‘An intellect, a bully, and a great judge’: Courthouse leader Vincent Gaughan set to retire after handling Chicago’s biggest cases

CHICAGO — During a rare pause in Courtroom 500 one recent morning, Judge Vincent Gaughan saw something he deemed outrageous: A spectator was sitting with his arms spread out on the back of the pew, chatting.

“Sir! In the back! Don’t be talkin’ in my courtroom!” Gaughan yelled from the bench. “You could lose your liberty, do you understand? It’s not an outdoor movie show, either. Put your arms down.”

The man put his arms down. He stayed quiet.

Then a defendant was escorted into the courtroom screaming.

“I BEEN SITTING 10 MONTHS FOR A CASE THAT I DIDN’T DO,” he said. “I BEEN SITTING 10 MONTHS FOR A CASE I DIDN’T DO, LITERALLY!”

Gaughan stood up. The gallery held its breath. But the judge spoke gently and addressed the man by name. Under his gaze, the defendant softened.

“My name is Vince Gaughan,” the judge said. “ … This isn’t a guilt or innocence thing, this is to see if you can get treatment in a hospital.”

The defendant quieted and hunched over deeply in his seat. After a brief hearing, Gaughan ordered him released and put into mental health treatment.

“And I give you my word I’m not going to just let you sit over there,” Gaughan told him. “So I’ll keep track of you.”

Gaughan is retiring after 31 years on the Cook County bench much like that: caustic but fatherly, autocratic but skilled, temperamental with everyone in his courtroom except — usually — the defendants themselves.

Some of those defendants have been the most infamous ever to set foot in the criminal courthouse: R. Kelly, ex-Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke, the men accused of the Brown’s Chicken massacre. Gaughan has had his hand on the tiller of Cook County history.

Word of his retirement surprised many. Gaughan gets