Edward V. Hanrahan is acquitted (Oct 1972) of conspiring to obstruct justice stemming from a controversial 1969 raid by his police on a Black Panther apartment. But his re-election bid loses to Republican Bernard Carey.

December 4, 1969, at 4:15 a.m., gunfire suddenly erupted and fourteen officers, working under the direction of Cook County State's Attorney Edward V. Hanrahan, burst into the home of 20-year-old Fred Hampton - the leader of the Chicago chapter of the Black Panther Party. When the sound of gunfire faded, Hampton lay dead in his bed, with Panther member Mark Clark nearby. Several other occupants of the apartment survived gunshot wounds. The police emerged unscathed. Police had pumped at least 98 rounds into the apartment. The falsification of ballistics and other evidence, and so on, led to the indictment of State's Attorney Hanrahan, and a dozen Chicago police personnel for conspiring to obstruct justice. This was dropped by Chicago Judge Phillip Romitti on November 1, 1972 as part of a quid pro quo arrangement in which remaining charges were dropped against the Panther survivors.

In November of 1982 - the City of Chicago, Cook County and the Federal Government entered into a settlement agreement that awarded 1.85 million dollars to the nine survivors and the relatives of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark. Cf. Hanrahan v. Hampton, et al., 446 U.S. 754, 100 S.C. 1987 (1980). Ballistics experts determined that only one of the bullets was fired from a weapon belonging to one of the apartment's occupants. In addition, the experts said, the "bullet holes" in the front door, which the police said showed that shots had come from within, had actually been made by nails used by the authorities in an effort to cover up the facts of the raid. Not a single officer or anyone at the State's Attorney's office or the FBI ever spent a day in jail for the murders of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark. Some of the officers involved in the raid are still members of the Chicago Police Department. Thirty years later, Richard M. Daley (Richard J.'s son) is Mayor of Chicago and former Illinois Black Panther Bobby Rush is a member of the United States Congress. In 1999, Rush ran for mayor of Chicago. He lost.

Hanrahan lost his reelection bid to Bernard Carey in 1972. People who normally voted democrat turned out in record numbers to vote a republican into office.