Latest News - Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts

Research Capsule: A History of Bail & Pretrial Release

Article: A History of Bail and Pretrial Release (pdf) Author/Publication: Timothy Schnacke, et al / Pretrial Justice Institute Summary Bail reform is a work in progress: the origin of pre-trial release pre-dates the Magna Carta (1012 ad)! And it was created to address--what else?--overcrowded jai...

Serving the Needs of Both Immigration Courts and the People Appearing in Them

Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice has signed on to a letter to Congress (.pdf) supporting expansion of the Legal Orientation Program established by the Executive Office for Immigration at the Department of Justice in 2002. The LOP provides funding to state and local organizations that work with de...

Links of Interest

What we read this week, March 19-23, 2012 Judicial Elections and Judiciary Reform: There have been a number of good pieces on PAC money in elections and the Citizens United decision lately. In case you missed it, back in December, Montana’s Supreme Court upheld (.pdf) Montana’s ban on politica...

Thoughts after the Primary Election

In the run up to yesterday’s primary race, Appellate Justice Aurelia Pucinski was a vocal critic of the role of campaign financing in judicial elections. Judge Pucinski was particularly critical (audio link, relevant portion at the -1:20 mark) of the role of PAC money and money from donors and organ...

Illinois & Cook County Primary Judicial Election Results

As of today, our Voteforjudges.org website received 518,000 hits since the beginning of this judicial evaluation season with about 17,000 unique visitors. This is exciting evidence of a concerned electorate! Below is a table showing election results for Illinois Supreme Court, Illinois Appellate Co...