Judge is acquitted on gun charge after lawyer argues dropped object could have been a toy
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A judge charged with a misdemeanor after a gun apparently fell out of his jacket while entering the courthouse has been acquitted in a bench trial after his lawyer argued the object could have been a toy or even a cigar lighter.
Judge Joseph Claps of Cook County, Illinois, was acquitted Tuesday on a charge of carrying a concealed weapon in a prohibited area, report the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times.
The incident, caught on surveillance video, appeared to show Claps dropping a gun. And two sheriff’s deputies testified they believed the object was indeed a gun, but they didn’t intervene because they weren’t sure whether the judge was allowed to have the weapon.
The deputies, however, had described the object in memos as “an object now known to be a gun.”
The Will County judge who tried 70-year-old Claps, Edward Burmila, said prosecutors had failed to prove that the dropped object was a gun. If the object was indeed a gun, Burmila said, deputies would have seized the firearm.
Burmila ruled after the lawyer for Claps, Thomas Breen, argued the dropped object could have been a replica, a toy or something else. “It could have been a cap gun,” Breen said. “It could have been a water pistol. It could have been a lighter, a cigar lighter. It could have been anything.”
Claps has a concealed-carry license, but even judges with such permits aren’t allowed to carry guns in the Cook County courthouse. The incident also was reported to the Judicial Inquiry Board.
Outside the courthouse, a reporter asked Breen whether the dropped object was indeed a toy or replica. Breen reached into his pocket, pulled out a plastic toy gun, and let it drop to the ground.
