Shelby County – Anyone Else Interested In Disputing Our Ed Flynn Private Counsel Position?

Shelby Co. (ECWd) –

Several years ago we published numerous articles pertaining to the county boards hiring of private counsel and paying them with public funds.  We asserted and stood fast to this day, the hiring was illegal and should have never taken place.  We covered key points in that matter in this article.

Yesterday in the Shelby County Courtroom we listened to yet another member of the Judicial Branch in the 4th Circuit, Judge Brian Kibler.  Kibler spoke to the fact private attorneys cannot be hired by county officials during discussions on the Shelby County Board getting legal representation, which is now two court hearings past with zero representation for the county chairman or the county board.

How does Kibler know this?

Because it came up in a legal case in Effingham County when Judge Kibler was the State’s Attorney with a duty to represent the county board.  The Effingham County Board, just like the Shelby County Board, hired private counsel to represent them.  Kibler, who appeared with the hired attorney, failed to convince the judge that the hiring was legal under the “services” language in the law. The reason this is important is because at the time, just as in the Ed Flynn case in Shelby County, the laws were the same.

“The court does not agree with defendants’ position that the “services” language of 55 ILCS 513-9006 empowers the SA to hire attorneys outside of the assistant state’s attorney realm. This section must be read in conjunction with Section 5/4-2003. The defendants’ interpretation would render Section 5/4-2003 meaningless. Even if Section 5/4-2003 does not authorize it, the Board minutes say that the Board would hire Attorney Koester.” (emphasis added)

In that case, the Court, thanks to the opposing parties’ counsel raising the violation in pleadings, ordered the county board to remedy the matter.  (Court Order at this link).  We covered other connected problems in this article after proving the attorney was never hired by the county as the judge indicated needed to happen in his order, but instead was paid with the county insurance funds.

We urge everyone to read the court’s order to grasp the direct parallels to the Shelby County board’s hiring of Ed Flynn, as admitted to in the recent TRO case in Shelby County.  Numerous propagandists who bashed us when the court said Shelby County had to pay Ed Flynn for his services sit silent on yet another case of private counsel being hired in direct violation of the law as confirmed by the court. Where is the outrage over spending their taxpayer dollars for an illegal action identical to Effingham County?  We seriously would like to know how our position on the matter was wrong.  The facts all point to us being 100% spot on and the recent court hearings and Kibler’s comments solidify that fact.  We wish we could publish a transcript of what he said yesterday but are unable to because of an alleged shortage of court reporters which resulted in no record of what took place yesterday outside docket entries.  All that aside, plenty of witnesses heard what we heard.

The sad part of this entire issue is rather than the appellate court ruling consistent with Illinois Supreme Court case law in the Ed Flynn case, they chose to muddy the waters with a rule 23 ruling that got the attorney, Ed Flynn, paid without citing any supporting case law for what appears to be nothing more than a political cover because so many SA’s have allowed and even encouraged, like Kibler, county boards to hire private counsel.

What is the case law on this point?

“This court held that by law the State’s Attorney is “the attorney and legal adviser of the county officials in all matters pertaining to the official business of the county.” Ashton, 384 Ill. at 297. The Counties Code neither expressly nor implicitly authorized the county board to employ private attorneys. Ashton, 384 Ill. at 299.

We covered the hypocrisy of the judicial system in this article.

• Judge Miller, while SA, hired private attorneys with public funds
• Ed Flynn was hired by Shelby County Board, according to board minutes just like Effingham County, and paid with public funds
• Judge Kibler, former SA in Effingham County, encouraged the Effingham County Board, his client, to hire a private attorney and was paid with public insurance funds.
  

These illegal hirings are nothing new to us and our position has been the same since our very first exposure to it in 2012.

• Judge Isaf, former Edgar County SA, allowed his client, the Emergency Telephone Board, to hire private counsel (his former law partner) with public funds. We challenged that in 2012 with a quo warranto filing and the money was recovered and the attorney resigned immediately. (article here)
  
• Judge Isaf, former Edgar County SA, threatened the Sheriff with legal actions if public funds were not recovered for the hiring of private counsel.  This was covered in the same article as above and we noted that he said nothing to the ETSB who was doing the same thing until we challenged it with a quo warranto filing.   His letter to the sheriff makes it clear, that neither the sheriff nor the county board can hire private counsel with public funds.
• Judge Bower, while SA for Coles County Allowed the Emergency Telephone System Board to hire private counsel.  He stopped it after we brought the law to his attention.
• Judge Rhoades, former SA in Piatt County, allowed the Sheriff to hire a private attorney with public funds under the alleged “services” provision, the same provision the Judge in Effingham said was not permissible.

Do we really need to say anymore? The hiring of Ed Flynn by the Shelby County Board was not legal, just as Flynn’s law firm argued in the recent TRO case in Shelby County.  It is yet another example of “Rules for Thee, Not For Me”.  TRO transcript at this link.