Criminal Justice

Access to Counsel—At times our projects touch upon practices which risk violating rights protected under the U.S. Constitution. For example, in 2012, the Illinois Supreme Court Rules Committee considered adopting Proposal No. 12-01, which would have allowed Bond hearings to be done via video conference, hypothetically eliminating the need to transport defendants to Bond Court. Our research found that the practice drove up bond amounts, reduced empathy and trust between parties, and severely compromised defendants’ rights to effective assistance of counsel. Our advocacy and that of our partners prevented this practice from continuing in Cook County.

Similarly, in 2013, we uncovered a widespread practice of Preliminary Hearing Judges denying public defenders to individuals based solely on the fact that they’d posted bond and without the constitutionally-required and statutorily-mandated indigency hearings. Our court watchers documented the practice while our pro bono attorneys from DLA Piper, Loevy & Loevy, and the Collaboration for Justice’s Criminal Justice Committee developed proposals for Chief Judge Evans. In response to our work, Chief Judge Evans issued a general administrative order aiming to correct the problem. Chicago Appleseed continues to investigate and develop solutions to this issue to ensure that the 6^th Amendment rights of indigent people are observed in Cook County.

We work to ensure that all indigent felony defendants are awarded public defenders, regardless of whether they have posted bond or not. Chicago Appleseed has been continuously seeking to increase stationhouse representation for all arrested individuals (informed by the findings of our consultant’s report on the role of the Public Defender, First Defense Legal Aid, Justice Advisory Council, and the Office of the Chief Judge in increasing the amount and the quality of stationhouse representation in Cook County).

READ:

• Nationwide Jurisdictional Survey of the Right to Communicate After Arrest (July 2021)
• Examination of the Quality and Capacity of Stationhouse Representation in Cook County (August 2020)
• Ensuring the Public Defense of Indigent Criminal Defendants in Cook County  (August 2015)
• Memo & Proposed General Order: Constitutional Violations in Cook County: Denying A Public Defender to Indigent Criminal Defendants Who Post Bond (June 2013)

Pretrial Justice—Chicago Appleseed is a key member of the Coalition to End Money Bond, conveying the group in 2016. We continually review pretrial conditions including length-of-stay in Cook County Jail, reducing time from arrest to preliminary hearings, and use of pretrial electronic monitoring (EM). We’ve evaluated the potential constitutional implications of electronic monitoring devices that record exact GPS location and/or voice and sound of the individual being monitored and those around them. We fought for and have continued to ensure the appropriate administration of General Order 18.8A, a court order issued by Chief Judge Timothy Evans that mandates that no person will be detained pretrial simply because they are unable to afford bond; in 2021, the Coalition to End Money Bond helped pass the Pretrial Fairness Act, which will end the use of cash bail in Illinois in 2023.

READ:

• 10 Facts about Pretrial Electronic Monitoring in Cook County (September 2021)
• Protecting Public Health Through Decarceration: Holding Cook County’s Criminal Courts Accountable During the COVID-19 Pandemic (September 2020)
• Vision for a Just Pretrial System: How to End Money Bond and Increase Pretrial Freedom (January 2020)
• Protecting Pretrial Freedom: Two Years of Bond Reform in Cook County (September 2019)
• Pursuing Pretrial Freedom: The Urgent Need for Bond Reform in Illinois (June 2019)
• Monitoring Cook County’s Central Bond Court: A Community Courtwatching Initiative (February 2018)
• Letter to the Illinois Supreme Court Rules Committee in support of Affordable Bail Rule (November 2017)
• Principles of Bail Reform in Cook County (April 2017)
• Legislation Policy Brief: Proposal to Reduce Time to Preliminary Hearings (2014)
• Pre-Trial Delay and Length of Stay in Cook County Jail (October 2013)
• Policy Brief: Early Criminal Case Assessment in Urban Jurisdictions (August 2012)

Courts impose costs, fines, and fees on people accused of crimes, and when individuals can’t afford to pay, they accrue criminal justice debt. Across the country, these fines and fees function as “user fees” that penalize people solely for their poverty. Criminal justice debt can also include collateral consequences that impact an individual’s ability to move beyond their system involvement.

In Illinois, Chicago Appleseed has been working with partner organizations to reform the criminal courts’ system of fines and fees through legislation and technical assistance. We pushed for and have helped to monitor the implementation of Court Debt legislation aimed at reducing the burden of excessive court costs, fines, and fees, and have develop training and education programs to advise Assistant Public Defenders, Assistant Prosecutors, criminal defense practitioners, and the community on court debt issues.

Related Publications

• Court Costs, Fines, and Fees are Bad Policy: Recommendations for Illinois Legislators (July 2020)
• Common Issues with Criminal Court Fines, Fees, and Costs in Cook County: A practice guide for criminal defense attorneys (January 2018)
• Statement on Excessive Court Fines, Fees, and Costs (May 2016)
  • Executive Summary
  • Attachment: Catalogue of fines, fees, and costs imposed by Illinois criminal courts
  • Letter to the Editor (Chicago Daily Law Bulletin)

Cook County Felony Courts—Since 2007, we have worked to evaluate the function of felony courts in Cook County and in Illinois. Currently, we are reviewing post-bond Cook County felony courtrooms to ensure procedural justice, fairness, accountability, and transparency of decision-making to combat implicit and explicit bias and promote judicial best practices.

READ:

• Cook County E-Court: Evaluating the Circuit Court’s Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic and Looking Toward the Future (August 2020)
• Illinois Supreme Court Proposal: Going to Scale: Coordinating Criminal Justice Reform in Cook County (September 2013)
• Policy Brief: Community Courts in Cook County, Part I and Policy Brief: Community Courts in Cook County, Part II (February 2013)
• Policy Brief: Use of Data in Criminal Court Performance Measurement (November 2012)
• A Report on Chicago’s Felony Courts (December 2007)

Diversion, Mental Health & Treatment, and Community Courts—Chicago Appleseed worked with the Circuit Court of Cook County to create and initially manage the Access to Community Treatment (ACT) Court, an Adult Redeploy Illinois Program that takes drug-dependent individuals and diverts them from the Illinois Prison System and Cook County Jail. The Access to Community Treatment (ACT) Court treats justice system-involved individuals with community-based services to address substance-use disorders. We continue to evaluate the fairness and effectiveness of the evidence-based diversion program.

Chicago Appleseed has been working with pro bono partners to collect information, analyze, and develop proposals surrounding street-level diversion programs for Cook County. Each year, approximately 250,000 misdemeanor offenses are filed in Cook County, which accounts for 85% of all the criminal cases processed. A sizable portion of these are property and drug crimes, gang-related, and committed by a small, but active group of repeat offenders—many of whom have mental illness, substance use disorders, or face other obstacles to successful community re-entry.

We have explored alternatives to traditional case processing for ‘repeat offenders’ by researching the need for community courts in Cook County, as well as potential strategies for implementation. In September 2013, Chicago Appleseed reported to the Illinois Supreme Court on the need for coordinated criminal justice reform, barriers to implementing such reforms, and models followed by other state supreme courts.

For more information on ACT Court, please see the “Stories from ACT Court Ambassadors” below: 

READ:

• Strategies to Enhance and Coordinate Cook County Diversion Programs (June 2012)
• Cook County Diversion Court: Proposal and Implementation Plan (October 2010)

Prosecutorial Accountability—Chicago Appleseed has worked with The People’s Lobby and Reclaim Chicago to evaluate State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s Administration in order to continuously advocate for changing the “win at all costs” culture historically present among Cook County prosecutors. We advocate for the training and education of prosecutors on how to stop asking for the imposition of inappropriate and often unnecessary court costs, fines, and fees. We believe that there must be an increase the prosecutor’s role in diversion programs, an increase in the availability of prosecutorial data and training around those data. We have helped to foster cooperation between the State’s Attorney and the Public Defender’s Offices and promote a legislative agenda that includes seeking to reduce felonies and misdemeanors.

READ:

• Progressive Promises: Results of a Reform Prosecutor in Cook County (September 2022)
• Decarcerating Cook County: Use of Diversion Programs for Low-Level, “Non-Violent” Felonies Increased Substantially Under Kim Foxx Compared to Anita Alvarez (March 2021)
• Prosecutorial Discretion in a Tumultuous Year: A Report on the Impact of Prosecutorial Discretion on Incarceration Rates in Cook County (September 2020)
• Data Show Major Decreases in Felony Charges, Incarceration Rates for Black and Latinx Residents in Cook County since 2017 (February 2020)
• Creating a Culture of Fairness and Accountability: Defense Attorneys Report of Kim Foxx’s Progress toward Transforming the Priorities of Her Office (October 2019)
• Sentences of Incarceration Decline Sharply, Public Safety Improves during Kim Foxx’s Second Year in Office: New data portal demonstrates benefit of criminal justice reform, transparency (July 2019)
• Exercising Full Powers: Recommendations to Kim Foxx on Addressing Systemic Racism in the Cook County Criminal Justice System (January 2019)
• A Step in the Right Direction: An Analysis of Felony Prosecution Data in Cook County (May 2018)
• In Pursuit of Justice for All: An Evaluation of Kim Foxx’s First Year in Office (December 2017)