A Chicago judge who used profanity on the bench last week in a high-profile case involving a Chicago police officer will be reassigned to non-judicial duties. A supervisory judge said that Criminal Courts Judge Stanley Sacks displayed an “egregious lapse of decorum and dignity” with language he used to criticize the Chicago Police Department’s handling of a case involving one of its own officers. Sacks, who has been on the bench for 16 years, will be reassigned to the Domestic Relations Division, where he will handle “duties other than judicial duties,” said Chief Judge Timothy Evans.
Sacks said, “There is no proper context nor justification for my conduct.” Last week, he convicted of reckless homicide a Chicago police officer who was off-duty at the time he struck a woman with his Jeep and killed her. Sacks criticized Alonzo Caudillo for first telling officers who arrived on the scene that he, too, was a police officer rather than offering to help. “Pardon my language, but big [expletive] deal,” Sacks said from the bench. [The Chicago Sun-Times reported the expletive as an “f-word.”] Sacks said he was offended by the actions of Chicago police officers, noting that they did not handcuff Caudillo although he smelled of alcohol. “You know damn well if that guy was a brother from the projects, … he’d have been handcuffed against that car in five seconds,” Sacks said.
Link: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0410150208oct15,1,1789889.story?coll=chi-news-hed