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    Every few minutes someone was called before the judge, and another man or woman was led away. The hearings were just a drone barely audible in the front bench. There was no gaveling, no voices raised. Assistant prosecutors were continually referring to their case files from a stack on a gray metal cart, and assembly-line defendants were not even faces after a judge’s first few months.
    You could tell when Olson was feeling good because he eased the monotony of an overloaded court call with a stream of banter. When well-known defense attorney Sam Adam arrived in a red and white checked sport coat instead of his usual suit, Judge Olson said, “You know, Mr. Adam, there’s an Italian restaurant somewhere in this city that’s missing a tablecloth.”
    Another time a confessed burglar appeared before the saggy, baggy white-haired judge. Before sending the thief to the Vandalia prison farm, he asked the defendant if he had anything to say.
    â€œIt’s my birthday, Your Honor,” the burglar answered, hoping for a lighter sentence.
    Olson stood up, clasped his hands behind his back, and sang, “Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you. One year in Vandalia, happy birthday to you!” He then sat down and told the bailiff, “Get him out of here.”
    I arrived early on my first day at Olson’s court so I could strike up a conversation with his clerk and occasional driver, *Charlie Squeteri. Even before the bailiff could say “All rise, the court is now in session,” I saw an attorney approach Squeteri with money in hand to have his client called first. That would slash the lawyer’s wait time so he could handle an additional client and make more money. Noticing my gawking, the attorney slid the cash back into his pocket. I obviously would have to stop showing such scruples if I was to be taken for corrupt.
    Nothing happened for three days, but on Thursday of that first week a black policeman serving in an elite suburban undercover narcoticsunit testified against a white dealer who had sold him narcotics. At our recommendation, the judge conducted the hearing in his chambers to keep the officer from being seen by drug pushers waiting for their cases.
    Testimony established that the defendant had approached the officer and asked if he wanted some heroin, so there was no entrapment. Olson occasionally fingered his lip and then ruled that the officer had violated the rules against entrapment and therefore there was no probable cause for an arrest. Even though the Justice Department was sure Olson was crooked, the decision upset me. Undercover drug cases are the most dangerous of all police assignments, yet he might as well have slapped this officer in the face.
    But Olson on the bench was nothing like Olson at leisure. I was one of three assistant state’s attorneys (ASAs) assigned to a long, narrow office built into the side of his courtroom. The office—more like a hut—was not much more than an elongated closet, but dirtier. On the day after the entrapment ruling Olson took us to an Italian restaurant, and in his gritty baritone told us one delightful story after another. To him there was no such thing as justice; everything was just absurdity on both sides. I found myself almost forgiving him for ruling against the evidence. I’m sure that’s what he had in mind by inviting me. Not that he paid the bill.
    The undercover policeman’s case was the first evidently rigged verdict I’d seen since my transfer from felony review, but my contact FBI agent, Lamar Jordan, told me we had no way of proving it. Even so, he asked me to copy the police report as the initial solid evidence against the judge.
    Sometime later a fellow prosecutor, Brian Scanlon, told me that one day “Silvery Bob” Silverman and another defense attorney went up to him at different times while Olson was away and offered to split their fees with him if he would