(File Photo by Kevin Mathewson, Kenosha County Eye)
A Ziom man has been sentenced to 40 days in jail for illegally taking photos in an Illinois courtroom. This is exactly 40 days more in jail than he received from Kenosha Circuit Court Judge Jason Rossell for disorderly conduct related to an alleged attempt to break a police officer’s fingers by kicking a door shut.
Just like Wisconsin, in Illinois, you need permission from the presiding judge to photograph court proceedings. Clyde McLemore was sentenced to 40 days in a Lake County, IL jail for taking and posting photos without the judge’s permission.
According to a petition from criminal contempt filed by the Lake County State’s Attorney’s Office on May 13, 2024, McLemore took at least two photos on April 25, 2024, at 9:20 a.m. inside a Lake County Courtroom. He was spotted taking photos by an employee of the State’s Attorney’s Office.
The next day, a Sergeant with the Lake County Sheriff’s Office observed that McLemore posted two photos he took in court to his Facebook page. McLemore admitted in a video
In May, McLemore told Lake and McHenry County Scanner he is a reporter, has press credentials and access to Lake County courtrooms. “If Trump can get 34 felonies and still run for President, you’re gonna convict me of taking a picture of a police officer in court?” McLemore said when reached for comment. “White privilege strikes again.”
According to Lake and Mchenry County Scanner, during a case management conference on Wednesday, a negotiated plea deal was reached in the case. Lake County Judge Daniel Shanes accepted the guilty plea and sentenced McLemore to 40 days in the Lake County Jail pursuant to the agreement. The sentence will be served at 50%, meaning McLemore will serve 20 days. McLemore is set to be taken into custody to serve the sentence on November 6.
Clyde J. McLemore (D), 65, of Zion, IL went to trial on December 20, 2022, for a felony and a misdemeanor and the jury came back with a split verdict. McLemore is the founder of the Zion, IL Black Lives Matter group. He was charged with one felony count of attempted battery to a law enforcement officer and one count of misdemeanor disorderly conduct. According to the criminal complaint, Mayor John Antaramian (D) held a press conference at the public safety building on August 24, 2020. An unruly crowd formed and attempted to force their way into the building. A Kenosha police officer, who has served on the department for about 13 years, was attempting to shut the front door of the public safety building when Clyde McLemore kicked the front door of the building closed and bragged that he was trying to break the officer’s fingers.
(File Photo by Kevin Mathewson, Kenosha County Eye)
This incident is on video from many different angles. For the three videos played to the jury, it was clear the McLemore kicked the door as the police officer’s fingers were in the way. The four videos of the “kick” and McLemore’s own words citing his intent to hurt the cop should have been enough. Defense counsel suggested someone else could have hacked into McLemore’s account to make the post.
(Photo by Kevin Mathewson, Kenosha County Eye)
Kenosha Police Detective Peter Falk is a veteran detective, holding the rank for 17 years. He testified that in the video of McLemore kicking the door closed, McLemore said “I tried to break his knuckles.”
(Photo by Kevin Mathewson, Kenosha County Eye)
BLM sympathizer, Kenosha DA Michael Graveley asked the Walworth County DA to prosecute this case due to a “conflict.” Walworth DA Zeke Wiedenfeld tried the case and called only two witnesses. He was soft spoken, and not aggressive. McLemore, a felon who says he has more than 30 felonies on his record, did not take the stand. Wiedenfeld presented his case-in-chief in about two hours, a very small time-frame for a case of this seriousness. The defense called one character witness.
(File Photo by Kevin Mathewson, Kenosha County Eye)
The jury was not able to hear evidence that McLemore was once convicted of felony battery to a police officer when he dragged an Illinois Sheriff’s Deputy with his car while resisting arrest.
The jury, consisting of six men and six women (two seemingly African-American) were excused to deliberate at 3:10 pm and returned with a verdict at 4:10 pm. attempted battery to a police Officer – Not Guilty, Disorderly Conduct – Guilty. Rossell gave McLemore no jail time.
KCE filed a John Doe in this case to ask that McLemore be charged with felony bail jumping. Neither Graveley nor Wiedenfeld would charge him. On October 3, 2022, while out on bond for this case, McLemore was arrested for criminal trespass to government land. Soon after our petition, Wiedenfeld charged McLemore with felony bail Jumping. Wiedenfeld later dropped the felony bail jumping charge without a reason.
10 Responses
KCE is replete with stories about how special prosecutors dropped the ball. The best answer may be for the legislature to create a regional prosecutions bureau within the Attorney General’s office such as Iowa has. The Wisconsin AG’s office occasionally provides special prosecutors in rural counties where special circumstances exist (such as a murder trial and the local DA two years out of law school never tried a homicide). But ordinarily when conflicts arise DA’s horse trade with neighboring counties to take an extra case. Why this is a problem requires context.
Prior to 1990 prosecutors were county employees. Pay was low and turnover high. Then Gov. Tommy Thompson signed a bill that made DA’s and assistants state employees with the goal of professionalizing and improving prosecution but it didn’t quite work out because after the initial batch were converted to state employment those that came on board later were paid less because the state eliminated pay progression. Caseloads also grew and by its own statistics Wisconsin was short more than 100 prosecutors. Gov. Jim Doyle, a liberal democrat and former DA and AG, surprisingly did nothing to fix this. His successor, Republican Scott Walker, during the state’s budget crisis did a little with one-time pay boosts (but not pay progression) and hiring about 10% of the number of additional prosecutors needed.
How this impacts special prosecutions is that before 1990 a DA with a conflict could hire an attorney to serve as a special prosecutor. For example, in the prosecution of former Kenosha (Gateway) Technical Institute honcho Keith Stoehr, the late Fred Zievers was hired as special prosecutor. These attorneys were generally experienced and dedicated time and effort to these cases. Rarely did a retained special prosecutor lose or fail to run with an important case. Counties paid for special prosecutors.
That changed in 1990. With the financial burden of prosecution solely on the state now DA’s with a conflict have to hit up a neighboring county (that may also have a shortage of help) to essentially borrow a prosecutor for that case. In practice that meant taking someone away from their assigned work to handle the additional case. At one time several years ago that wasn’t so bad in southeastern Wisconsin as the DA’s had an informal agreement that the same prosecutors would pick up a neighbor’s conflict cases. Typically it was DA Phil Koss in Walworth County, DA Michael Nieskes and ADA Robert Repichek in Racine and ADA Richard Ginkowski in Kenosha. Coincidentally, all of them are Republicans and experienced prosecutors. Koss and Repichek became circuit judges, Nieskes became a judge and then went to be a prosecutor in the Twin Cities area and Ginkowski retired and became a municipal judge. While not a perfect arrangement it at least had some consistency instead of the random assignment of conflict cases now. As KCE has implied, does a neighboring county with a backlog of its own cases care as much about one of ours? It’s a fair question.
Perhaps the Iowa model would be helpful. Specially trained assistant attorneys general are assigned across to regional prosecution bureaus around the state. Now only are they experienced prosecutors but not involved in local politics.
Learn to self-edit.
And don’t forget how Democrats DA Bob Jambois and State Senator Joseph Andrea worked to create a new court for Kenosha County (Branch 7) but the bill didn’t include any additional help for Jambois’ own office!
There was not a “conflict of interest” for the DAs office in his cases other than getting political heat from the leftist and BLM activists.
Did he get a free mansion from the funds donated to BLM by white liberals?
This guy is a tool. He’s just mad bc no one finds him relevant, nor should they. Just another cog in the Governments BLM wheel.
All about looking for the money grab. Is his chapter actually serving the community and helping others in need. Some just want to be in the spotlight to gain some credibility on the next actual subject of wrong doings expense.
Just another example of how there is good money in racism.
Hood Rat.
He seems anti-government for the most part, which I side with. It is ridiculous that they prohibit pictures and videos in courtrooms. this man makes many great points and I think he is a positive more than a negative. ready to be bashed by the clowns.