Opinion
No. 02 C 8143, (01 CR 35).
January 3, 2003
MEMORANDUM ORDER
Because this Court's November 19, 2002 memorandum opinion and order ("Opinion"), having been misfiled and consequently delayed in entry as the result of a clerical error, crossed in the mails the self-prepared document authored by James Parks ("Parks") and captioned "Motion For Leave To Amend 28 U.S.C. § 2255 Motion To Vacate, Set Aside Or Correct Sentence," this Court issued a December 20, 2002 memorandum that:
1. returned Parks' filing to him to allow him to decide what action he might wish to take and
2. advised Parks that any replacement submission he might send in would be treated as having been received on the same December 16 date as his motion for leave to amend.
In response Parks has resubmitted the identical documentation, simply having re-executed the papers on December 26, 2002.
There is no reason to change the analysis and conclusions already reached in the Opinion. Parks' current filings persist in advancing his misconceived notion that Count Two of the Indictment, the one to which he pleaded guilty, was untimely returned (an asserted jurisdictional defect), so that the representation provided by Parks' counsel was constitutionally inadequate because counsel had failed to urge that position.
But the indictment was returned on January 16, 2001, and the evidence in support of the Count Two conspiracy charge included (among other conduct) the late January or early February 1996 reinstatement at Parks' instance of someone who had paid a bribe to become a Dixmoor Park District "police officer," who had then been suspended because of a failure to sell or purchase the required allotment of tickets to a fund-raising function and who had then made good on the requirement after the suspension. Because at least one overt act that was committed during the course of, and in furtherance of, the charged conspiracy thus took place less than five years before the return of the indictment (and what has just been outlined is only exemplary), the indictment was timely.
In short, Parks' fundamentally mistaken arguments as to untimeliness have gained nothing by their repetition. And critically as to the assertedly inadequate representation by Parks' counsel, this Court need only repeat what it said in the Opinion: No lawyer can be faulted for not having advanced a legally frivolous argument of that type on behalf of his client.
In summary, then, the original summary dismissal of Parks' Section 2255 Motion is reconfirmed. This action remains terminated under both Parks' original Section 2255 motion and his proposed amendment.