Fix is In?

Looking like the Machine can't risk a change of venue:

• In a highly unusual move, attorneys for Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke want a different judge to decide whether the trial over Laquan McDonald’s shooting should be moved outside Cook County, saying the judge presiding over the hot-button case made up his mind long ago to keep it in Chicago.
  
  Even though Judge Vincent Gaughan has scheduled a hearing on the issue for early next month, the filing Wednesday by Daniel Herbert, Van Dyke’s lead lawyer, said the judge has made clear his intentions to refuse to move the trial.
  
  “Any further proceedings would be nothing more than a show, much like a professional wrestling match wherein the outcome has been pre-determined,” Herbert wrote.
  
  As evidence, Herbert noted that Gaughan set a trial date earlier this month before hearing any substantive arguments about moving the trial — a signal, he contended, that the judge already knows how he will rule.
  
  The filing also briefly quoted from a sealed transcript of a closed hearing in June — sure to draw the ire of Gaughan, who has taken extraordinary measures to control the release of information in the case.

Given the historical corruption that has riven the Cook County courts and government (Operations Silver Shovel, Incubator, Lantern, Gambat, and Safebet) it's obvious to even the casual observer that a politically charged trial like this is more than likely susceptible to outside "pressures." Gaughan has been overly secretive, perhaps to a fault, but certainly more than what is considered the norm and he probably shouldn't be in the decision loop regarding a change of venue.