Ruling in Case Concerning Judicial Retention or Re-Election

In March, we wrote about a complaint filed with the State Board of Elections, concerning three judges in southern Illinois’ 20th judicial circuit—Chief Judge John Baricevic and Circuit Judges Robert Haid and Robert LeChien—who resigned in August and announced their intentions to run in the general e...
August 12, 2016

The Job of Court Reform

Judge Sheryl Pethers has created a stir with her retirement announcement, which highlights aspects of her judicial service that left her concerned about the administration of the civil courts in Cook County. Chicago Appleseed has a long history of working with the courts, to improve deficiencies id...
August 4, 2016

Appleseed Staffer Attends Chicago Movement Lawyering Retreat

On July 15th and 16th, I was lucky enough to participate in a “Movement Lawyering Retreat” for Chicago attorneys and activists. The retreat was a small collection of lawyers and organizers brought together by two dedicated individuals: Candace Moore and Quinn Rallins. Their idea is to ultimately bui...
July 27, 2016

ACS Report on Judicial Diversity

The American Constitution Society recently released a report, The Gavel Gap, on the demographics of state court judges, highlighting the discrepancies among the demographics of our communities, law school graduates, and judges on the bench. Overall, the report finds that courts are not representativ...
July 21, 2016

Field Testing in Drug Arrests

Earlier this month, both The New York Times and The Marshall Project ran excellent stories on how a roadside field tests for drugs can return false positives that send innocent people to jail or even cause them to plead guilty when they did not possess drugs. The articles highlighted alarming uses o...
July 13, 2016