After years of delays, a judge Friday set another trial date in the infamous South Bend Police tapes case.
You’ve heard it before, but here it is again: A trial date has been set in the South Bend Common Council’s 13-year-old lawsuit against the city administration. The council wants the mayor to turn over recordings of phone conversations from 2011 that allegedly capture officers saying racist things about the late Darryl Boykins, the city’s first Black police chief. He died in December at age 70.
St. Joseph Superior Judge Jamie Woods on Friday set the case for a two-day bench trial, meaning he’ll rule instead of a jury, for December 9 and 10. A year ago Woods set a trial date for November 2024 but the parties agreed in October to postpone it at the council’s request, with a new trial set for June 18.
But when the council again asked for a delay, and the defendant officers agreed, that trial date was canceled earlier this month.
Under an agreement reached Friday, after the two day trial in December, Woods will have until March 27 to make a ruling in the case.
