A Cook County judge on Thursday rescinded an order that for more than nine months banned a Chicago exoneree who now works as a law clerk from the Leighton Criminal Court Building following a squabble over cell phone use in the courtroom.
In a terse, one-sentence ruling, Judge Peggy Chiampas called up the docketed case for Robert Almodovar and said from the bench that she was rescinding the order and taking the matter off her call.
It was a quick ending for a saga that had stretched on for months, bouncing between judges who appeared disinclined to broach the matter and at times bewildered about the path forward. Almodovar’s defense attorney Steve Greenberg hadn’t finished walking up to the bench by the time Chiampas delivered her order, nor had the assistant state’s attorney arrived, though the prosecutor’s office’s role in the matter was unclear throughout given no charges had been filed.
The canceling of the order, though, means that Almodovar, who spent decades in prison but received certificate of innocence in 2018, can resume work in the Southwest Side courthouse where he sometimes has job responsibilities including dropping off court documents and making inquiries at the clerk’s office.
The bizarre dispute began on Oct. 4, 2023, when Almodovar was in Chiampas’ courtroom as an observer. He is employed by the Bonjean Law Group, owned by Jennifer Bonjean, an attorney who has litigated wrongful conviction cases in Cook County and has been involved in a number of highly-publicized cases.
During the court call, someone informed a deputy that Almodovar had a cellphone in the courtroom, so the deputy asked him to go into the hallway and told him he would need to lock his phone downstairs, where members of the public generally have to secure any electronics. Almodovar replied that he believed he was authorized to have the phone as a law firm employee, but said he would comply nonetheless, according to a motion that sought to reverse the ban.
That’s when, the motion said, Judge Peggy Chiampas “began screaming loudly from the bench ‘bring him in, bring him in, bring him in.’” After questioning him in chambers, Chiampas wrote an order that banned Robert Almodovar, who was issued a certificate of innocence in 2018, from the Leighton Criminal Court Building, an unusual move in a public building with a mandate for transparent court proceedings.
Bonjean, Almodovar’s employer, had contended that judges “cannot ban citizens from public buildings, even if they think (wrongly) that the citizen has violated some administrative order.”
The motion alleged that Chiampas “illegally detained” Almodovar in the courtroom for four hours because he was not free to leave without being held in contempt. She told him if he consented to a search of his phone, he could avoid a criminal charge.
“Not wanting to go to jail, which for Robert is particularly traumatic having been a victim of a wrongful conviction, he allowed the coerced search,” the motion said.
Almodovar, whose case rested on eyewitness reports obtained in part by disgraced Chicago police Detective Reynaldo Guevara, had his conviction overturned in 2017.
Chiampas interrogated him, according to the motion, then banned him from the building and threatened him with incarceration if he returned.
The motion argued that Chiampas’ ban was unlawful for a number of reasons, including that the courthouse is a public space, and that Chiampas does not have the authority to implement bans. The motion says that judges are allowed to maintain decorum in their courtrooms with charges of contempt of court, but no such charges have been initiated for Almodovar.
Greenberg, who represents Almodovar, had sought to have the matter heard before a different judge, but the case had bounced between Chiampas, Judge Neera Walsh, Judge Kenneth Wadas and Presiding Judge Erica Reddick.
“It is obvious that judges in this building have some reluctance to wade into this matter,” said a motion on the issue filed in June.
During a short hearing last month, Walsh dismissed a motion to substitute the judge, finding that she lacked jurisdiction since no criminal charges were filed.
Walsh had suggested that Greenberg return to Chiampas’s courtroom to try to resolve the matter.
