Latest News - Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts

What We Read, April 11-15, 2011

Each week, we round-up the links which were of interest to staff at Chicago Appleseed this week. Monica Youn’s (Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law) testimony before the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on “The Fair...

Chicago Council of Lawyers and Chicago Appleseed Applaud Abolition of Death Penalty

With a historic pen stroke this month, Governor Pat Quinn of Illinois signed into law Illinois Senate Bill 3539, making Illinois the 16th state to abolish the death penalty. The law marks the successful completion of a 35-year effort to end the death penalty’s use in Illinois. The death penalty was...

Payday Lenders Lose Initial Bid to Block Illinois Law

Payday Lenders won't submit to regulation without a fight. Last Friday, Payday Lender Illinois Lending Corp sued in Cook County Court for a temporary restraining order (TRO) against Illinois’ new and modified payday loan laws, the Consumer Installment Loan Act and the Payday Loan Reform Act (CILA /...

New York’s Judicial Campaign Reform a Great Start

The New York Administrative Board of Courts recently issued a new rule that would prohibit judges from hearing cases where any one of the lawyers or parties on either side has contributed $2,500 or more to that judge’s election campaign. (The case will be transferred if a lawyer’s firm has contribut...

Illinois Supreme Court Requires Judges to Self-Evaluate

This week, the Illinois Supreme Court announced that it had amended Illinois Supreme Court Rule 58, “Judicial Performance Evaluation.” The amendment mandates that all Circuit Court and Associate judges be evaluated through a process to be administered through a contract with National Center for Stat...