Latest News - Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts

Cook County Courts Massively Behind Schedule on Criminal Cases

By Sarah Staudt, Senior Policy Analyst & Staff Attorney The Cook County Criminal courts are disturbingly behind on resolving criminal cases. In April 2020, the Cook County Circuit Court, like many courts around the country, closed its doors for all but the “most urgent matters” – prim...

New Directions for the Office of the Clerk of the Cook County Circuit Court: Recommendations for Planning and Transitioning to New Leadership

Written by Sarah Bloomquist, Chicago Appleseed Undergraduate Intern (Summer 2020) Today, Chicago Appleseed, the Chicago Council of Lawyers, and the Civic Federation release our joint report, New Directions for the Office of the Clerk of the Cook County Circuit Court: Recommendations for Plann...

Examining “Cook County E-Court” and Looking Toward the Future of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Written by Sarah Bloomquist and Allison Leon In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, criminal courtrooms in Cook County were shuttered for all but limited proceedings beginning March 13, 2020, with judges allowed to hear only bond and preliminary hearings, arraignments, and guilty pleas. Th...

Chicago Tribune Reports Excellent News about State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s Reformist Policies (Even if they Framed it as an Attack)

Both this morning and yesterday, the Chicago Tribune published an editorial and an analysis, respectively, attacking bail reform in Cook County and the State’s Attorney’s (SA) felony dismissal rates. The information published in their report on SA Kim Foxx is well-analyzed, and - despite the T...

Reallocating Priorities: Call for City of Chicago to Invest in Community-Based DV Prevention and Intervention

Chicago Appleseed and Chicago Council of Lawyers are happy to share The Network's campaign to fund domestic and sexual violence services. The Network has released a comprehensive report calling for the reallocation of $35-million from the budget of the Chicago Police Department (CPD) to community se...