Latest News - Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts

Best Practices for Judicial Evaluations

Recently, the State Journal-Reporter published an article which briefly examined the Illinois State Bar Association’s voter recommendations for judicial retention in the 7th Judicial Circuit, where the State Journal-Reporter publishes. The brief article raises interesting issues about judicial evalu...

Does Race or Gender Influence Professional Judgement?

Cross-posted at Huffington Post. Does race or gender influence decision-making among members of the most respected professions? Several recent, high-profile studies conclude that, yes, even scientists, doctors, and judges are vulnerable to such unconscious bias. In a recent, widely discussed study...

Links of Interest, October 22-26

Elections and Judicial Performance The Supreme Court upheld a Montana law setting donation limits to candidates for state office. SCOTUS blog has a rundown. Criminal Justice Liz Watson and Peter Edelman at the Georgetown Center on Poverty, Inequality and Public Policy released a report...

Five Judges Found Not Recommended for Retention by at Least Half of Those Evaluating Judges

There are nearly 60 judges up for retention on the November 2012 ballot. Each of these judges will affect the lives of hundreds, if not thousands of people each year they are on the bench. It is important that voters retain only qualified judges. The Committee to Elect Qualified Judges, a politic...

Update: ILP v. Madigan

The Seventh Circuit has just issued an order (.pdf download) denying plaintiffs’-appellants’ motion for injunction pending appeal and affirming the district court’s denial of a preliminary injunction in ILP v. Madigan. The two page order states simply that the three-judge panel at the Seventh Circu...