Commentary

By gagging lawyers in the case against the police officer who shot Laquan McDonald, Judge Vincent M. Gaughan has done a disservice to the people of Chicago, their police department, the city administration, and the Cook County judiciary.

Eighty-five years ago last week, the Illinois Supreme Court branded witness recantations categorically unreliable — a generalization that, albeit untrue, haunts the Illinois criminal justice system to this day, denying or delaying exonerations of innocent prisoners whose convictions rest on perjured testimony.