Judicial Recusal & Confidence in Our Courts

This fall, the issue of judicial recusal has returned to the forefront in Illinois, with the indictments against Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke’s husband, Chicago Alderman Ed Burke. In particular, WBEZ reported at least 10 instances in which Justice Burke decided cases involving parties who, at th...

Associate Judge Process Has Potential but Diversity Still not Optimal

Improving diversity on the bench requires critical assessment of how judges are elected and selected; citizen oversight and participation is necessary. We believe the associate judge process this year is a reminder toward vigilance in improving representation on the bench, but we do not believe it i...

Thoughts on the Judicial Primary

We’re just past the March 2018 primary. Before the election, Vote for Judges received about 55,000 unique visitors with about 100,000 viewed/downloaded pages. The evaluations collected by Vote for Judges were aggregated through a number of ballot reference websites, like Ballot Ready. It’s great to...

Changing the Rules on Unpublished Opinions

In early February, Rick Tulsky reported on a dissenting opinion by Illinois Appellate Court Justice Hyman, criticizing the court rules concerning publication of opinions. Appellate and Supreme Court opinions are published when the majority of the court decide they should be published, but non-publis...

Court Recording and Access to Justice in the Eviction Courts of Cook County

Chicago Reader reporter Maya Dukmasova published two-part story on eviction in Cook County last month. The first part focuses on the relationship between gentrification and eviction and the vulnerability of immigrant populations. The second part examines access to justice problems in the eviction co...