Latest News - Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts

ACS Panel on Judicial Diversity

Staff attorney Elizabeth Monkus participated in a panel discussion with Justice Mary Jane Theis and Circuit Court judges Patrice Ball-Reed and Rossana Fernandez at the American Constitution Society’s first Midwest Convening on Saturday, October 15. The panel discussed diversity on the bench and The...

Annual Luncheon Raffle Prize Winners

2016 Annual Luncheon Raffle Prize Winners Grand Prize: Natalie Spears One week's stay in Wren Cottage on the Hampshire/Dorset border in England, in the small village of Alderholt about 80 miles SW of London. First Prize: H. Karis A pair of tickets to Hamilton: An American Musical i...

The ACT Initiative Is Bringing Best Practices to Cook County’s Criminal Courts

In 2013, Chicago Appleseed helped the Circuit Court of Cook County design and establish the Access to Community Treatment (ACT) Court, an Adult Redeploy Illinois program. Like all ARI initiatives, the ACT Court was designed to divert people charged with nonviolent crimes from the Illinois prison sys...

Chicago Council of Lawyers Releases Statement on Police Accountability Report

In April 2016, the Police Accountability Task Force issued their 190-page report: Recommendations for Reform: Restoring Trust between the Chicago Police and the Communities They Serve. The Report addresses many subjects, ranging from how to improve police-community relations to how to respond to per...

Drug Field-Testing As Criminal Justice Reform: Responding to Criticisms in Context

Earlier this month, both The New York Times and The Marshall Project ran excellent stories on how roadside field tests for drugs can return false positives that send innocent people to jail or even cause them to plead guilty when they did not possess drugs. The articles, “How a $2 Roadside Drug Test...