Judge unseals motion to move Jason Van Dyke murder trial out of Cook County

Lawyers for the Chicago Police officer charged with the murder of Laquan McDonald say that the publicity surrounding the case has made it impossible for Jason Van Dyke to get a fair trial in front of Cook County jurors.

Van Dike's motion for a change of venue, filed in March but unsealed only this week by Judge Vincent Gaughan, includes nearly 600 pages of press releases and news articles, sections of reports from the U.S. Department of Justice and a mayoral police reform task force - all of which Van Dyke's attorneys say are evidence of a "massive flood of pretrial publicity" that would taint potential jurors.

Video from a police dashboard camera showing Van Dyke shoot the 17-year-old McDonald 16 times in October 2014 had been viewed 4 million times, and the furor over the video prompted Mayor Rahm Emanuel to call the shooting "hideous."

City officials in 2015 also released the full investigative file on the shooting, the motion states.

"It can be argued that there is no case in history that presents a more compelling example of the necessity for a change of place of trial," the motion states.

Defense lawyers said they also will add to their motion a report from a California-based consultant, who has spent six months analyzing news coverage of McDonald shooting and polling residents of Cook and the collar counties.

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