cook county Archives - Page 4 of 6 - Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts

Judicial Elections

Early voting has already started in Cook County and there are 101 judicial races: 27 vacancies, 73 retention elections and 1 new judicial seat. Voteforjudges.org—a non-partisan website founded by Chicago Appleseed and sponsored by the Committee to Elect Qualified Judges—collects the judicial evalua...

The Coming Fees Crisis: Poverty Capitalism in the Courts

This past week, two important pieces have appeared on NPR and the New York Times bringing attention to the increased practice of levying exploitive fines and fees on indigent people passing through the criminal and civil justice system. The first piece from NPR, based on a report of a S...

CC license attribution by Eric Allix Rogers

Taskforce, Including Preckwinkle, Evans, and Alvarez, Visits Washington D.C. to Review Pretrial System; and a Warning About the Expanded Use of Electronic Monitoring

Stakeholder Trip and Continuing Meetings on Bond Court Reform Last week, the Illinois Supreme Court issued a release describing the recent two-day trip, arranged by the Illinois Supreme Court, for the heads of the relevant Cook County agencies to review and glean the benefits of Washington D.C.’s a...

Courts and Public Accountability

“Judge Sullivan, Take Note”, an editorial in the Chicago Tribune Monday, June 9th, reminds us that the courtrooms do not belong to the judges, they belong to the people. The editorial references two recent steps by courts administrators to make Illinois’ courts more open and transparent: the Illinoi...

Poor Defendants and Access to Justice

Submitted by Aswan Taylor, Chicago Appleseed Intern Last year, a Chicago Appleseed investigation found that Cook County courts were routinely denying defendants a public defense, or ordering reimbursement for public defenders’ services, simply because the defendant had posted bond. As noted in Ma...

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