Advocates Call for an End to the Presumptive Shackling of Juveniles in Court

The Illinois Justice Project has submitted a proposed proposed rule to the state Supreme Court Rules Committee to reform the practice of shackling children appearing in juvenile court. The Committee referred the proposed rule to the Juvenile Justice Committee of the Judicial Conference in order to s...
August 18, 2016

Ensuring the Public Defense of Indigent Defendants in Cook County

The Criminal Justice Advisory Committee, a joint group of the Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice and the Chicago Council of Lawyers, has released a report on whether criminal defendants in Chicago’s felony preliminary hearing courtrooms receive the public defense required by the Sixth Amendment to t...
August 19, 2015

Victory for Fair Sentencing of Children

Last month, Illinois Coalition for the Fair Sentencing of Children, Restore Justice Illinois and the Bluhm Legal Clinic celebrated the passage of their House Bill 2741. The Bill eliminates mandatory life-without-parole sentences for youth under 18 at the time of the offense and requires judges to co...
August 13, 2015

Poor Defendants and Access to Justice

Submitted by Aswan Taylor, Chicago Appleseed Intern Last year, a Chicago Appleseed investigation found that Cook County courts were routinely denying defendants a public defense, or ordering reimbursement for public defenders’ services, simply because the defendant had posted bond. As noted in Ma...
June 3, 2014
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