was at least as much about working in, but not being tainted by, the Cook County criminal justice system. I remember those years as a wild ride that offered many lessons that both law students and anyone interested in the law should know. As for everyone else - well, it really was better than TV."
Randy Barnett
Barnett describes many incidents as he climbed the ladder in the Cook County criminal justice system, starting with preparing paperwork for arraignments. Randy then moved on to handling misdemeanors and preliminary hearings, and relates the following experience. "If you are old enough to remember the courtroom scenes in 'Hill Street Blues' (below), you have an inkling of the kind of chaos....people were packed in elbow to elbow for the eighty cases a day - meaning eighty defendants, eighty groups of friends and family and lawyers, as well as eighty sets of victims, witnesses, and cops, all of them jostling and jockeying for air and space. All of them watching the 'show' being performed by the judge and the attorneys."
Scenes from Hill Street Blues (1981 - 1987)
An honest jurist named Judge John Crowley handled the misdemeanor courtroom, and Randy acknowledges, "In all my years as an assistant state’s attorney, my four months in....John Crowley’s courtroom might well have been the most valuable of my legal career. It was there that I learned how to spot the bullshit, and to stand my ground against the pressures of the cops, lawyers, and witnesses, and to stand up even to [Judge Crowley]. And it was important that I see just how an honest judge could operate in a corrupt system."
As examples of two crooked judges, Barnett cites John “Gentleman Jack” Reynolds and John J. (“JJ”) McDonnell, both of whom presided over misdemeanor jury trials.
Judge John Reynolds
Judge John J. McDonnell
After one or the other judge had been bribed, the lawyers would then waive their client’s right to a jury, whereby the client would either be acquitted at a fixed bench trial or, more often, receive a sweetheart sentence like supervision after pleading guilty. The two judges were said to dislike each other because they competed for bribes.
Randy writes, "I remember sitting with JJ in his dimly lit chambers as he held a stogie and said, 'You know that Jack Reynolds is such a kink [corrupt]. Any day now I expect the feds to be crashing down the door.' JJ must’ve figured that, by talking to me like that, I wouldn’t think he was just as corrupt as Reynolds."
Barnett is especially proud of his time in the Felony Review unit. A subheading in 'The Chicago Reader' article titled 'The Booking Reviewers' describes the Felony Review program in a nutshell: "In most American cities, decisions about whether or not to book felony charges are made by police. In Chicago, they are made by the State’s Attorney’s Felony Review team - a group of lawyers who are mostly young, often bright, and almost always on the firing line.”
Randy Barnett is on the cover of The Chicago Reader
Barnett writes, "Young prosecutors assigned to Felony Review....had their own Chevy Nova squad cars, complete with police radios, that they would use to travel to district police stations or to crime scenes. A Felony Review ASA’s job was to assess the evidence, interview the cops and the witnesses, conduct lineups, approve search warrants, and obtain statements from the accused, if possible. Many of these statements were either full confessions or otherwise 'inculpatory' - which is to say, they would be incriminating down the line. Felony Review meant genuine, authentic review. No rubber-stamping just because the cops had arrested someone. The unit rejected about 40 percent of the cases the Chicago Police Department called it in to evaluate."
Felony Review ASAs had their own squad cars
When ASA Randy Barnett eventually became 3rd chair in a felony courtroom, he learned to prosecute cases from the 2nd and 1st chairs. As 3rd chair, Randy's responsibilities included ordering all the police reports, photos, and crime lab tests, and occasionally writing legal memos. After accruing experience, Randy became a 2nd chair, and - in June 1981 - he became 1st chair in the felony courtroom of Judge Leonard R. Grazian.
Judge Leonard R. Grazian
Barnett notes, "[As 1st chair] the management of a courtroom was now in my hands. I would get to decide who tried which case [and] I would make the plea bargain decisions." Randy had three jury trials in front of Judge Grazian. One was a murder case in which a homeless man named Billy Clark used a piece of lumber to beat a couple, Joel Gunther and Katherine Feely, who were sleeping on mattresses in a vacant building. Gunther was killed and Feely survived. Clark was tried for murder, and Randy describes a fateful mistake he made during that trial - which resulted in a reversal. I won't give away spoilers.
Billy Clark was charged with murder
Barnett helmed other jury trials as well, in front of Judge Grazian and other jurists, before leaving the Cook County State's Attorney Office to become a law professor. This and other aspects of Barnett's long and successful career are briefly touched on in the book.
Randy Barnett
'Felony Review' is filled with anecdotes about lawsuits that were fixed, crimes that were committed, and cases in Barnett's purview, including robberies, murders, and rapes. Some of the crimes were unspeakably horrific - literally the stuff of nightmares. I'll briefly describe one example, from the time Barnett was in the Felony Review program.
► Colombian immigrant Cesar Marin got drunk and decided to rob Kim's liquor store, which was owned by Korean immigrants Ryok Kim and Ihn Kang Kim.
Generic Liquor Store
During the burglary, Marin forced Mr. and Mrs. Kim to go down to the basement, where he shot and stabbed them. The Kims were moaning and bleeding on the floor as Marin went upstairs, left the basement, and nailed a two-by-four to the basement door, so the Kims would be shut in. Mrs. Kim was able to climb the stairs, rip and claw a hole in the door, and get out to call for help. Mr. Kim died but Mrs. Kim survived and was hospitalized.
Among other things, Barnett's part in this was to go to the hospital with a photo array to show Mrs. Kim. Randy recalls, "It was heartrending to see her lying there, tubes coming out of her, including a drain from her nose. Her hand trembled as she took each photo and studied it. I will never forget how the sight of Marin’s face in the picture disturbed her so utterly and instantly that the fluids began to pour through the tube in her nose as she repeatedly poked the photograph with her outstretched index finger." Randy signed off on charging Marin with murder.
There are many more stories like this in the book, which contains excellent lessons for aspiring criminal attorneys, and interesting tales for true crime fans. Highly recommended.👍
East Idaho News on YouTube: Randy Barnett being interviewed about 'Felony Review' by reporter Nate Eaton
Thank you to publicist Simone Jung for a copy of the book.
Rating: 4 stars
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