Shomari Legghette Case: Trial, Appeals, and Armslist Lawsuit

The Shomari Legghette case ended in a mandatory life sentence for the 2018 murder of Chicago Police Commander Paul Bauer, and it closed for good on October 6, 2025, when the United States Supreme Court denied Legghette’s petition for review. A Cook County jury convicted him of first-degree murder in March 2020, and because jurors specifically found he killed a peace officer in the line of duty, Illinois law required natural life without the possibility of parole.

The Shooting at the Thompson Center

On the afternoon of February 13, 2018, officers from the Chicago Police Department’s 1st District tried to conduct a field interview with Legghette on Lower Wacker Drive. He ran, and the officers put his description out over the radio.¹

Commander Paul Bauer, a 31-year veteran downtown for a training session, heard the call, spotted a matching man near 161 North Clark Street, and gave chase into the Thompson Center plaza.² The two men grappled at the top of an outdoor stairwell leading to the building’s food court and fell down the stairs together. On a lower landing, Legghette drew a 9mm Glock fitted with an extended 30-round magazine and shot Bauer six times, striking his head, neck, torso, back, and wrist. Bauer’s service weapon stayed in its holster; forensic testing confirmed he never fired it.³

Bauer was pronounced dead at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Officers arrested Legghette at the top of the staircase. He was wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying cocaine, heroin, and marijuana.⁴ Gunshot residue was found on his right hand and on his jacket pocket.⁵

Who Legghette Was Before the Shooting

Legghette was a four-time convicted felon on the day he shot Bauer. His record included armed robbery from the late 1990s (roughly eight years in prison), two drug convictions, a gun offense, and a misdemeanor battery.⁶ In 2007, while on parole, he was arrested on charges including possession of a gun with a defaced serial number and unlawful use of body armor by a felon; he pleaded guilty to the gun charge and received three years.⁷

Because of those felonies, Legghette was legally prohibited from possessing a firearm at the time of the shooting.

The Trial and Self-Defense Argument

Jury selection began February 27, 2020, at the Leighton Criminal Court Building before Judge Erica Reddick.⁸ Prosecutors narrowed the 56-count indictment to six trial counts: two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of first-degree murder of a peace officer, and two counts of armed violence. Before trial, the defense had offered a plea to second-degree murder at 20 years and 85 percent; the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office rejected it.

The prosecution argued that Legghette knew Bauer was a police officer and killed him to avoid arrest for the gun and drugs he was carrying. Assistant State’s Attorney Risa Lanier called the shooting an execution and pointed to how well-armed Legghette was, carrying the Glock with its extended magazine, a long metal stake, and multiple narcotics.⁴ Commander Warren Richards testified that Bauer had been in uniform.³ Cook County Chief Medical Examiner Ponni Arunkumar testified to six gunshot wounds, two of them rapidly lethal, and told jurors that none of the wounds showed signs of being fired at close range. That finding cut directly against the defense theory. Eyewitness Maurice Henderson testified that he saw an officer holding a man by the coat, heard shots after the men fell down the stairs, and saw no additional shots fired once other officers arrived.⁹

Defense attorney Scott Kamin, a civil rights lawyer who took the case pro bono,¹⁰ argued self-defense. He told the jury Legghette did not know Bauer was a police officer because the commander wore a large jacket over his uniform, and he claimed Legghette fired only after Bauer placed him in a chokehold. “It’s a tragedy, but Cmdr. Bauer brought it on himself,” Kamin said.¹¹ Judge Reddick had barred the defense from introducing three 1990s incidents in which Bauer allegedly used excessive force or racist language, ruling them too remote in time to be relevant to 2018.¹² A longtime friend, Marcus Perkins, testified that carrying a gun and wearing body armor was “pretty much the norm” for Legghette.¹³ Legghette did not take the stand.

On March 13, 2020, the jury convicted him on all six counts and specifically found that he murdered a peace officer in the course of his official duties and that he knew or should have known Bauer was a police officer.¹⁴

Life Without Parole

Legghette was sentenced on October 28, 2020. The jury’s finding that he killed a peace officer in the line of duty made natural life without the possibility of parole mandatory under Illinois law.¹ The court merged all convictions into the first-degree murder count before imposing sentence.¹⁴

Bauer’s widow, Erin, told the court that losing her husband violently “adds another level of pain that is indescribable” and called Legghette’s actions the “weak and cowardly way out of the situation.”¹⁵ Their daughter, Grace, said her father stayed on the force out of love for the job despite already having earned a full pension, and told the court that after losing both her father and her grandmother in 2018, “the good guys didn’t win.”¹⁶

Legghette addressed the court but did not apologize. He called the shooting an “unfortunate calamity” rooted in racial profiling, said Bauer had acted in a “reckless and egregious” manner by failing to identify himself, and accused prosecutors of fabricating documents, withholding evidence, and planting evidence. “There was nothing fair about this prosecution,” he said.¹

The Appeals

Legghette appealed to the Appellate Court of Illinois, First District, on three main grounds. He argued that Judge Reddick wrongly excluded evidence of Bauer’s alleged past aggression toward African Americans, that she should have granted a mistrial after jurors saw body-worn camera footage containing a prejudicial officer remark, and that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to call a supposed eyewitness named Joseph Currie.¹⁴

The body-camera issue involved Officer Anja Bouch saying she did not “want to be alone with this guy” while transporting Legghette. The trial court sustained an objection and gave a curative instruction; the appellate panel called the comment “isolated and fleeting” and found the response proper. On ineffective assistance, the panel noted that defense counsel had investigated the purported witness but could not locate him or confirm his credibility. On November 22, 2023, a three-justice panel affirmed the conviction.¹²

Legghette then sought leave to appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court. That petition (Case No. 131085) was denied on November 27, 2024.¹⁷ He next filed a petition for a writ of certiorari with the United States Supreme Court, docketed as No. 25-5076. Illinois waived its right to respond. On October 6, 2025, the Supreme Court denied the petition, ending Legghette’s direct appeal.¹⁸

Erin Bauer’s Lawsuit Against Armslist

The criminal case is not the only litigation to come out of the shooting. On February 12, 2020, Erin Bauer filed a federal lawsuit in the Eastern District of Wisconsin against Armslist LLC, the online firearms marketplace where the gun used to kill her husband had been listed. The complaint alleged that Armslist designed its site to “actively encourage, assist and profit from the illegal sale and purchase of firearms” by defaulting transactions to private-party sales, letting buyers bypass federal background checks.¹⁹

According to the lawsuit, Wisconsin resident Thomas Caldwell ran what amounted to a virtual gun store on the site, listing over 200 firearms between December 2015 and his arrest for unlicensed dealing. A buyer named Ron Jones bought a Glock 26 9mm from Caldwell through Armslist in 2017 and later resold it into the criminal market, where it ended up with Legghette. Both Caldwell and Jones were later charged federally.¹⁹

The Bauer case was consolidated with a similar lawsuit brought by the family of Sara J. Schmidt. A federal district court dismissed both cases, and on June 12, 2023, the Seventh Circuit affirmed. The appellate court held that the negligence claims were barred by Wisconsin public policy factors, reasoning that the plaintiffs were trying to hold a website liable for standards the state legislature had reserved for licensed firearms dealers. Because the dismissal stood on state law grounds, the court did not reach whether the federal Communications Decency Act would also have shielded Armslist.²⁰

Where Legghette Is Now

Legghette is incarcerated at Hill Correctional Center in Galesburg, Illinois, under inmate number K74929.¹⁸ With the Supreme Court’s October 2025 denial, his direct appeal is exhausted. His mandatory natural life sentence carries no eligibility for release.

1
WTTW News. Shomari Legghette Sentenced to Life in Prison for Murder of CPD Cmdr. Paul Bauer
2
CPD Memorial. Commander Paul R. Bauer, Star 29
3
ABC 7 Chicago. Trial of Man Accused of Killing CPD Cmdr. Bauer Begins
4
NBC Chicago. Opening Arguments Begin in Trial of Man Accused of Killing CPD Commander Paul Bauer
5
WBEZ. Prosecutor: Slain Police Commander Was Shot 6 Times
6
Chicago Tribune. Shomari Legghette, a 4-Time Felon, Pleads Not Guilty in Killing of Chicago Police Cmdr. Paul Bauer
7
Chicago Tribune. Suspect in Police Killing Wore Body Armor, but Authorities Say That’s Not Unheard Of
8
WTTW News. Jury Selection to Begin for Man Accused of Killing Chicago Police Cmdr. Paul Bauer
9
WTTW News. Prosecution Rests Its Case in Cmdr. Paul Bauer Murder Trial
10
Chicago Sun-Times. Civil Rights Attorney to Defend Man Accused of Killing Police Cmdr. Paul Bauer
11
NPR. Defense: Slain Police Commander Brought It on Himself
12
Chicago Sun-Times. Appellate Court Upholds Shomari Legghette Murder Conviction
13
WTTW News. Shomari Legghette Trial: Murder of Police Commander Paul Bauer
14
Illinois Courts. People v. Legghette, 2023 IL App (1st) 201253-U
15
ABC 7 Chicago. Shomari Legghette Sentencing for Killing of Chicago Police Cmdr. Paul Bauer
16
Chicago Tribune. Convicted Killer of Police Cmdr. Paul Bauer Sentenced to Life in Prison
17
U.S. Supreme Court. Petition for Writ of Certiorari, Legghette v. Illinois
18
U.S. Supreme Court. Docket for Legghette v. Illinois, No. 25-5076
19
WTTW News. Widow of Slain Chicago Police Commander Paul Bauer Suing Online Arms Marketplace
20
FindLaw. Webber v. Armslist LLC