Deputy was no-show in traffic case

Gus Philpott
Woodstock Advocate
April 7, 2011

Earlier I wrote about a traffic case involving a Prairie Grove police officer that got tossed yesterday.

I withheld my guess that the McHenry County Sheriff's Department deputy who wrote the ticket to Officer Paul McNamara had failed to show up in court, and that's exactly what happened. And so did two civilian witnesses.

When the Assistant State's Attorney called me back about 2:00PM, he explained that Notice of the court date (yesterday, April 6) had been given to the deputy and the two civilian witnesses. When none showed up, he had asked the judge for a continuance, because his witnesses were not present.

The cop appeared in his own defense (at least, no legal defense representation is shown in the online court records), and he was smart enough to know the case couldn't fly without prosecution witnesses. No doubt he asked the judge to toss it out, and the State went forward with nolle prossed.

The Assistant State's Attorney would not disclose the name of the sheriff's deputy who failed to show up in court, resulting in the cop's going free, claiming their office policy is not to reveal the names of witnesses.

"Not even the sheriff's deputy who wrote the ticket?" I asked.

Not even that one. I found that strange and "interesting", because the deputy was not a "witness". He was the investigating deputy.

But his name (and the reason, if I can get it) will be forthcoming.

If I had been the judge, I'd have told everybody to have a seat while the bailiff got Sheriff Keith Nygren on the phone and told him to get that deputy out of bed and into my courtroom within one hour "or else".