Sarah Staudt -Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts

About Sarah Staudt

Since 2018, Sarah Staudt (she/her) has led our criminal legal system reform efforts and now oversees the entire legislative and policy portfolio as our Director of Policy. Sarah primarily focuses on pretrial issues, leading our involvement in the Coalition to End Money Bond, and was instrumental in advocating for the groundbreaking Pretrial Fairness Act, which passed in 2021. Additionally, Sarah leads our program work focused on electronic detention, abolishing overly punitive sentencing systems, and promoting court system efficiency, fairness, and accountability. View all posts by Sarah Staudt →

Waiting for Justice: An examination of the Cook County Criminal Court backlog in the age of COVID-19

The content in this article was originally submitted as testimony to the Cook County Board of Commissioners’ Criminal Justice Committee meeting on January 27, 2020, about peoples' lengths of stay in Cook County Jail and on electronic monitoring, and the effect COVID-19 has had on the growing jail po...

Cook County Courts Massively Behind Schedule on Criminal Cases

By Sarah Staudt, Senior Policy Analyst & Staff Attorney The Cook County Criminal courts are disturbingly behind on resolving criminal cases. In April 2020, the Cook County Circuit Court, like many courts around the country, closed its doors for all but the “most urgent matters” – prim...

Chicago Tribune Reports Excellent News about State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s Reformist Policies (Even if they Framed it as an Attack)

Both this morning and yesterday, the Chicago Tribune published an editorial and an analysis, respectively, attacking bail reform in Cook County and the State’s Attorney’s (SA) felony dismissal rates. The information published in their report on SA Kim Foxx is well-analyzed, and - despite the T...

We Should Not Declare Victory Prematurely: Fight Against COVID-19 at Cook County Jail is Far From Over

Following a recent report from the CDC that the Cook County Jail has been successful in containing the COVID-19 outbreak within its walls, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart was quick to tell the Chicago Tribune on Tuesday that he responded in the “quickest and most massive way.” Appearing before the Cook...

Chicago Police Superintendent Wrongfully Blames Gun Violence on Bond Reform

On July 6, 2020, new Chicago Police Department Superintendent David Brown held a press conference about the Fourth of July weekend’s gun violence. Between 6 PM on Thursday, July 2, and 5 AM on Monday, July 6, 87 people were shot in the city, and 17 of those people died. Tragically, the victims shot...

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