June 04, 2004

The true story of how Cook County tried to turn a young, respectable, then employed (thanks to the pending case, he’s since lost his job) black man into a criminal.

Roderick Pritchett is anything but the face of crime in Chicago. The twenty-six-year-old former art student and father of one dresses well, works hard, and puts his family first.

Is that what the two Chicago cops who pulled Pritchett over in November of 2002 saw when they decided to search his vehicle after a routine traffic stop for expired plates? Did they consider the family they might be hurting when they decided to arrest him after retrieving a weapon he informed them was under the seat of the car?

On Monday, May 18th, Pritchett stood trial for the felony charge of “aggravated unlawful use of a weapon.” The two arresting officers didn’t seem to find it necessary to attend said trial, thus the defense stipulated to testimony given at an earlier hearing. Specifically, the prosecutor asked the defense to stipulate that the officer, if present, would testify, as he had earlier, that the gun he recovered from Pritchett’s car was loaded.

Pritchett himself, on the witness stand, carefully explained how he stored the gun, with the loaded magazine atop it, in a zipped CD case, in compliance with Illinois law. In fact, Pritchett had been stopped once before, in Will County, by officers who, upon learning he had a weapon in the car, saw that it was properly stored, ran the serial number, and sent him on his way.

Cook County cops, however, are a different breed. In an area where inanimate objects are blamed for senseless deaths and approval ratings based on empty promises, concealed carry is a dirty phrase, and anything that looks remotely close to it, a felony. Why else would a clean-cut kid with a spotless record wind up spending three days in jail and facing three years more for simply having a gun somewhere near him?

In fact, even though the officers seemed more than happy to claim the gun was loaded and ready to fire, the prosecutor didn’t even bother to make an actual case that Pritchett was lying, and the bullets were indeed in the gun. During cross, when she could not get him to say the magic word “loaded,” she asked him where the bullets were. He answered: in the magazine. In her closing statement, the prosecutor, presumably sure she was driving home her point, made the incomprehensible leap that because the bullets were in the magazine and the magazine with the gun, the gun was loaded.

She might also have had some semblance of a case if she attempted to prove that the CD container Pritchett used to store his weapon was not proper “encasement,” and left the weapon “immediately accessible.”

However, taking a cue from the school of Mr. Daley, the prosecuting attorney chose simply to present the tried and true evidence that the word “gun” sounds an awful lot like “guilty” in Chicago.

In the end, the Judge ruled in Pritchett’s favor, saying that he deserved “the benefit of the doubt.” This, in my opinion, though just, was a far cry from justice. From a judge who angrily announced-when the defense attempted to bring a copy of Illinois gun law into evidence-that he knew the law, his ruling had very little to do with it. Since the prosecution presented no real evidence that Pritchett’s transportation of the weapon was in violation of the law, perhaps a more appropriate post-judgment speech would have been “Bravo, sir, way to set an excellent example of how gun owners can comply with the law. Thank you for legally purchasing a weapon and storing it safely. It’s people like you who remind me why we need to protect second amendment rights.” Instead, Judge Linn commenced finger-wagging, cautioning Pritchett that he may have received “well-intentioned, but erroneous advice” on how to legally transport a weapon.

The entire courtroom, it seemed, cared little about what the law was and who was following it. This applies equally to Pritchett’s lawyer, who seemed determined to mount the inexplicable defense that Pritchett really needed a gun for self-defense. The judge correctly ruled that this evidence-including a line of questioning about a shooting Pritchett witnessed at 15, was irrelevant. The point isn’t whether Pritchett was or was not justified in carrying a gun or whether the laws governing his behavior were or were not correct. The point is that he followed those laws.

What worries me is that I can picture the exact same trial with the exact same lack of evidence being decided differently based on the whim of whoever donned the black robe, or by twelve randomly-picked Chicago citizens because they’re sure guns are what is ruining their neighborhood. On Monday, a judge had a good feeling about Roderick Pritchett. He felt similarly about a rapist and an admitted armed robber, both of whom were released with probation earlier in the day.

Second Amendment struggles of a more general nature will have another day. For now, advocates of gun-rights need to go to bat for a much more present cause. We are living in a town where being in the same car as a gun, no matter what the circumstances, are cause enough for arrest, trial, and the possibility of conviction. Pritchett himself joked, “the gang-bangers are laughing at me,” because he chose the legal route, and he got screwed.

We are currently living under absurd gun laws that do not permit law-abiding citizens to reasonably protect themselves. But how can we even begin to combat those laws when even those citizens, like Pritchett, who comply with them are victimized?

Roderick Pritchett is not the face of crime, nor is he the face of the struggle for the right to carry. What he is, is a living example of just how sour Chicago justice has gone, and just how scared we need to be of those who claim to protect us.

Gun advocate or not, everyone who believes in honor, consistency, and a burden of proof in our justice system should have been clapping in that courtroom on Monday.

Face it, this isn’t just our fight.

Pritchett’s supporters who applauded Judge Linn’s decision were immediately ordered from the courtroom, and escorted downstairs by an armed guard.

--Corinne Low
csl14@duke.edu
Duke 2006

For more information on this case:
Boots and Sabers
Joseph Pickett’s pre-trial commentary
Concealed Carry, Org