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Chicago Reader reporter Maya Dukmasova published two-part story on eviction in Cook County last month. The first part focuses on the relationship between gentrification and eviction and the vulnerability of immigrant populations. The second part examines access to justice problems in the eviction courts and quotes our executive director on the court’s failure to preserve the right to appeal.

It’s impossible to faithfully reconstruct what happened during Hernandez’s eviction court proceedings, because there was no court reporter present to make transcripts. This is the norm in Cook County. The absence of systematic record keeping for eviction trials means that both plaintiffs and defendants lose any meaningful opportunity to appeal judges’ decisions. If judges behave inappropriately or misinterpret the law, there’s no way to hold them accountable . . .

 

Appellate courts can accept affidavits describing what happened during the initial trial from “bystanders,” or people who happened to be in the courtroom while proceedings were going on, but “virtually no one has ever used [this provision],” says Malcolm Rich of the Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice, a court watchdog and policy group. The odds of a random “bystander” being someone who understands the proceedings and could give a detailed and faithful account of what happened during a trial are low. As things stand, “there’s no effective means to have an appeal,” Rich says.

Chicago Appleseed is working with pro bono partners to reform the eviction courts—and other high volume civil court rooms—with regard to lack of court reporting and the failure to preserve appellate rights. In July, we sent a proposal to the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts, outlining the case for recording devices in high-volume courtrooms as a supplement to existing live court reporting services in order to preserve the Constitutional right to an appeal.

Cook County is the second most populous county in the nation, with a population of over 5 million (nearly 3 million in the city of Chicago), and our unified court system accepts more than 1.5  million cases a year. However, an increase in self-represented litigants—combined with a court budget deficit limiting the availability of court reporters—means that many cases are concluded without an official court record.

There is a straightforward solution to this problem: audio recording devices. The use of such devices would 1) discourage intentional and unintentional bench bias, and 2) provide access to lower court proceedings for unrepresented litigants petitioning for appeals. Digital recording devices have already been installed in some Cook County courts. This effort began as a pilot program and has since expanded to juvenile justice and child protective courtrooms. More recording devices are needed to ensure access to justice for all parties, including pro se litigants, regardless of which court they appear in.

Installing audio court recording devices in courtrooms lacking court reporters both mitigates the primary issue of judicial impropriety and also provides pro se litigants with a better chance of successfully petitioning for appeal. Relatively low maintenance and low-cost court recording devices simultaneously provide previously disadvantaged parties with access to justice and increase the overall efficiency of the court system. The system will supplement, not supplant, existing court reporter resources, preserve appellate rights of self-represented litigants and improve oversight of high-volume courtrooms.