Latest News - Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts

Communities Successfully Defend the Pretrial Fairness Act: Updates and Next Steps for the Abolition of Money Bond on January 1

On December 6, Governor Pritzker signed Public Act 102-1104, a trailer bill that clarifies aspects of the Pretrial Fairness Act to allow for the successful implementation of the state’s no-cash-bail system starting on January 1, 2023. Since the Safety, Accountability, Fairness, and Equity – Today (S...

The Collaboration for Justice Joins the Free to Drive Coalition as Amici in Mendoza et al. v Stickler

The Civil Rights Corps and the National Center for Law and Economic Justice have filed a brief on behalf of Free to Drive Coalition members in support of the plaintiffs in Mendoza et al. v Stickler. Chicago Appleseed and Chicago Council of Lawyers (the Collaboration for Justice) have joined as amici...

Why We Court-Watch

Why do we court-watch? https://www.chicagoappleseed.org/2022/08/22/northwestern-report-highlights-issues-with-court-culture/ Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts conducts court-watching in a variety of civil and criminal courtrooms in Cook County. Our volunteers observe courtrooms as a m...

NEW REPORT: $tate of Injustice – Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice Statewide Bond Court-Watching

The Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice (INPJ) has released its report, $tate of Injustice: A Community Review of Bond Courts in Illinois, a statewide court-watching project aimed to document the human cost of the current money bond system in Illinois and demonstrate the necessity of the Pretrial...

New CPD Consent Decree to Guarantee Rights to Communicate for Arrested People

Entered at the end of September 2022, a newly signed consent decree, #LetUseBreathe Collective v. City of Chicago, means people detained by the Chicago Police Department (CPD) must be given access to phones and lawyers in all detention facilities. This measure means to combat the coercive inte...