Every Day This Story Keeps Going
One has to wonder if the person passing the unredacted file around out there isn’t motivated to point out the last six redacted paragraphs. McCulloch points out that the Daily Herald ran a story saying the judge pulled six paragraphs at the last minute:
Susan Seager said that while some of the information concerning the allegations made by both parties about the others? behavior may be harmful to the child, the public has a right to see the documents, especially since Ryan ?declared himself to be a family values candidate.?
The judge cleared the court of all spectators, including Seager, for about 40 minutes to conduct private arguments with the two lawyers representing Jack Ryan, a millionaire investment banker, and Jeri Ryan, of TV?s ?Boston Public? and ?Star Trek: Voyager.?
When the public session resumed, Schnider said he had reconsidered his earlier inclination to unseal about a half dozen paragraphs contained in the documents.
Schnider said the sections contain ?personal accusations? that don?t refer to the couple?s child or reveal any information about the child.
But he said he agreed with arguments made by the attorney for both parents that ?the publicity that would be generated would become known to the child and will have a significant deleterious effect on the child.?
?This is a child whose development would likely be affected by the release of information regarding his parents that might also be embarrassing to the parents,? Schnider said. ?That?s as clear as I can be.?
Schnider then said he would unseal other sections of the documents that, while likely harmful to the child and embarrassing to Jack Ryan, would be in the public?s best interest to see.
The judge?s ruling closely mirrors a recommendation made earlier this month by a referee appointed by Schnider to examine the 40 or so documents.
The documents were originally sealed by Schnider in 2000 and 2001 and relate to a divorce that was granted in 1995.
September 7th, 2004 at
Judge Schnider’s release of the Illinois Senatorial Candidate Jack Ryan’s custody docs was less than altruistic. It turns out that for Schnider, it was largely motivated to head off a forthcoming Federal inquiry into Schnider’s cases, and his own custody case, after it was discovered that he had been scripting questions on behalf of select counsel at the hearing at which the 730 evaluation report was ordered. Despite his statement to the press about the necessity for transparency so that the public is assured that the same treatment is received by both the rich and the porrt, it was for the very monied for which the scripting took place. Schnider’s scripting was discovered last December, and in an effort to divert from a forthcoming Federal inquiry, which potentially could land Schnider in Federal prison and those select counsel debarred, it was arranged that legal suit through Chicago Tribue would be initiated in Schnider’s Court for the release of Ryan’s document. It was a favor on both sides: Schnider was very familiar with the documents, and it was anticipated that Ryan would eventually withdraw. While the debate provided Schnider with a national podium for his statement about the need for transparency in the Courts. Recognizing, however, that his order unsealing only some of the documents was inconsistent to the reason for why he was unsealing them generally, and that such inconsistency might call to question his motive, he deferred the issue as to which documents were to be unsealed to a retired judge. Simply put, Ryan, Lynn, and their child, as well as the Illinois public were used. The Federal inquiry could lead to full review of the cases in which Schnider allowed the counsel for the losing litigant to leave the case just before the release of the report, and review of Schnider’s own custody case, wherein, despite his wife being known throughout the community as an excellent parent and a very bright woman, she was denied custody on the basis that she had a thought disorder, a diagnosis that was designed to discredit her in the past and future if then Commissioner Schnider was appointed to a judicial seat and later ran for office.