A woman who was present at her brother’s slaying nearly six years ago has filed a federal lawsuit against the Cook County state’s attorney’s office after she was thrown in jail for weeks for failing to answer a subpoena to participate in “trial prep” against the accused killer.
The lawsuit filed by Latoya Ware in U.S. District Court on Wednesday centers on a common practice in the Cook County criminal justice system where prosecutors get judges to issue court-ordered subpoenas to witnesses to get them to come in for interviews in advance of a criminal trial.
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The suit alleged prosecutors have been systematically abusing the subpoena process by threatening witnesses with contempt and jail time if they fail to comply, even though the case was not on trial on the day they were being ordered to give testimony.
“(Ware) is not the only victim of the Cook County state’s attorney’s illegal practice of issuing fake subpoenas for court dates that do not exist,” the suit stated, “Rather, the practice is widespread and routine and has been for many years.”
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Ware, 20, who has a 2-year-old daughter, alleged prosecutors violated her constitutional right barring unlawful searches and seizures. She wound up testifying this week when the case went to trial at the Leighton Criminal Court Building.
In all, she was held for about three weeks without bond at Cook County Jail, where she was separated from her family without due process and subjected to possible COVID-19 infection, according to the suit.
Ware’s attorney, Scott Rauscher of the Loevy & Loevy law firm, wrote in the lawsuit that the state’s attorney’s office should have been focused on bringing the killer of Ware’s brother to justice and providing her “with the support that victims of crime and their families need.”
“Instead, the (prosecutors) victimized her all over again,” Rauscher said.
In addition to monetary damages for Ware, the suit seeks an order barring the state’s attorney’s office from issuing “prep” subpoenas or “effectuating arrests based on alleged noncompliance” with such subpoenas in the future.
A spokesperson for State’s Attorney Kim Foxx was not immediately available for comment.
The lawsuit was filed the day after Ware testified in the trial of Eric Black, who is accused of fatally shooting her brother, Artivis Gladney, 18, and wounding another man, Emmanuel Fleming, outside a house party on the West Side in July 2016.
With scores of murder cases to handle each year, it is extremely common for prosecutors to subpoena witnesses to come to the Leighton Criminal Court Building for trial preparation, and it is not unheard of for judges to throw them in jail if they don’t comply.
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The 2019 trial of two men for 9-year-old Tyshawn Lee’s murder presented an extreme example. The Tribune reported at the time that Judge Thaddeus Wilson ordered four prosecution witnesses into custody ahead of trial after they failed to obey subpoenas. Some of them were locked up for weeks.
Ware, meanwhile, was served at her home on Aug. 17 with a subpoena signed by Cook County Circuit Judge Peggy Chiampas, court records show. It ordered her to “to appear to testify” at 9 a.m. on Aug. 20 in Chiampas’ third-floor courtroom at the 26th and California courthouse to testify in the Black murder case.
The document, however, further instructed her to “please come to room 12B32″ first — which is a room within the state’s attorney’s offices, not the courthouse itself.
On the paper was also a routine but clear warning: “YOUR FAILURE TO APPEAR IN RESPONSE TO THIS SUBPOENA WILL SUBJECT YOU TO PUNISHMENT FOR CONTEMPT OF THIS COURT.”
After Ware failed to appear for the trial prep, prosecutors requested that Chiampas issue a no-bail warrant, which the judge did, according to court records. Ware was arrested on the warrant on Feb. 22, more than six months later, by Chicago police and ordered held without bond on a charge of indirect criminal contempt.
In a hearing before Chiampas on March 4, attorney Douglas Stoll, an assistant public defender, asked the judge to quash the subpoena because Ware had never refused to come to court to testify at the actual trial.
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“You can do a subpoena to require someone to appear in court,” Stoll said, according to a transcript of the hearing. “Trial prep is a completely other matter. My client has a right to not speak to anybody about this case except when sworn to testify before this court, before a jury, or a judicial hearing.”
In response, Assistant State’s Attorney Kimellen Chamberlain confirmed that issuing trial prep subpoenas is “done every day in this building.”
“It’s an order to get trials ready to go to trial so that we’re not waiting until the date of trial,” Chamberlain said, according to the transcript. She also said that Ware’s mother, Latanya, “had been telling her daughter that there was a warrant out for her and that she should bring herself into court.”
Chiampas ruled that the subpoena was valid and ordered Ware continued to be held without bond, saying prosecutors had “gone above and beyond” to warn Ware of the consequences of not showing up.
“All Ms. Latoya Ware had to do was get in contact with the state, give them a heads-up. She didn’t do that,” Chiampas said.
Ware remained in jail for another two weeks before Chiampas granted a motion to reduce the bond and she was released on electronic monitoring, according to court records.
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The suit alleged that while Ware was on electronic monitoring, she received another subpoena from prosecutors, again for “trial prep.” That subpoena was eventually withdrawn “after multiple requests by Ms. Ware’s counsel,” and the original contempt charges were dismissed.
Rauscher told the Tribune on Wednesday that Ware did wind up meeting with prosecutors to prepare for trial without another subpoena being issued.
On Tuesday, nearly six years after her brother’s killing, Ware finally took the witness stand in Black’s murder trial.
“Miss Ware, come right on in,” Chiampas said in a courteous tone.
Dressed in a light pink sweatshirt, Ware testified so quietly that Chiampas twice had to urge her to speak up. She said she’d been sitting inside on a couch with a newborn baby in her arms on the night of July 17, 2016, when she heard an argument outside, and a minute or two later, “loud noises.”
“Gunshots,” she said, in a hushed tone. “Six or seven.”
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“I remember me falling to the ground because I was trying to protect the newborn baby,” she said. “After I fell to the ground, I was on the ground for 30 to 35 seconds, then I got back up and I saw Emmanuel in the kitchen. He was holding his wounds.”
On further questioning from prosecutors, Ware said she did not remember ever speaking to detectives, much less telling police that she saw a shooter in a red sweatshirt aiming at her brother.
Ware did remember hearing an ambulance, and going outside to see her brother on the ground. As prosecutors wrapped up their questioning, she leaned forward with her elbows on the witness stand.
“Did you ever see a man with a red sweatshirt that night?” Chamberlain asked.
“I don’t remember,” she said.
In all, Ware was on the witness stand for less than 15 minutes.
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Chicago Tribune’s María Paula Mijares Torres contributed.