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Monday, May 26, 2008
Courts - Chicago courtroom artist who covered Chicago 7 and Gacy trials writes book
Natasha Korecki, federal courts reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times, writes today:
[Courtroom artist Andy Austin] uses more than illustrations to take readers on a historical tour of famous Chicago trials. She proves herself a sharp observer -- a true reporter -- whose neutral status in the courtroom gives her a singular relationship with many of the parties.She's stared at the likes of serial murderer John Wayne Gacy and hit man Harry Aleman. She's drawn the same man -- Thomas J. Maloney -- as a judge and a defendant.
She drew the Chicago 7 trial in the late 1960s, where Black Panther Bobby Seale was famously bound and gagged. In that same trial, anti-war activist Abbie Hoffman passed her a note, which a deputy marshal snatched, read, smiled and passed on.
"What's a good-looking girl like you doing in a corrupt society like this?" the note said.
Austin has heard it all. Her most typical requests: "Can you give me more hair? Can you give me fewer chins?"
[Her book, Rule 53 (Lake Claremont Press), named after the rule barring cameras inside a courtroom] is part history, dealing with grotesque testimony in Gacy's trial for instance, and part memoir, weaving in the devastating loss of her 15-year-old son, John.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on May 26, 2008 09:59 AM
Posted to Courts in general