Ruling in Case Concerning Judicial Retention or Re-Election

In March, we wrote about a complaint filed with the State Board of Elections, concerning three judges in southern Illinois’ 20th judicial circuit—Chief Judge John Baricevic and Circuit Judges Robert Haid and Robert LeChien—who resigned in August and announced their intentions to run in the general e...
August 12, 2016

ACS Report on Judicial Diversity

The American Constitution Society recently released a report, The Gavel Gap, on the demographics of state court judges, highlighting the discrepancies among the demographics of our communities, law school graduates, and judges on the bench. Overall, the report finds that courts are not representativ...
July 21, 2016

Resign, Re-run, Avoid Retention

Three judges in southern Illinois’ 20th judicial circuit—Chief Judge John Baricevic and Circuit Judges Robert Haid and Robert LeChien—resigned in August in order to avoid retention elections. Judges Baricevic and LeChien each had narrow retention margins in their 2010 retention election, but Judge H...
March 23, 2016

Constitutionality and the Six Member Jury

In June of this year, an amendment to 735 ILCS 5/2-1105 went into effect, reducing the size of juries in civil trials in Illinois from twelve jurors to six. The ostensible purpose of the reduction in jury size was to accommodate a rise in juror pay (from $17.20 per day in Cook County to $25 for the...
January 6, 2016

How Digital Recorders Will Improve Access to Justice

Like other courts across the nation, Cook County is seeing increasing numbers of self-represented parties in the courts. At the same time that litigants are finding it harder to pay for legal services, Cook County has a projected budget deficit of $152 million for 2014, which has resulted in a reduc...
May 28, 2015