Disorder In The Court

By Scott Smith in News on Jul 28, 2005 2:34PM

Since we left college, Chicagoist has spent a limited amount of time in court proceedings. The ones we have witnessed have been a lot like pro basketball games: lots of tedium with a few minutes of excitement at the end. So we imagine Sun-Times federal court reporter Natasha Korecki must feel like she hit the jackpot in covering the trial of self-styled “freedom fighter” Aaron Patterson.

Patterson, pardoned in 2003 for double murder by then-governor George Ryan and on trial this week on charges he brokered drug and gun sales on the South Side, was banned from the courtroom last week for repeated outbursts.

On Monday, Patterson attacked his attorney Paul Camarena who then fell on top of co-counsel Tommy Brewer, injuring Brewer’s ankle. Patterson believed his attorneys were trying to frame him by throwing his trial. On Wednesday, a day after it was revealed that the city offered him $4 million dollars to settle a civil suit he filed, Patterson referred to Mayor Daley, Cook County State's Atty. Richard Devine and U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald as “The Three Stooges” before being dragged from the courtroom while calling the trial “a legal lynching.” Invoking words that were no doubt uttered by Thomas Jefferson in his day, Patterson called himself “a freedom fighter, a revolutionary and a professional troublemaker.”

Closing arguments are set to begin today and Chicagoist can only speculate on how those might go:

* Seeking to free himself “from the tyranny of fashion and oppression of style” Patterson drops his pants in court
* Patterson frequently interrupts prosecutors’ closing arguments with cries of “You’re glib!” and “You don’t know the history of selling drugs and weapons, I do!”
* Patterson’s lawyers move for a mistrial after their client kicks them in the nuts for not being able to name all the members of the Jackson 5