United States v. Joseph Martinez, Paul Mahn, and Garth Cohen

POSNER, Chief Judge.

It is a Wednesday evening in April. A car is proceeding east on Division, a major thoroughfare in downtown Chicago. As it reaches the corner of Dearborn (the avenue on which this courthouse is located a few miles south of the intersection with Division), the car is rocked by an explosion from within, and stops. The force of the explosion jams the doors and blows out the windows. Two men clamber through the empty window frames. One, the driver, his hair on fire, staggers off, refuses bystanders’ offers of assistance, leaps into a cab, vanishes. He is Paul Mahn, one of the…