chicago Archives - Page 2 of 3 - Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts

All People Deserve Access to Their Rights – Especially Those as Foundational as the Presumption of Innocence

Cook County leads the nation in exonerations based on false confessions. Between 1972 and 1991, Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge tortured at least 119 people – most of whom were young Black men – in order to force false confessions. Cook County still lives in that legacy: Between January 1989 and...

More than 65 Community Groups Call on the City of Chicago to Focus on Root Causes of Violence Instead of Punishment

Every year, Chicago experiences rising temperatures coinciding with heightened gun violence. To combat this issue, Mayor Lightfoot announced plans for increasing the number of police on the street and stricter curfews. Instead of helping with violence, this will only increase the number of people be...

January 21, 2022: Public Comments to Chicago City Council’s Public Safety Committee in Opposition to the “Victims Justice Ordinance” (VJO)

On Friday, January 21, 2022, Program Manager & Policy Analyst for Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts and the Chicago Council of Lawyers, Hanna Sharif-Kazemi, provided comments to the Chicago City Council's Public Safety Committee in opposition of Mayor Lightfoot's proposed "Victims Justice...

The Mayor’s Proposals for “Public Safety” in Chicago are Unconstitutional and Not Based in Fact

On Monday, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot held a press conference in response to the rising gun violence in Chicago, calling for an increase in pretrial jailing through a “moratorium” on pretrial electronic monitoring and doubling down on antiquated economic punishments, like civil asset forfeiture fo...

Pro Bono Spotlight on Our Staff

Last week, our Senior Policy Analyst and Staff Attorney Sharlyn Grace was featured in the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin for her pro bono work with the National Lawyers Guild of Chicago (log in required). In it, Sharlyn describes her volunteer role as a co-coordinator of the NLG Chicago’s Legal Observ...

1 2 3