SAY WHAT? DEPUTIES KEPT A MURDER DEFENDANT RESTRAINED. A COOK COUNTY JUDGE HAD THEM DETAINED.

September 12, 2026•12 min read

THE JUDGE WANTED A HUG. THE DEPUTIES SAW A DANGER. HE PUT THEM IN CUSTODY.

In a Cook County courtroom, two sheriff's deputies followed security protocol for a high risk murder defendant. Judge John Lyke Jr. answered by taking away their badges, their protective equipment and, for nearly an hour, their freedom.

Staff Writer | September 12, 2026

It should have been a routine security decision inside the Leighton Criminal Court Building.

A man facing murder charges wanted to hug members of his family. Cook County Circuit Judge John F. Lyke Jr. wanted to allow it. The two sheriff's deputies transporting the defendant knew he had been classified as high risk, and their orders required supervisory approval before his restraints could be removed.

They did not reject the request forever. They asked to follow the procedure designed for exactly that moment.

The supervisor was not consulted. The safety concern was not calmly resolved. Instead, a disagreement that could have ended with a telephone call became a confrontation between a judge demanding immediate obedience and deputies unwilling to disregard the orders of their own command.

According to the courtroom transcript reported by the Chicago Sun Times, Lyke ordered the deputies to step aside. One deputy answered with a sentence that should have reassured everyone in the room.

"I am taking directive from my sergeant."
Cook County sheriff's deputy, according to the courtroom transcript

It did not reassure Judge Lyke.

Take him into custody, the judge ordered.

Within moments, the people assigned to protect the courtroom had been stripped of their badges and protective equipment and taken behind it. They remained there for approximately 30 to 45 minutes. Teamsters Local 700 says Lyke warned that what they said when they returned would determine whether they might face as many as 90 days in jail.

The deputies apologized. Only then were they released.

The murder defendant never left his restraints. The deputies who refused to remove them lost their authority, their equipment and, for nearly an hour, their freedom.

This was not punishment for abandoning a post or mistreating a prisoner. It was the consequence of refusing to gamble with a detainee their department had already identified as dangerous and unpredictable.

That inversion is what makes this more than a courthouse dispute. The officers who saw a potential danger were treated as though their caution were the danger.

Courtrooms are built on authority. Judges must be able to control proceedings, enforce lawful orders and protect the dignity of the judicial process. That authority is essential.

But authority is not the same as infallibility.

A judge controls the courtroom. Deputies are trained to control the risk inside it. When those responsibilities collide, the answer cannot be anger, intimidation and a forced apology. It must be communication, judgment and respect for the security procedures written long before the danger arrives.

Teamsters Local 700 President Ramon Williams did not describe the episode as a misunderstanding.

"Punishing two deputies for doing exactly what they are trained and required to do is an outrageous abuse of the court's authority."
Ramon Williams, President of Teamsters Local 700

That accusation deserves a real investigation, not a quiet meeting followed by a carefully worded statement.

The Cook County Sheriff's Office says its Court Services Department is responsible for protecting judges, jurors and court officials, handling prisoners and screening every person who enters for weapons or contraband. An earlier official description called securing inmates brought to court perhaps the most important responsibility of a courtroom deputy. It also warned that judges can become targets of emotional and physical outbursts.

Those are not abstract possibilities. Criminal courtrooms bring accused killers, victims, grieving relatives, frightened witnesses, angry families and armed officers into the same confined space. A sentence can destroy one family's hopes while reopening another family's deepest wound. A verdict can turn despair into rage or panic in seconds.

Deputies must notice the hand moving toward a waistband, the visitor closing distance and the detainee watching an exit before anyone else understands what those movements could mean. Restraints, risk classifications and supervisory approval exist because the moment they are needed most may also be the last moment anyone has to act.

Maryanne Spillane, the attorney representing the union, identified the person Judge Lyke's order could also have placed at risk.

"The rules of the Cook County Sheriff's Office for movement and control of those courtrooms is absolutely for the safety of everyone inside of it. That includes the judge himself."
Maryanne Spillane, attorney for Teamsters Local 700

Judge Lyke defended his practice by invoking one of the most important principles in American law. A defendant is presumed innocent.

He is right.

But presumption of innocence does not erase a documented security risk. It does not require deputies to ignore a high risk classification. It does not transform restraints into punishment or make every safety precaution an attack on a defendant's humanity.

A person can be presumed innocent and remain restrained. A family can be treated with dignity while a supervisor reviews a request for physical contact. Compassion can exist alongside caution.

The false choice is believing one must destroy the other.

A hug sounds harmless. In an ordinary room, it usually is. In a criminal courtroom, an embrace places bodies together, closes distances and creates movement around a detainee. It can offer comfort. It can also create access, distraction or an opportunity that deputies are specifically assigned to prevent.

The issue is not whether a judge should possess compassion.

The issue is whether his compassion should overrule the trained officers who will be blamed if something goes wrong.

If the restraints had been removed and the defendant had attacked someone, reached for equipment, received contraband or attempted to escape, no one would have accepted the explanation that the judge wanted to allow a brief family moment. The deputies would have been asked why they ignored policy. Their training would have been questioned. Their careers could have been destroyed.

On September 9, they refused to take that chance.

Judge Lyke reportedly treated them as the problem.

The Sheriff's Office then revealed that this confrontation may not have been an isolated eruption. In February 2025, Lyke allegedly ordered deputies to leave a jury room where a detainee was meeting with an attorney and family members. The officers said their instructions required them to remain with the detainee.

According to an incident report cited by the Chicago Sun Times, Lyke said he did not care what their bosses had told them. He then threatened to have them removed if they did not leave the room.

One confrontation can be blamed on confusion. Two confrontations involving deputies who say they were following security instructions demand a much more uncomfortable question.

Is this a disagreement over policy, or is it a pattern of judicial hostility toward the officers responsible for enforcing it?

The Sheriff's Office placed that question directly before Cook County leadership.

"This is not the first time Judge Lyke has threatened to jail our staff for doing their jobs."
Cook County Sheriff's Office

The statement matters not only because of what allegedly happened to the deputies, but because of Judge Lyke's recent history with another defendant whose risk became tragically real.

His name is Alphanso Talley.

Talley had appeared before Lyke for years. In December 2025, the judge released him on electronic monitoring despite objections from Cook County prosecutors. At the time, Talley faced armed carjacking and armed robbery charges and had four pending violent felony cases, according to court records and reporting by the Chicago Sun Times.

Prosecutors argued that no combination of release conditions could guarantee his compliance. Lyke acknowledged that four pending cases were egregious, but said he had seen positive changes in Talley's attitude.

The court trusted what it believed it saw.

The warning signs did not stop.

Talley missed two curfews in March. Days later, his electronic monitoring device turned off and did not come back on. He failed to appear for a March 11 court date. Warrants were issued, but he was not returned to custody.

Then came April 25.

Prosecutors allege Talley entered a dollar store, stole money and repeatedly struck a clerk in the face with a handgun, breaking her nose. Police located him and arrested him. After he claimed to have swallowed drugs, officers transported him to Swedish Hospital.

Inside the hospital, prosecutors say, Talley pulled a concealed gun from beneath a blanket.

Officer John Bartholomew was shot in the head and killed. His partner was shot in the face and critically wounded. Talley allegedly fired through a hospital window, escaped and was later captured.

Talley is accused of those crimes and remains entitled to the presumption of innocence. Judge Lyke did not fire the weapon. He did not cause Talley to conceal it. The failures surrounding the search, the weapon and the unserved warrants require their own scrutiny.

But accountability does not require pretending the history is irrelevant.

Prosecutors had warned the court about Talley's four pending violent felony cases. Judge Lyke released him on monitoring. Talley allegedly violated the conditions of that release and disappeared from supervision. The system did not return him to custody before Officer Bartholomew was killed.

Months after that tragedy, deputies stood in Judge Lyke's courtroom and warned through their actions that another detainee was considered high risk. They refused to remove his restraints without supervisory approval.

This time, the judge did not release the detainee.

He detained the deputies.

No fair account should claim these events are identical. They are not. But together they expose the same question about risk, restraint and judgment.

How many warnings must be ignored before caution is treated as wisdom instead of insubordination?

The crisis extends beyond a single judge. In May, the Office of the Chief Judge disclosed that at least 246 defendants placed on electronic monitoring were unaccounted for despite warrants for their arrests. More than half of the defendants in the county's monitoring program had been charged with violent crimes or weapons offenses, according to an Axios analysis of county data.

Cook County State's Attorney Eileen O'Neill Burke said the safeguards were falling short and warned that unaccounted defendants create the potential for more violence, more victims and more fear.

Criminal justice reform advocates responded that most monitored defendants complete the program successfully. They argued that public policy should not be driven by a relatively small number of failures. That view deserves to be included. Constitutional protections cannot depend on public anger, political slogans or the worst act committed by one defendant.

But the people of Cook County are also entitled to ask what the word failure means when the consequences are measured in blood.

To a statistician, one missing defendant may be a fraction of a percentage point.

To a victim, that defendant can become the entire story.

Chicago and Cook County have endured recurring shootings, robberies, carjackings, murders and destructive gatherings. The violence is not contained by county lines. Communities across Illinois are confronting the consequences of policies that many residents believe place more faith in offenders than in the police officers, deputies and victims forced to live with the results.

The phrase soft on crime is often dismissed as political rhetoric. Public distrust, however, is not manufactured by a phrase. It is built case by case, warning by warning and victim by victim. It deepens when prosecutors identify a danger and a violent defendant is still released. It deepens when hundreds of monitored defendants cannot be located. It becomes something darker when officers are ordered to manage danger, then punished for taking that danger seriously.

Chief Judge Charles S. Beach II said his office reviewed the September 9 confrontation and discussed it with Sheriff's Office leadership to ensure a clear understanding of procedures and responsibilities.

That statement answers almost nothing.

Was Judge Lyke authorized to order the restraints removed from a detainee classified as high risk?

Were the deputies required to obey him immediately, or were they required to wait for their supervisor?

Why were their badges and protective equipment taken?

What legal process supported holding them in contempt?

Why were they reportedly told that an apology could determine whether they faced jail?

Was the February 2025 incident investigated?

Have other deputies reported similar threats?

Will Judge Lyke be disciplined, retrained or referred to the Judicial Inquiry Board?

Cook County has not publicly answered those questions. It has offered a discussion about understanding.

The public deserves accountability.

The full courtroom transcript should be released. The applicable restraint policy should be made public. Any available video from before or after the proceeding should be preserved and reviewed. The contempt order and the process behind it should be examined by someone who does not answer to the judge whose behavior is in question.

The deputies deserve more than permission to return to work after apologizing for trying to keep a courtroom safe.

They deserve to know whether the rules they were trained to follow still mean anything.

Judicial independence is essential. Judicial immunity from scrutiny is not.

A black robe grants extraordinary authority. It does not guarantee flawless judgment. It does not turn anger into wisdom. It does not make a courtroom safer when the officers watching for danger are told to stand down.

No one was attacked in Judge Lyke's courtroom that day. No weapon appeared. No family embrace became violent.

That does not prove the deputies overreacted.

It may prove the restraints did exactly what restraints are meant to do. They kept a dangerous possibility from becoming a permanent tragedy.

Cook County should not need another shattered courtroom, another wounded officer or another grieving family before its leaders decide that security procedures are not optional. The next warning may last only seconds. The next mistake may be impossible to reverse.

And the next time officials say no one could have seen the danger coming, the public should remember September 9.

The deputies saw it.

They followed their orders.

And the judge put them in custody for it.