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Mike Mermel Retires

Thursday, December 8th, 2011

Lake County, Illinois’ DNA-denying prosecutor is stepping down.

Interestingly, the Tribune piece notes that in 2009 Lake County Sheriff Mark Curran—who last week called for Mermel’s resignation—praised Mermel as a “prosecutor’s prosecutor.” Which is a good indication that Sheriff Curran’s moment of principle had more to do with some unfavorable New York Times exposure than genuine outrage at Mermel. That, or Curran was more offended by what Mermel said to the Times than what he’s been doing as a prosecutor, which is just as bad. Given that Mermel’s boss State’s Attorney Michael Waller has defended Mermel through all of this, and has defended the preposterous arguments Mermel has made in court, it’s probably time for him to go, too.

The story has another strange twist. The Tribune article notes that Mermel is currently serving jury duty. Someone needs to fire his lawyer.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, December 8th, 2011 at 5:52 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under General Criminal Justice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

8 Responses to “Mike Mermel Retires”

  1. #1 |  tarran |  December 8th, 2011 at 6:00 pm

    He is probably a juror in a civil trial.

  2. #2 |  FloO |  December 8th, 2011 at 6:02 pm

    Bye.

  3. #3 |  CyniCAl |  December 8th, 2011 at 8:07 pm

    Well, knock me over with a feather. I guess he does just fold up his tent and run. What a fucking pussy.

  4. #4 |  Fascist Nation |  December 8th, 2011 at 11:53 pm

    How the heck does a prosecutor serve on a jury?

  5. #5 |  André |  December 9th, 2011 at 12:48 am

    Radley,

    Unrelated but good:

    http://i.imgur.com/HKzHo.jpg

  6. #6 |  CyniCAl |  December 9th, 2011 at 1:43 am

    Puppycide, pit bull angle, not a drug raid, looks like it’s just good old fashioned police harassment.

    http://www.ocregister.com/news/conger-330718-home-dog.html

  7. #7 |  CyniCAl |  December 9th, 2011 at 2:01 am

    Bad news for bloggers, a federal district court in Oregon has ruled that bloggers are not journalists and are not entitled to the same protections as the mainstream media. Act accordingly…

    http://news.yahoo.com/federal-judge-montana-blogger-not-journalist-014039441.html

  8. #8 |  CyniCAl |  December 9th, 2011 at 2:04 am

    Money Quote: “If anyone can self-proclaim themselves to be media, the concept of media is rendered worthless,” Padrick said. “When everyone is media, the concept of media is gone.”

    When everyone is sovereign, the concept of sovereign is gone!

    YES!!!!!!

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