In a clean, modern courtroom on Chicago`s West Side, Judge Sam Amirante tersely explained the consequences of breaking the city`s gun laws.
”Because these are Class A misdemeanors, you can go to jail for 364 days or be fined up to $1,000,” Amirante, a short, powerfully-built ex-Marine, told a courtroom packed with defendants.
Technically, Amirante is correct. Reality is different.
According to records kept by the Cook County clerk`s office, 10,453 misdemeanor gun cases were filed in Chicago in 1990. Less than one-third-3,325-resulted in convictions. Of those, just 413 criminals were sentenced to jail.
In 1989, 9,285 gun cases came before Chicago courts. There were only 2,929 convictions, and only 450 criminals went to jail.
It is a situation that frustrates judges, prosecutors and police and contributes to a public contempt of gun laws in a city flooded with firearms. And increasingly, law-abiding citizens are deciding that carrying an illegal gun-whether for protection or out of fear-is worth the risk of arrest.
”In Chicago, the fact is that guns are treated the same way as if you`ve stolen a shirt from Goldblatt`s or Sears,” said Assistant Cook County State`s Atty. James Piper, who has worked on drafting stricter gun legislation.
In fact carrying a gun for a growing number of citizens has become a casual part of life and having a gun in their purse or pocket is as routine as carrying house keys.
At a time when the murder rate in Chicago is at a near-record pace, when guns are being used by younger and younger people and when gun seizures are at a record pace-19,670 in Chicago last year, 2,500 more than New York City-most gun-law violators receive little more than a slap on the wrist and a stern lecture.
Most are placed on probation or given supervision, a disposition that allows the record of conviction to be expunged if the defendant stays out of trouble.
Defendants don`t even spend more than a few hours in Chicago`s courts. Justice is dispensed on a volume basis, with scores of cases handled daily. Nearly all defendants walk out the door-the harshest penalty frequently is the forfeiture of their gun, a loss that can easily be made up, often within a few days.
”Guys like myself are the victims,” said Jerry Warren, 22, of the West Side after a weapons charge against him was dismissed.
”The guys who get the paychecks are the ones the stickup men look for,” said Warren, who said he works for Motorola Corp. ”I was a victim of two armed robberies and one strong-arm robbery. You feel you`d rather be caught with it (a gun) than without it.
”I`ve owned maybe 10 guns. I`ve been caught four or five times. Three of those cases were dismissed.”
The other cases resulted only in the destruction of the guns, he said.
There are many others just like him. Some agreed to be interviewed if their full names were not printed.
– Sandra, 41, carried a .22-caliber gun when she worked nights and came home to the crime-infested Englewood neighborhood. ”I wouldn`t want to hurt anybody, but if it came down to me or them-I`m sorry,” she said.
– Morris, 65, a retired Postal Service worker, keeps a gun at home and always carries a snub-nosed .38-caliber revolver. ”People are afraid they will be robbed or attacked,” he said. ”I don`t just carry a gun to be carrying it. Only in certain areas and at night. In some neighborhoods, I feel a heck of a lot safer. Especially when I go into certain areas. I have relatives who live in the Gardens (the Chicago Housing Authority Altgeld Gardens housing complex) and, to be honest with you, I wouldn`t go there at night unless I carried my piece with me.”
– A Chicago Transit Authority driver carries his handgun in a canvas bag near the seat. ”I like to feel that I will be able to be in control of a threatening situation,” he said. Carrying a gun on a bus is illegal and against CTA rules.
– Allen has been a South Side barber for 25 years and keeps a gun in his home but not in his shop. ”If I had to have a gun on me every day when I unlocked the door because I was afraid, I`d have to sell the shop and do something else,” he said. ”Carrying a gun around is something I just don`t believe in, but you`d be surprised at the number of people that come in here with one.”
”The biggest reason women have for buying a gun is for protection,” said Jerry Soskin, owner of Gun World Inc., 421 E. Irving Park Rd., Bensenville, where more than 2,000 handguns were sold last year.
”The most popular guns are the 9 mm, .38-caliber special revolver and .45-caliber semi-automatic,” Soskin said. ”Women have said it takes too long for the police to arrive or that they work late and are afraid because they have to walk in dark parking lots to get to their cars.
”People are afraid. That to me seems to be the whole problem with so many wanting or having guns. It doesn`t matter where you live or what race you are. If there are any problems in the area people become afraid and want protection.
”It`s amazing how many housewives come in and want guns because their husbands work late or are away a lot and say they are afraid to be home alone. ”A few years back the majority of the women were nurses, technicians and other hospital help who said they wanted protection when they finished their shifts late at night. We still get women who are hospital workers, but most of the women now are housewives.”
People seek to become security guards with the expectation that they will be able to carry guns legally, said Ronald Shakespeare, an instructor who trains guards at the Training Institute, 736 S. Wabash Ave., a city-funded job training program.
”One of the first things a lot of them want to know is, `When can I start training with a gun, and when can I get my permit?` ” he said.
”I tell them, `Forget it. That`s not what this is about.` I always draw a very hard line in having weapons in security work except for transporting money or things like that. Any other job that needs that kind of accessory shouldn`t be done by a security guard. It should be done by police.”
”It`s really the domestic analogy to the arms race,” said James Jacobs, a law professor at New York University. ”For a long time, the thought of the nation was that more and more powerful arms would protect us against other nations, and that`s what`s happening with people who feel they need to arm themselves with more powerful weapons to protect themselves and their homes. With those thoughts you`ll pretty soon have people with bazookas.”
Gun-violation cases pose a dilemma for the criminal justice system that has been struggling to balance the need to fight and deter crime without overloading the overcrowded Cook County Jail.
The reasons for the low conviction rate and even lower rate of jail terms are varied, but they chiefly settle on bad searches by police, otherwise clean records for defendants and a feeling that destruction of the confiscated weapon is sufficient punishment. Police, prosecutors and citizens argue that lenient sentences for gun violations send a weak signal regarding handgun proliferation and violence associated with it. Of 851 slayings in Chicago in 1990-one of the highest murder totals in nearly a decade-602 murders were committed with guns, primarily handguns.
”Yes, there are cases where a single mother has to wait at the bus stop on the way to a factory in a high crime area, and she gets caught with a .22 pistol in her purse,” Piper said. ”But that is different than young people on street corners with guns in their back pockets. We have to take the position that gun offenses are serious.”
A large number of the gun charges arise from confiscations by police in street stops and during the execution of search warrants.
Police say they have no detailed breakdown of the types of guns recovered, but the weapons range in firepower from .22-caliber guns to the much more lethal 9 mm semi-automatic pistols and machine pistols. Of the guns seized in 1990, 16,211 were handguns.
More than a third of the misdemeanor gun cases are dismissed, primarily because judges rule that the police searches were improper, Amirante said. However, even in those cases, because the guns are almost always unregistered or illegally owned, they are ordered sent to a South Side steel mill for destruction.
When a suspect is convicted, the penalties usually are minimal.
First-time offenders without prior criminal records usually are given court supervision.
”If it`s the first time, I like to give some supervision, some community service,” Amirante said. ”I rarely send someone to jail the first time around. The ones who bother me are those who come back.”
For more than 30 years, James, 60, a Loop custodian who works nights, has carried a .25-caliber pistol to ride the bus home after work.
”I would rather be caught by the police with the gun than by thugs without it,” James said.
While he has never pulled his gun, he said he would not hesitate to do so if threatened. ”It`s better them than me.”
Prosecutors say that one way of getting gun offenders off the street, if even for a short time, is by checking for prior gun arrests or convictions at the time a person is charged with unlawful use of a weapon.
That way defendants with prior gun-violation arrests or convictions can be identified and, under certain conditions, more serious felony charges can be filed. Records show that felony gun charges more often result in conviction and jail terms than misdemeanor gun charges.
In 1990, 960 felony gun cases resulted in 723 convictions and 546 of those criminals were sent to jail.
Earlier this year, police charged Jerome Anderson with unlawful possession of a weapon during a traffic stop and released him on a signature bond.
At the time, he was free on a $60,000 cash bond stemming from a charge of attempted murder of a police officer. When he was picked up for the gun violation, Anderson could have been detained, but he wasn`t even though police had learned of his criminal history.
By the time he was picked up by police the next day, his third arrest, Anderson was in possession of another handgun-a 9 mm semi-automatic pistol, police said. His bond was revoked and he was sent to jail to await trial.
In response to a wave of violent crime, ownership of handguns in Chicago was banned in 1982, except for those who already owned them and registered them. But the ban has not reduced the number of weapons available, law enforcement authorities say. Ownership of a long gun-a rifle or shotgun-continues to be allowed if the weapon is registered.
Law enforcement officials complain that the penalty is weak, no more than a year in jail and a fine of $1,000, for those who buy handguns legally outside of Chicago and resell them illegally within the city limits. The lack of strong penalties has led to the rise of mid-level gunrunners responsible for a large percentage of illegal guns on the street, police said.
But not everyone believes increasing legal penalties will solve the problem of gun proliferation.
Franklin Zimring, professor of law and director of the Earl Warren Legal Institute at the University of California, a research center for the university`s law school, says it is more important to devote resources to improving the screening of gun-permit applicants, preventing the transfer of weapons from suburban gun shops to the city and systematically tracing guns to their origins by their serial numbers.
”In Chicago, in New York, it`s a very important question,” Zimring said. ”We then find out what the patterns are and which are the most popular channels.”
According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, there has not been a comprehensive survey on the origin of guns seized in Chicago for more than a decade.
Kenny Canales, 19, an admitted gang member, was arrested in February for carrying a loaded 9 mm semi-automatic pistol in Humboldt Park. He got the pistol the way many in Chicago do: He bought it for $80 from someone in the neighborhood who needed cash to buy drugs. He said he needed the gun ”for protection. What else?” Five hours after he had bought the gun, Canales was arrested.
On March 14, Canales pleaded guilty to a charge of unlawful use of a weapon before Amirante after Canales` lawyer, an assistant Cook County public defender, advised that he probably wouldn`t have to go to jail. Standing before Amirante, Canales explained he had the gun because ”the day before some guys had jumped me.”
”This is not the old West,” thundered Amirante, and he ordered Canales to perform 40 hours of community service, which includes such work as cleaning public parks.
”Getting a gun is as easy as buying a bag of potato chips from the candy store,” Canales said. ”You just have to know the right people. When you`re a gangbanger, it`s just something that goes along with your life.”
Outside the courtroom, Canales did not complain about his sentence.
”I guess it was fair,” he said. ”I didn`t go to jail.”
GUN CASES IN COOK COUNTY MUNICIPAL COURTS
Misdemeanor gun cases
Disposition of 1990 cases
Fine, probation Criminal
Acquittals, discharge, Failed division
District Total dismissals supervision to appear transfer Jail
1 10,453 4,757 2,912 1,785 586 413
2 154 55 68 18 9 4
3 76 26 31 15 2 2
4 116 43 51 14 0 8
5 97 32 50 10 1 4
6 467 136 208 75 21 27
Totals 11,363 5,049 3,320 1,917 619 458
1989
total 10,295 5,126 2,945 1,336 387 501
Felony gun cases
Acquittals, Fines, probation,
Total dismissals discharge, supervision Jail
1989 932 316 285 647
1990 723 237 177 546
