Illinois Supreme Court to rule on suburban murder case

SPRINGFIELD -- The Illinois Supreme Court is expected to rule Friday on whether the family of a murdered Glenview woman can go forward with a lawsuit against Palatine and Glenview police.

Relatives of Mary Lacey - who was found slain with her mother, Margaret Ballog, in Lacey's Glenview home in 2004 - blame the two departments for failing to arrest her former boyfriend, Steven Zirko. The family alleges the agencies were tipped off earlier to a murder-for-hire plot and maintain the police had an obligation to protect her.

Lacey, 38, and Ballog, 60, were found dead Dec. 13, 2004. Zirko is awaiting trial, accused of asking a chiropractor and two others - all of whom refused - to take part in the killing. He's charged with solicitation to commit murder and the actual killing.

The family's lawsuit was filed in 2005. The suit claims a state domestic violence act essentially obligates police officers who have been alerted to potential violence to take "reasonable measures" to protect victims.

Attorney Jennifer L. Medenwald, representing Palatine, claimed the domestic violence act does not apply under the circumstances of this case.

"The Palatine defendants weren't investigating the violation of the protective order and they weren't responding to a domestic violence call," Medenwald said during oral arguments before the Supreme Court in November.

During that hearing, Gary McCallister, attorney for the Lacey family, rejected Medenwald's argument.

"This woman had numerous protective orders in effect, all of which were known to Palatine and Glenview," McCallister said. "The promise was made by the police departments ... that they would provide her with protection."

Glenview police responded to a domestic violence call at Lacey's home in October 2004, admitted Glenview attorney Richard Stavins. But the domestic violence law did not continue to apply when Lacey was murdered two months later, Stavins argued.

Medenwald asked the state's high court to reinstate a trial court order dismissing the entire lawsuit.

An appeals court decision in February 2008 allowed the family to proceed with the lawsuit relating to Lacey, but not her mother.