Privilege Has Its Memberships, Ctd.

Chicago Edition.

At an early age it was decided that Michael Daley would become a lawyer, like his famous father, Richard J. Daley.

He went to St. Ignatius High School, the finest Catholic school in the city, and Loyola School of Law.

Because he received student deferments, then later joined a weekend reserve unit, his law studies were not interrupted by the military.

And a couple of years ago, Michael Daley entered private practice.

Although he was not an especially brilliant student, Michael has had a wonderfully successful law career. The firm of Daley, Reilly and Daley (his brother, Richard M.) has all the clients it can handle.

It is not surprising that the firm should be prospering. The name 'Reilly' is magic in Chicago.

"Slats Grobnik and Some Friends" -- Mike Royko, October 28, 1971

I thought a little Royko might make a nice, contextualizing lead-in for this Chicago Tribune story written 40 years after Mike's column.

Emanuel says city obligated to pay for Daley defense in Burge case

By Kristen Mack
Clout Street
August 10, 2011

Mayor Rahm Emanuel today said the city has an obligation to pay for former Mayor Richard Daley’s legal defense if he is sued for alleged police brutality conspiracies that happened under former Chicago police Cmdr. Jon Burge.

The city will not, however, run up unnecessary legal bills to defend Daley or Burge, Emanuel said.

“We’re not going to be reckless and let the meter run legally,” Emanuel said.

The new mayor added that he believes Burge, who was sentenced to 4 1/2 years in prison for lying about the torture and abuse of criminal suspects, should lose his pension.

A July ruling by U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer applies to just one of several lawsuits filed in the Burge brutality cases. It means attorneys for plaintiff Michael Tillman can depose Daley, according to Flint Taylor, an attorney for Tillman.

Taylor has scheduled a Sept. 8 deposition, but the city has filed a motion asking Pallmeyer to reconsider her ruling.

Daley, the Cook County state's attorney for much of the 1980s, has been named in three other brutality lawsuits stemming from the torture and abuse that Burge and other detectives are believed to have perpetrated years ago on dozens of African-American men in Chicago — some of whom gave coerced confessions. But as they did in the Tillman case, the city moved to remove Daley from the lawsuits.
...

I can't think of a single, upright Chicago citizen who would not opine in the collegial privacy of a local public house that of course Hizzoner knew something incredibly depraved was up back when Burge was delivering hot, fresh, made-to-order confessions and Daley was marking time as Illinois' chief prosecutor en route to the job of sitting at his daddy's desk on the 5th floor of City Hall.

Also not for nothing, but maybe a metaphor that spreads its arms wide enough to us both the words "reckless" and "meter" when describing the dough the City may have to spend to pay its way out of one of Da Mare's little fiascoes was not the best-thought-out sentence construction ever to waft from the office of Da New Mare.

This is why you have 1,000 Public Information Officers scampering all over Mordor, Rahm.