A final decision on the amount of punitive
damages that retired Illinois State Police investigator Michale
Callahan will receive from his former superior officers —
originally scheduled for Nov. 1 in a Champaign federal court
— has been delayed until midnight Nov. 2 for what appears be
a last-ditch effort at settlement. In April, Callahan won a total of $472,300 in
punitive damages against Lt. Col. Diane Carper and Capt. Steve
Fermon, two of the three supervisors he claimed had retaliated
against him for his efforts to reopen a murder investigation [see
“Badge of Honor” Aug. 25]. The jury found in favor of
the third defendant, deputy director Chuck Brueggemann. Though District Judge Harold Baker upheld the
jury’s compensatory damages award of $210,000, he reduced the
punitive award to $221,000 at an Aug. 19 hearing and to $150,000 at
an Oct. 11 hearing [see “The principle” Oct. 13]. ISP
attorneys have indicated that they would appeal even that reduced
amount. The judge gave Callahan a Nov. 1 deadline to
choose from three options: Accept the $150,000, negotiate an agreed
amount with ISP, or face a new trial strictly for punitive damages. ISP’s request to the court to give
Callahan an extra day pushed the action out of reach of Illinois Times’
deadline. However, a motion filed by ISP attorneys just days before
the Nov. 1 deadline shows that they were preparing for a
punitive-damages trial by requesting a two-month continuance. In their motion, ISP lawyers complained that
the potential jury pool for such a trial has been tainted by media
coverage, specifically an IT column reporting that private lawyers representing
Carper, Fermon, and Brueggemann had already cost taxpayers more
than $685,000 [see “The good, the bad and the
expensive,” Oct. 27]. Any jury would be drawn from the Urbana
area, where IT delivers no newspapers. After the motion was filed, a more detailed
account of the legal fees appeared Nov. 1 in the Chicago Tribune. State-police attorneys also argued that
Carper had recently discovered “important exculpatory
evidence” in the form of an e-mail that “completely
discredits” Callahan’s allegations and that Carper and
Fermon should get time to look for more such documents.
This article appears in Nov 3-9, 2005.
