Barrington Lawyer Recalls 'Defending a Monster'

Barrington resident Sam Amirante vividly remembers the phone call he received one cold December day in 1978 that would change his life.

"Sam, could you do me a favor?" the caller said.  

The voice on the other end of the phone belonged to John Wayne Gacy. 

Thirty-three years later, the defense attorney for one of the world's most reviled serial killers has brought his courtroom drama to life in a new book titled, "John Wayne Gacy, Defending a Monster." 

Co-written by former colleague and author Danny Broderick, a resident of Lake Zurich, the book is a dramatic, heart-pounding tribute to the American Constitution and the rights of those accused of crimes.   

At a book signing event at the Barnes & Noble store in Arlington Heights on Oct. 5, Amirante summed up the essence of his story in a booming voice belying his compact five-feet-two-inch stature, to a crowd of high school students students, police officers retired judges and True Crime junkies.   

"No other case in history better tests our venerable Sixth Amendment, which states that every person accused of a crime shall have the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of his peers," he said. "That every person so accused shall have the right to face his accuser in a court of law. And that every person so accused shall have the right to counsel."   

Gacy was accused and convicted of assaulting and murdering 33 teenage boys between 1972 and 1978.  

Amirante and his co-counsel, Bob Motta, asserted the insanity defense. While they failed to make their case to the jury — Gacy was executed for his crimes in 1994 — their story transcends the horrifying acts of a broken man to display in full view the American system of justice at its finest.  

Amirante and Broderick recently returned from a West Coast book tour where movie rights to the book are being discussed.   

During the course of the trial, Amirante and his family were subjected to harassing late night calls, death threats and property damage.     

"Nobody likes to be relentlessy vilified, especially when you know deep in your soul that the job you're doing is absolutely necessary to the administration of justice," Amirante said. "Wives and family members were involuntarily swept up in the tornado of activity that came with the territory. They hadn't signed up for this level of crazy. The death threats and late-night telephone calls from the truly stupid and cowardly became part of our lives."

As Gacy's four-week trial came to a close and numerous guilty verdicts reverberated throughout the courtroom, Amirante recalls the emotional apex of that final day in court.   

"Everyone knew that they had witnessed a fair and just trial," he said. "Justice had spoken. Justice had won. The Constitution had won; just as its writers,our founding father, had envisioned it."   

A former U.S. Marine, Amirante graduated from Loyola University law school in 1974 and began his legal career in the Cook Country Public Defender's Office, eventually becoming the supervising attorney for Northwest Suburban Cook County. 

Shortly after he entered private practice in 1978, Amirante received the fateful call. Gacy was his first client in his new practice. 

In 1988, after 10 years in private practice, Amirante was appointed to the bench and served as a full circuit court judge in the Rolling Meadows courthouse for 13 years and three years as a judge in Chicago.  He has since returned to private prace, where he concentrates in the areas of criminal and civil litigation.   

A graduate of John Marshall Law School, Broderick was a practicing criminal defense attorney for 20 years before leaving his practice to write a book about wiretapping titled, "When Money Talks: Buford Tucker Listens." 

Impressed by Broderick's writing ability, Amirante approached him with the idea of a book about the Gacy case.   

"I'd been in the courtroom," he said. "I had worked with Sam in his practice and I knew his style. He didn't want to come across as apologetic for defending this crazy man. From the beginning, it was about Constitutional rights and the American justice system. With this case, we knew we could tell the story in a compelling way."