The Illinois Supreme Court on Tuesday denied a bid to resentence former Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke in the murder of Laquan McDonald.
Attorney General Kwame Raoul and Special Prosecutor Joseph McMahon filed a petition with the court in February seeking a new sentencing hearing for Van Dyke.
Cook County Judge Vincent Gaughan gave Van Dyke 81 months behind bars in January. A jury in October found Van Dyke guilty of second-degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery with a firearm.
The judge chose to sentence Van Dyke only on the second-degree murder count, finding it to be the more serious crime. Raoul and McMahon challenged that decision in their petition.
The state Supreme Court denied the bid for a new sentencing hearing without explanation Tuesday. Justice P. Scott Neville Jr. wrote a dissenting opinion. Justice Thomas Kilbride also dissented in part. Both suggested a supervisory order would be appropriate.
“This dispute clearly involves a matter of the utmost importance to the administration of justice,” Neville wrote.
Dan Herbert, the attorney who defended Van Dyke at trial, said in a statement he hopes Tuesday’s decision “will strike a fatal blow to the political exploitation of the death of Laquan McDonald.”
“Our judicial system may not be perfect,” Herbert said. “However the bedrock of the system maintains that all defendants, including unpopular ones, are entitled to fair and impartial treatment. Jason Van Dyke is prepared to serve his debt to society and move on with his life in a meaningful and productive manner.”
Jennifer Blagg, Van Dyke’s appellate attorney, called the Supreme Court’s decision “an implicit acknowledgment that Jason’s sentence on second-degree murder was correct and supported by the law.
“Jason, unquestionably, is not a danger to society,” she said. “He was trying to protect the public that night, and his sentence reflects both that fact and the jury’s verdict.”
Gaughan’s decision at sentencing meant Van Dyke could serve only about half the sentence under good-time provisions — and potentially leave prison after a little more than three years. Raoul and McMahon contend Van Dyke should have been sentenced for aggravated battery, meaning he would have been forced to serve at least 85 percent of his sentence.
Raoul and McMahon also said the judge should have sentenced Van Dyke on each of the 16 aggravated battery counts. That would have boosted Van Dyke’s potential prison stretch to a virtual life sentence.
Still, the issues at play in Van Dyke’s sentencing hearing were complicated enough that the legal community couldn’t come to a consensus on how it should play out.
Meanwhile, Van Dyke’s lawyers filed a notice of appeal in anticipation of the petition from Raoul and McMahon. His lawyers later suggested they would drop it if the high court declined to get involved. If it did get involved, it would “open a Pandora’s box” of legal issues that Van Dyke could raise in an appeal of trial decisions, his conviction and the sentence.
Van Dyke has been transferred out of the Illinois prison system. His wife and attorneys said in February he had been beaten by inmates at a low-security federal prison in Danbury, Conn. Federal prison records show he has since been moved to a medium-security facility in New York.
His anticipated release date is Feb. 8, 2022.
