The Madigan judge has experience with Shakespeare, Michael Jordan – and the law previously targeted ex-Speaker of the House of Representatives

When he introduced John “Jack” Blakey to fellow lawmakers a decade ago, U.S. Senator Mark Kirk wasted no time in telling them that Blakey’s father “wrote the RICO statute.” – the racketeering law known to target gangsters, street gangs and other forms of organized crime.

“If there’s any state in the union that needs experts on RICO, it’s Illinois,” the North Shore Republican said as he sought confirmation for Blakey as a federal district court judge in 2014.

Kirk probably didn’t know it at the time, but an intensive FBI investigation had already begun that would lead to one of the most significant racketeering prosecutions in Illinois history: the case against former Speaker of the Illinois House Michael J. .Madigan.

Patricia Nabong/Sun Times

That case will go to trial on Tuesday before 59-year-old Blakey, the RICO expert who now has ten years of experience on the court. He has presided over the lawsuit against the Obama Presidential Center, the criminal trial of murderous street gang members, a mercy bid from Gangster Disciples founder Larry Hoover, and a civil trial against Michael Jordan.

Potential Madigan jurors are expected to fill out written questionnaires only on Tuesday, with courtroom interviews not expected to begin until Wednesday.

Once Madigan’s trial gets underway, it will be the most high-profile trial of Blakey yet — a case that upended and reshaped Chicago politics. Among those caught in the crossfire were former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore, Madigan aide Tim Mapes, ex-state Rep. Edward “Eddie” Acevedo and former imprisoned Ald. Edward M. Burke.

However, Madigan has long been at the center of the investigation. And when a grand jury finally returned a racketeering indictment against the powerful Southwest Side Democrat in March 2022, the case went to Blakey, the former prosecutor appointed to the bench by President Barack Obama.

“He loves the law,” said Tom Biesty, a retired Cook County prosecutor who once worked with Blakey. “He will be very honest.”

Blakey is no stranger to high-profile cases

Racketeering prosecutions target organized criminal enterprises. Madigan, for example, is accused of directing an enterprise consisting of his public office, the 13th Ward Democratic Organization, and his law firm. The FBI says it was intended to illegally increase Madigan’s political power and generate revenue for his allies.

It is often noted that Blakey’s father, G. Robert Blakey, wrote the law under which Madigan is being prosecuted. But the judge has also established himself as an authority in this area.

In 2011, Judge Blakey pushed for passage of Illinois’ own racketeering law, explaining to the House Judiciary Committee how it would allow prosecutors to target the structure of criminal street gangs, rather than just prosecuting individual crimes.

“Gang crime is not an isolated incident,” he said at the time. “And it cannot be prosecuted as isolated incidents.”

U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois

John Blakey also happens to be “an experienced Madigan judge with a solid knowledge of the law used to target gangsters, street gangs – and now the ex-house speaker and actor who has even performed in London,” Kirk noted in 2014 . That may seem like an unusual situation. background for a judge, but Blakey has said it “seemed like a seamless transition” to move from theater to law.

“When you argue before a jury or before a judge, whether it’s about a legal principle or a set of disputed facts, you have to have the power of language and understand the power of a strong story,” said John Blakey in 2012 “What are the problems? What’s the story?”

Blakey is from South Bend, Indiana, home of his alma mater, the University of Notre Dame, where his father works as a professor. Recently, Judge Blakey promised the attorneys in the Madigan case that he would spend a weekend with their legal briefs — “after the Notre Dame game, of course.”

After college, he ended up in Chicago, where he worked as a federal and state prosecutor.

He spent the last five years of his career as a prosecutor and headed the Special Prosecutions Bureau under then-Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez. Along the way, he led the prosecution of three men who were the first in Chicago to be charged as terrorists under state law for plotting violent attacks during the 2012 NATO summit here.

Biesty, a Cook County prosecutor from 1991 to 2017, said he met John Blakey during that phase of the judge’s career. Biesty said Blakey was “innovative” and “had a lot of great ideas.” establishing a human trafficking unit, pursuing the state’s racketeering law, and prosecuting the county’s first racketeering trial.

“His father was obviously a legend, but he was on his own,” Biesty said of Blakey’s knowledge of the law.

Brian Church, Jared Chase and Brent Betterly were acquitted of the terrorism charges, but convicted on less serious charges after a 2014 trial. The evidence and verdict led to criticism of Alvarez for overreaching.

However, John Blakey was nominated to his seat on the federal bench that same year. The following summer, he found himself presiding over a very different high-profile trial involving basketball superstar Jordan.

Jordan had sued the now-defunct supermarket chain Dominick’s over an advertisement that appeared in a 2009 limited edition issue of Sports Illustrated published to commemorate Jordan’s induction into basketball’s Hall of Fame. Dominick’s ad congratulated Jordan and used his name and number “23.” Jordan accused the grocer of using his name without permission.

Jordan attended the trial and even testified in Judge Blakey’s courtroom, ultimately securing an $8.9 million verdict. The judge denied a request for “special accommodations” for Jordan after his lawyer asked if he could use an underground entrance to the Dirksen federal courthouse.

“All litigants are equal before the law,” Judge Blakey said. who individually called Jordan a “former Chicago Bull, Birmingham Baron and ‘Space Jam’ star.”

The experience means Madigan will hardly be the most high-profile person to step foot in the judge’s courtroom. Even though Jordan’s dispute over a magazine ad did not carry the same weight as the criminal trial of one of the most important politicians in Illinois history.

Another notable Illinois politician had his own connection to some of the cases handled by Blakey. The judge presided over two lawsuits challenging the Obama Presidential Center, now under construction in Jackson Park.

When dismissing the first case in 2019, Judge Blakey referenced the first American in space when he declared: “There should be no delay in construction.”

“As Alan Shepard said in 1961, light this candle,” the judge said.

Judge Blakey last year presided over the trial of three members of the Goonie Boss street gang, who were involved in ten murders in 30 months. And last month, while considering a sentence break for Gangster Disciples leader Hoover, the judge made headlines when he directly challenged Hoover’s attorney.

“How many murders is he responsible for?” Blakey asked about Hoover.

The lawyer has yet to answer and the judge has yet to make a ruling.

Face to face with Madigan

Madigan and the judge have already come face to face in Blakey’s courtroom several times. Madigan made his first appearance as a defendant in January. That’s when the former speaker, his lawyers and prosecutors gathered to figure out how to move forward after the U.S. Supreme Court took up a case that threatened to reshape Madigan’s.

During the hearing, Judge Blakey referred to Madigan not by the formal title of “speaker,” but as “Mr. Madigan” and “the defendant.” He also called Madigan to a podium in the courtroom to make sure Madigan had no objection to delaying his trial until the Supreme Court ruled.

The judge recalled the days when his small children would leave Lego blocks for him to step on in the dark. He told the lawyers he feared the Supreme Court would “give us a Lego” if they decided last April to move forward with Madigan’s trial as originally planned.

He emphasized the time that would be wasted not only by the lawyers, but also by the jurors.

“To sit for two months, take time out of their lives, lose money, lose their ability to support their business or be with their family, and then let them do that for nothing, that’s not fair to them either,” the judge said. right. Blakey said.

The jurors, he said, “are the unsung heroes of the trial.”