A woman who was present at her brother’s slaying has filed a federal lawsuit against prosecutors after she was jailed for weeks for failing to answer a subpoena to participate in “trial prep” against the accused killer.
Chicago Police officers investigate the scene of a double homicide on the steps of Friendship Baptist Church on Aug. 13, 2017, in the Austin community. Emmanuel Fleming was one of two men gunned down on the steps of the West Side church and was a witness to a 2016 fatal shooting. In 2016, Fleming was wounded in a July 2016 shooting a block and a half from the church.
“ 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.”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.
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’s third-floor courtroom at the 26th and California courthouse to testify in the Black murder case.
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.
“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.”
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.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 That subpoena was eventually withdrawn “after multiple requests by Ms.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.