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Springfield taxpayers will pay for top-flight private
attorneys to defend three former police officers — two who were fired
and one who has multiple lawsuits pending against the city — in a
federal civil-rights lawsuit, if the next City Council approves. Several of
the attorneys have already entered their appearances with the court in the
case filed by Larry Washington, who was arrested in March 2005 after
officers of the Springfield Police Department raided his home and found a
half-kilo of cocaine. Charges against Washington were dropped after
forensics tests revealed problems with the evidence used to obtain the
search warrant. The detectives who gathered the evidence and obtained
the search warrant, Paul Carpenter and Jim Graham, were fired in October
after an investigation by the Illinois State Police determined that the
pair had repeatedly violated department policies. Carpenter has also been
indicted on charges of official misconduct and wire fraud. Court documents filed in the Washington case indicate
that Carpenter will be represented by Thomas P. Schanzle-Haskins, a former
assistant U.S. attorney and now partner in the prestigious Brown, Hay &
Stephens law firm. Graham will be represented by Frederick P. Velde and
Theresa M. Powell of Heyl Royster Voelker & Allen. Velde is the
managing partner of the firm’s Springfield office. Retired SPD Lt. Rickey Davis, who has three federal
lawsuits pending against the city of Springfield and various current and
former police officials, will be represented by former U.S. Attorney and
former Sangamon County State’s Attorney Bill Roberts, Illinois Times has
learned. Roberts, managing partner of Hinshaw & Culbertson, served as
chief legal counsel to Gov. Jim Edgar and was chairman of the U.S. Attorney
General’s Advisory Committee of U.S. Attorneys. Jenifer Johnson, corporation counsel for the city of
Springfield, explained in an e-mail Tuesday afternoon that hiring private
attorneys for these three former officers is necessary because her office
has a conflict of interest with all three. Davis’ conflict is
obvious, but Johnson declined to specify what conflict her office has with
Carpenter and Graham. “I cannot discuss the nature of the conflict,
but trust me, we have one,” she wrote. Asked why it was necessary to hire such prestigious
attorneys, Johnson responded that she did not purposely seek out Roberts,
Velde, and Schanzle-Haskins. “I contacted the managing
partners of local law firms that do federal civil-rights defense. I did not
handpick the lawyers at those firms who will be doing the work. That is up
to the individual firms,” she wrote. Meanwhile, other defendants still employed by the SPD
will be represented by two attorneys on Johnson’s staff — Megan
Morgan and Jim Lang. Morgan is a former assistant state’s attorney. Lang is the
lawyer who recently stunned federal-court spectators by presenting a chart
depicting white police lieutenants as regular glazed doughnuts and black
police lieutenants as chocolate glazed doughnuts. Johnson said Morgan and
Lang were chosen on the basis of their “extensive litigation
experience” to defend Deputy Chief William Rouse and detectives J.T.
Wooldridge and Steve Welsh.
Contact Dusty Rhodes at drhodes@illinoistimes.com.
This article appears in Apr 12-18, 2007.
