Court Watching Archives - Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts

Why We Court-Watch

Why do we court-watch? https://www.chicagoappleseed.org/2022/08/22/northwestern-report-highlights-issues-with-court-culture/ Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts conducts court-watching in a variety of civil and criminal courtrooms in Cook County. Our volunteers observe courtrooms as a m...

NEW REPORT: $tate of Injustice – Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice Statewide Bond Court-Watching

The Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice (INPJ) has released its report, $tate of Injustice: A Community Review of Bond Courts in Illinois, a statewide court-watching project aimed to document the human cost of the current money bond system in Illinois and demonstrate the necessity of the Pretrial...

Community Groups Monitored Cook County’s Central Bond Court, Data Shows Reforms Haven’t Stopped the Jailing of People for Being Poor

Coalition to End Money Bond Press contacts: Sharlyn Grace, Chicago Appleseed, 773-946-8535, sharlyngrace@chicagoappleseed.org Irene Romulo, Chicago Community Bond Fund, 312-553-0995, irene@chicagobond.org Volunteers report that the rate of pretrial release has nearly doubled, but further ch...

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...

Chicago Appleseed Formalizing Innovative Court Watching Program

by Simona Novinec, Chicago Appleseed Intern Trial judges play a central role in the American legal system. Selection of a competent, diverse, and honest judiciary is therefore a crucial mechanism to protect judicial independence, on the one hand, and promote democratic control of judiciary on the o...

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