08.02.10 Project Accomplishments and Goals from Chicago Appleseed and Chicago Council
Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice and Chicago Council of Lawyers
Project Accomplishments and Goals
July 30, 2010
I thank our members and donors for the support of our organizations. You will find below our project accomplishments and goals for the future. Please contact me with any questions, suggestions, or to volunteer.
Malcolm C. Rich Executive Director
Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice is a research and advocacy organization focusing on criminal justice reform, judicial election and selection reform, and government effectiveness. We identify problems, research their causes, and recommend systemic solutions.
The Chicago Council of Lawyers is a public interest bar association dedicated to improving the quality of the legal system by advocating for fair and efficient administration of justice in Chicago.
The two organizations often work together to further our mutual goals of reform, accountability, and justice. Together, Chicago Appleseed and the Council comprise a public interest partnership working together through joint projects and publications.
Criminal Justice
With the generous assistance of the Chicago Community Trust, we are continuing to implement the recommendations detailed in Chicago Appleseed's comprehensive examination of Chicago's felony trial courtrooms. For example:
· Successfully negotiated the end of videoconferencing in bond court. · Successfully negotiated the creation of a pretrial services program in bond court. · Created an ongoing court watching program at the Criminal Courts Building. · Following our call for more Criminal Division judges, five additional judges were assigned to the Criminal Courts Building at 26th and California.
We are now working with the Circuit Court of Cook County, the Office of the Cook County Public Defender, the Cook County State's Attorney's Office, the Cook County Adult Probation Department, and the Office of the Cook County Sheriff to implement our comprehensive proposal to establish a division of the Circuit Court dedicated to diverting non-violent offenders into special programming and out of the criminal justice system. There are two parts:
Diversion: We propose that up to five courtrooms at 26th and California be dedicated to diverting non-violent offenders from Central Bond Court and into treatment programs. This model utilizes the juvenile court approach of rehabilitation within the adult criminal justice system. Once the treatment programs are completed, all court and arrest records will be expunged.
Deferral: Employing a stationhouse adjustment model to adults being picked up by police on non-violent, drug-related offenses. Through this program, a person will be deferred to the State's Attorney's drug school directly from the police station without having a court file opened. If the individual completes the program, there is no record to expunge. If he or she does not complete the program, an arrest warrant is issued.
Immigration Court Reform
Chicago Appleseed with national Appleseed and its pro bono partners, Latham & Watkins LLC and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP released a comprehensive report on the immigration courts, Assembly Line Injustice. We have begun negotiations with national officials concerning the report's 34 recommendations.
Chicago Appleseed will support federal legislation now being drafted that will create an Article I Court for consideration of immigration cases. At the same time, we will continue to work with officials at the United States Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security to implement other key recommendations found in Assembly Line Injustice. For example, we are working with pro bono lawyers from Latham & Watkins LLC, Geoff Heeren with the Georgetown Law Center, and Tess Tannehill, a Northwestern University law student who is serving as a Lefkow Fellow with Appleseed this summer, on the following three efforts:
Sending to the U.S. Department of Justice suggested language representing substantive and organizational changes that we believe should be made to the telephone and videoconferencing chapter of the Immigration Judge Benchbook.
Preparing a proposed mandatory disclosure rule for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security which will allow them to release an immigrant's records without a costly and time wasting FOIA procedure
Preparing a proposed standard of review to be used by the Bureau of Immigration Appeals, the internal appellate body for the immigration courts.
In addition: · Chicago Appleseed and Chicago Council are working with the Chicago Kent College of Law to operate a court watching program for the immigration courts in Chicago.
· Chicago Appleseed is working with the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago on implementing the recommendation that immigrants appearing pro se in the immigration courts receive self-help materials explaining the process.
Judicial Election Reform
With the generous financial assistance of the Joyce Foundation, we have launched the Judicial Performance Commission Pilot Project. The Commission will assess the qualifications of judges seeking retention in the November 2010 election, utilizing a commission comprised of lawyer and non-lawyer community leaders and a comprehensive judicial evaluation process that includes both mail surveys and personal interviews. The purpose of this program is to both educate voters and to prepare judicial performance improvement plans to be distributed to the judges and their supervisors.
Publications
· The 2009 edition of the Legal Services Directory of free and low cost legal services is now on the website, www.chicagoappleseed.org, and is available in a hard copy edition. We have been publishing this listing and description of free and low cost legal services since 1982. · We have completed and distributed the Chicago Appleseed brochure on consumer fraud, Consumer Rights in Illinois, a full-color brochure that includes state and citywide information for Illinois residents to use when reporting complaints. This brochure is printed in English and Spanish, and is distributed free of charge. · We have completed a new edition of the Judicial Directory containing the Chicago Council of Lawyers' judicial evaluations of all judges sitting in Cook County through March 2009. The Directory is published both on the website and in hard copy. · Chicago Appleseed, Chicago Council of Lawyers, and the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago are preparing the 2010 edition of the Tenant-Landlord Handbook, a discussion of rights and obligations for Chicago tenants and landlords that we have been publishing for more than 25 years.
Professional Responsibility and Ethics
We are preparing a petition to the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts calling for the establishment of a website listing the campaign contributions given to all sitting Cook County judges. Lawyers will then be able to make an informed decision as to whether to use their right to a substitution of judge based on whether opposing counsel or litigants have contributed to the judge's campaign.
Education
We are working with Briana Sprick, our Education Pioneers Fellow, on developing alternative language related to that section of federal legislation involving parental involvement - an approach that taps the need for developing partnerships among school officials, parents, and community organizations. Schools and communities are diverse, and a one-size-fits-all approach will not work for engaging parents. However, with more concrete guidelines, Section 1118 of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act, for example, can create a framework for schools to incorporate meaningful family engagement in a way that meets the community's needs and increases student achievement.
Federal Judicial Evaluation
The Chicago Council of Lawyers has begun to evaluate U.S. Federal District Judges sitting in Chicago. The last evaluation report on the District Judges was released in 2006. The Council released in 2007 a report on District Judges that have taken senior status, which was followed by a report on federal Magistrate Judges that was released in 2008.
Editorial: Another Reason to Support A Cook County Diversion Division
Chicago Appleseed and the Chicago Council of Lawyers have proposed the creation of a Diversion Division for the criminal courts. We propose that up to five diversion courtrooms at 26th and California be dedicated to diverting non-violent offenders from Central Bond Court and into treatment programs. This model utilizes the juvenile court approach of rehabilitation within the adult criminal justice system. Once the treatment programs are completed, all court and arrest records will be expunged.
The following is a reason for supporting the proposal:
Yet Another Reason to Support a Cook County Diversion Court
Cook County, like most metropolitan areas, has been hit hard by the recent financial crisis. Services are being cut, city staffers are being laid off and taxes are rising. Many of you may be asking why Chicago Appleseed is pushing for a new diversion court in this difficult financial environment. However, our proposal would actually save taxpayers money. Here's how.
First, our proposed diversion court will reduce processing costs. The baseline cost of processing a diversion eligible felony case in Cook County under the current system is estimated at $6,550 per offender. The estimated cost to process a diversion eligible case in our diversion court is $4,700 per case, $1,850 lower than the current process. With an estimated capacity of 4,000 cases per year, our proposed diversion court would save Cook County taxpayers just under $7.5 million per year in reduced upfront processing costs alone.
Second, our diversion court will reduce recidivism. Research has shown that the reduction in the rate of recidivism for drug court participants (a similar model to our diversion court) is between 8% and 44%. The most extensive study on recidivism for drug court participants (both graduates and non-graduates) found that the average amount saved per defendant over a 5-year period as a result of reduced recidivism was $8,136. Using a similar model adjusted for the cost of inputs for Cook County, we estimate that taxpayers would save an additional $4,750 per diversion participant over a 5-year period as the direct result of avoiding additional processing costs associated with recidivism. Once the program has been running for 5 years with an estimated 4,000 participants a year, Cook County taxpayers would realize a cost savings of nearly $20 million per year.
Third, our diversion court will reduce victimization costs and create a higher tax base. While these benefits are difficult to quantify, our proposal will reduce property and personal crimes in Chicago and create a class of diversion court "graduates" that have a higher chance of finding a job (and therefore of contributing to our shared Cook County tax base).
Prepared by:
Paul Anderson, PILI Fellow, Chicago Appleseed
John MacIver, Intern, Chicago Appleseed
An Appearance of Impropriety: A Letter to the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin
The following is a letter prepared by the Chicago Council of Lawyers for publication in the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin
Golf outing for judges appears to be a gift of value Chicago Daily Law Bulletin June 29, 2010 Volume: 156 Issue: 126
To the editor:
The June 23 Law Bulletin story by John Flynn Rooney about how two Chicago law firms invited the judges of the Cook County Circuit Court Law Division to a golf outing and dinner at a private suburban country club should focus the attention of lawyers, as well as judges, upon the need to preserve the public appearance of judicial integrity.
We at the Chicago Council of Lawyers applaud Chief Judge Timothy C. Evans for stating the obvious: The Law Division judges should not take the law firms up on their invitation for an apparently free golf outing and dinner. (We certainly hope that any judge who attended paid for or will pay for the fair value of the event.)
We do not quite understand why Judge Evans' analysis was not obvious to all of the judges who were invited.
It is certainly obvious to us that judges ought not to accept gifts of value from the lawyers who practice in front of them. A golf outing and dinner at a country club may be a social event, but it is not an ordinary one to most ordinary people who litigate matters in our state courts.
To our constituency as lawyers, namely the people and businesses who at times must look to the judicial system for resolution of their disputes, a free golf outing at a private country club is a gift of value.
We do not mean to imply that any judge was or may be purchased with a free round of golf, or that lawyers and judges ought not to socialize. In fact, members of our organization know many judges who regularly socialize with lawyers, but who do so on their own dime, or in settings in which we would not consider their complimentary chicken dinner at a hotel ballroom to be a gift of value.
Because a golf outing is a gift of value, or would be perceived that way by the public, judges should know better than to accept free golf outings, and the lawyers who practice before those judges should know better than to offer.
To members of the public, this was an appearance of impropriety.
Peter A. Steinmeyer, President Malcolm C. Rich, Executive Director Chicago Council of Lawyers
Save the Date: Annual Fundraising Luncheon
On October 5, 2010, Chicago Appleseed and the Chicago Council of Lawyers will host our Annual Luncheon. This year, we are focusing on our work aimed at improving the criminal justice system and at immigration court reform. The 2010 Annual Luncheon will be held at the Four Seasons Hotel, 120 East Delaware Place, Chicago, Illinois. The reception will begin at 11:00 am, with lunch and our program starting promptly at noon.
Our keynote speaker is James Warren, a former managing editor and Washington bureau chief for the Chicago Tribune, who is now a policy columnist for Business Week and the New York Times. He is a political analyst for MSNBC and helped found the nonprofit Chicago News Cooperative.
We will be presenting a Commitment to Justice Award to the Honorable John Kirby for his innovative work in the criminal courts. We will also be honoring those attorneys in the Chicago office of Latham & Watkins LLP whose pro bono work helped produce Appleseed's comprehensive examination of the immigration courts.
The 2010 Annual Luncheon promises to be a meaningful and informative event. Please call or email me with any questions or to reserve your seats. I thank you for your support!
Malcolm C. Rich Executive Director Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice and Chicago Council of Lawyers Phone: 312-988-6552 Email: malcolmrich@chicagoappleseed.org
As always, we thank you for your support!
Sincerely,
Malcolm C. Rich Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice Chicago Council of Lawyers