When the cop asked me if I remembered Jim Gaston, I told him to jog my memory.
”A three-time loser,” he said. ”A stickup man. The one that Judge Strayhorn didn`t want to send up for life. You wrote about it.”
Ah, yes, an interesting little story. There was a time when it would have been a big story, but that was before the world became a global village and people like Gaston became news squibs.
As the cop said, Gaston is a stickup man by trade. He aims guns at storekeepers and people on the street and demands their money.
It`s a scary business, as anybody who has been a robbery victim knows. One twitch of the trigger finger, and they`re pulling a sheet over your face and calling the undertaker.
That`s why armed robbery is a Class X felony under Illinois law. And why three convictions for Class X felonies require that a judge give you life in prison.
Note that I say the law requires the judge to do it. Not suggest or nudge or hint. The judge has no choice.
Some judges resent having the legislators dictate how stiff a sentence should be, even to a menace like Gaston. One of them is Judge Earl Strayhorn. A year ago, I wrote about Strayhorn and Gaston. I`ll take a few paragraphs to rehash it.
Gaston and a partner robbed a South Side fish store. They put a shotgun to the store owner`s head and made off with $600.
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It was probably one of many holdups that Gaston committed. Robbing fish stores, you have to deal in volume.
The police got lucky. Gaston`s girl was mad at him for playing around so she tattled. The cops found evidence from the store in Gaston`s flat, he was identified by the victim, the trial was held, and he was found guilty. Open and shut case.
And it was his third armed robbery conviction. He was first nailed in 1976, again in 1980, and the fish store made it the magic number.
But Strayhorn surprised everyone in the courtroom when he said: ”Life in prison is irrevocable, and I`m not going to enter it lightly.”
He didn`t enter it lightly, or at all. Instead, he gave Gaston 15 years.
The prosecutors tried to explain that he didn`t have that authority, but he brushed their arguments aside.
So they went to the Supreme Court, which sent down an order for Strayhorn to follow the law and put Gaston away for life.
Strayhorn is known as an independent and original thinker. And he showed both qualities when Gaston appeared before him for resentencing.
Instead of sentencing him to life, as the law required, Strayhorn said that he had made a mistake in finding Gaston guilty. On second thought, he now thought Gaston was innocent. So he tossed out the guilty finding and told Gaston to take a walk.
This was even more daffy than his 15-year sentence. Here was the man the judge found guilty of being a gunman. And he was a repeat offender. But the judge would rather turn him loose than follow the law.
Back to the Supreme Court went the prosecutors. And the court sent down another order, telling Strayhorn to stop playing games and to put the mug away for life.
There wasn`t much Strayhorn could do. So he issued a warrant for Gaston`s arrest, and the cops went looking for him. And, as I wrote a year ago: ”If or when the police bring him in, Strayhorn will be obliged to give him the life sentence. . . . But you never know; he might decide to take him to lunch instead.”
And that`s where I left the story. I didn`t think about it again until that cop called me a few days ago.
”This Gaston guy, you don`t know what happened with him?” the cop asked.
No. I assume he was picked up, brought to court and sentenced to life.
”Uh-uh,” the cop said. ”They never found him in Chicago after Strayhorn let him go. He got out of town.”
You mean they`re still looking for him?
”Yeah, but now it`s worse. He just blew a guy away in Wisconsin. That`s probably why you didn`t hear about it.”
Murder?
”Yep. Some kind of dope deal.”
The Milwaukee police confirmed it. They say that Gaston, 35, recently quarreled over money with one Milton McSmith. It`s believed that they had a drug deal going.
McSmith lost the quarrel. Gaston shot him in the head, the upper chest and the lower chest, the police said.
Which doesn`t come as a great surprise. You have to figure that it is just a matter of time until someone like Gaston, who made a practice of pointing guns at people, shoots someone.
That`s why the law is hard on armed robbery careerists. The idea is to put the habitual gunman away before he pulls that trigger.
So there`s good news, and there`s bad news. And some more bad news and some more good news.
The bad news is that Gaston, according to the cops, finally got around to pulling that trigger and killing somebody.
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The good news is that Judge Strayhorn`s stubborness won out in the end. It`s unlikely that he`ll have to perform the distasteful task of sentencing Gaston to life in prison after all. If Gaston is caught, he`ll be tried in Wisconsin on the more serious charge of murder.
That`s good news for Gaston, since Wisconsin has nicer prisons than Illinois.
But it could be bad news for Judge Strayhorn. Gaston is still on the loose, probably with a gun in his belt. If he kills someone else, he`ll embarrass the judge.
And the good news is that if Gaston is tried in Milwaukee, a judge might be less kindly than Judge Strayhorn.
So if Gaston winds up doing life in a Milwaukee prison, Strayhorn won`t be able to take him to lunch. But he can always send a cake.