Legislation & Policy Statements Archives - Page 3 of 16 - Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts

State’s Attorney’s Felony Review Bypass Program Hinders Due Process and Gives Police Power To File Felony Gun Possession Charges

In January, Cook County State’s Attorney O’Neill Burke began piloting a new program in the Chicago Police Department’s (CPD) 7th District (Englewood), changing the rules for how gun possession felony charges are filed. The program has now been expanded to the CPD’s 5th District (Calumet), which is i...

Support for the FAIR Act to Improve Illinois’ Public Defense Crisis

Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts has proudly given our support to HB3363, also known as the Funded Advocacy & Independent Representation (FAIR) Act, which successfully passed out of the Illinois House last week. The FAIR Act would create an Office of State Public Defender in Illinois...

Statement on State’s Attorney Burke’s New Policy Regarding Pretrial Electronic Monitoring

Written by Austin Segal, Research Manager & Jill Dupont Memorial Fellow, and Naomi Johnson, Co-Executive Director. We strongly oppose State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke’s new policy that requires prosecutors to object on the record in all cases where their petition to detain an accused...

Statement on RJCC Expansion to Sauk Village

Last month, the Circuit Court of Cook County expanded its Restorative Justice Community Court (RJCC) program into Sauk Village, a suburb just south of Chicago. The new RJCC is the first of its kind in Chicago’s suburbs, joining a line-up of Chicago-based RJCCs in North Lawndale, Avondale, and Englew...

New Federal Civil Asset Forfeiture Legislation Won’t End Police Shadow Surveillance or Limit Tech Budgets

Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts and the Chicago Council of Lawyers’ report on civil asset forfeiture (CAF) highlights some of the horrors around property (cash and cars mostly) seized from citizens who have little to no connection with any crime. One outcome of this nefarious practice is th...

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