A Kane County Circuit Court judge on Tuesday dismissed charges against 22 abortion protesters charged with trespassing at an Aurora gynecological clinic, saying police improperly worded a complaint against them.
”If the complaint were properly drawn, they would all be going to jail,” Judge James C. Hallock said. ”I think I would have sent them to jail. Maybe someone else would not have, but I would have.”
The 22 defendants on Jan. 25 blocked access to the gynecological clinic of Dr. Aleksander Jakubowski, a frequent target of abortion protesters who has sustained several attacks of vandalism. The clinic performs second-trimester abortions.
Conviction on trespassing charges carries a maximum 30-day jail sentence, Hallock said. At the least, the defendants could have been sentenced to supervision, a type of probation that leaves no record if the term is served without incident.
Hallock, however, granted a motion by defense attorney Edward P. Morrissey of Sandwich, who said police officers who made out the complaint cited the wrong part of the statute.
Instead of stating that the defendants wouldn`t leave the clinic`s property after being told to do so, the complaint said they entered the property after having been warned not to. All 22 defendants said in court last week that they had no prior warning.
Special Assistant State`s Atty. Mark Wade amended the complaint, but did so after the trial started, which is not allowed under Illinois law.
”It`s a technicality, so to speak,” Wade said. ”It`s a matter of the way the charges were drafted. It`s not a matter of the facts. . . . We proved a trespassing case.”
Eight other defendants arrested in January requested jury trials and are to appear in court on Feb. 25. One of those eight, 59-year-old Ardith Ann Cooper of Morris, also is charged with obstructing a police officer.
Protesters have blockaded Jakubowski`s clinic three times in the last year, but charges in the two other instances were dropped by prosecutors.
In addition to the blockades, Jakubowski`s luxury car has been splattered with paint, protesters have chained themselves to his car at a toll booth and his clinic has suffered hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage inflicted by vandals.
