Policy Brief on Judicial Evaluations

Since 2010, the Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice has managed a Pilot Project for judicial evaluation: the Judicial Performance Commission of Cook County. This demonstration project explores the feasibility of using the performance commission model to evaluate judicial retention candidates to posit...
May 28, 2013

CCL & Chicago Appleseed in the News on Judicial Elections

WGN, the Chicago Tribune and Medill Watchdog have begun a series of investigations into the judicial elections process. The integrity of the judicial elections process is an important research concern at Chicago Appleseed, as is the overall quality of our judiciary and the investigators spoke to our...
May 22, 2013

Filling Judicial Vacancies

The Chicago Tribune has reported that Justice Freeman of the Illinois Supreme Court has appointed his long-time law clerk, Jean Cocozza, to a vacancy in the Circuit Court. The Tribune reports that Judge Cocozza has no courtroom experience and that she was not evaluated for judicial service by any in...
March 12, 2013

Proposals to Reform the Judicial Retention Process

Two bills recently introduced into the Illinois state legislature have caught our attention. Representative Kelly Cassidy has sponsored HJRCA0010, a proposal to amend the Illinois constitution and create a judicial performance commission for the evaluation of judicial retention candidates. Rep. C...
February 26, 2013

Did you vote in the judicial retention election last year?

Did you vote in the judicial retention election last year? Chances are that you did not. There were 59 judges on the retention ballot and their names were listed in a seemingly random order—not alphabetical, not grouped by court division, just 59 names and the questioned “should this judge be retai...
February 19, 2013