Chronicle files federal lawsuit against Supreme Court justice

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CHICAGO (AP) -- A suburban Chicago newspaper filed a federal civil rights lawsuit Tuesday against the Illinois Supreme Court’s chief justice, claiming it can’t fairly appeal a multimillion defamation verdict awarded to the judge because he heads the court.

Chief Justice Robert Thomas infected the state judiciary with a “constitutional cancer” by pursuing a defamation claim “in the friendly confines of the state legal system he dominates,” according to a lawsuit filed by the Kane County Chronicle’s parent company, Shaw Suburban Media Group, Inc., and former columnist Bill Page.

“The core of it is that the newspaper and the columnist can simply not get a fair shake on appeal and that deprives them of their civil rights,” said Bruce Sanford, an attorney for the plaintiffs.

Thomas, a former kicker with the Chicago Bears, sought damages over a series of columns that Page wrote in 2003. The articles claimed Thomas softened his position in a disciplinary hearing for former Kane County State’s Attorney Meg Gorecki after her supporters backed a judicial candidate he favored.

A jury ordered the Chronicle and Page to pay Thomas $7 million in November. But Circuit Court Judge Donald O’Brien, who is named as a defendant in the federal lawsuit, decided the award was unreasonably high and reduced it by $3 million in March.

The newspaper and columnist want the federal court to find that they can’t get a fair appeal in Illinois while Thomas is chief justice. They also want a declaration that the $4 million defamation judgment was unconstitutional.

The chief justice’s attorney said the lawsuit was a last-ditch attempt by the plaintiffs to get out of an unfavorable ruling in the defamation case.

“I think it’s not only frivolous, it’s an abuse of process,” said Thomas attorney Joseph Power. “A Kane County jury awarded $7 million to Justice Thomas and the trial judge who presided reduced it by $3 million and now they have the nerve to turn around and sue them. It’s absolutely absurd.”

But Thomas D. Shaw, president and CEO of Shaw Newspapers and publisher of the Chronicle, said in a written statement that the lawsuit was filed “with great reluctance as we hoped the state court system would be able to protect our rights. That plainly is not the case.”

Besides Thomas and O’Brien, the lawsuit also names as defendants the remaining six justices on the Illinois Supreme Court and the three justices of the Illinois Appellate Court.

Six former and current state supreme court justices testified for Thomas at the 2006 libel trial. Five of the court’s seven justices would have to recuse themselves if the paper’s appeal reaches that level, denying the paper last appeal because the court can’t sit without at least four members, Sanford said.

“I think the average man or woman on the street would say this stinks and it does stink,” Sanford said. “If people in the state don’t think the justice system is fair it has a really corrosive effect on the integrity of the judicial system.”

Power said the paper could have asked for another judge during the defamation trial if it thought the court couldn’t be fair, but neglected to do so.

“Now all of a sudden at the last minute they’re filing this absolutely frivolous complaint,” Power said. “They have nowhere to go; there’s no air in the case.”