due process Archives - Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts

The Results Are In: Forensic Labs Under Prosecutorial Control Are Problematic

UPDATE: September 29, 2025 | A previous version of this post said that if the Board of Commissioners grants the funding request, "the CCSAO would no longer rely on the ISP Crime Lab for forensic support." A representative of the State's Attorney's Office provided the following clarification: "The fo...

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...

“Haste Makes Waste” in Courtrooms Too: Balancing Quality with Quantity in Response to the Immigration Backlog

Since 2017, the backlog of pending immigration cases in the United States has been growing exponentially. Today, there are over two million pending cases in the U.S. immigration court system. Over the past few months, the situation has significantly worsened, with a record-breaking number of new dep...

New CPD Consent Decree to Guarantee Rights to Communicate for Arrested People

Entered at the end of September 2022, a newly signed consent decree, #LetUseBreathe Collective v. City of Chicago, means people detained by the Chicago Police Department (CPD) must be given access to phones and lawyers in all detention facilities. This measure means to combat the coercive inte...

Preventing Wrongful Convictions: Ensuring the Right to Communicate in Cook County

From media depictions of the criminal legal system, most people seem to understand that when you get arrested, you are allowed a phone call and that phone call can get you a lawyer that will advocate for you during police interrogations. Unfortunately, this is not always the reality – especially in...

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The Results Are In: Forensic Labs Under Prosecutorial Control Are Problematic

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

“Haste Makes Waste” in Courtrooms Too: Balancing Quality with Quantity in Response to the Immigration Backlog

New CPD Consent Decree to Guarantee Rights to Communicate for Arrested People

Preventing Wrongful Convictions: Ensuring the Right to Communicate in Cook County￼

Preventing Wrongful Convictions: Ensuring the Right to Communicate in Cook County