The Criminal Courthouse at 26th and California is reopening post-pandemic. COVID-19 brought seismic changes to the Cook County court system. And after more than a year, a reopening reckoning is close at hand.
In the News
Dozens of children have been unjustly held in the Cook County Juvenile Detention Center even though judges ordered them released. That is because the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services says it has nowhere to send them. Andrea Lubelfeld, Chief of our Juvenile Division, spoke out about the problem in a story for WBEZ.
In this podcast, Public Defender Mitchell speaks about racially targeted enforcement of gun possession statutes. In Cook County, racially disproportionate enforcement of gun rules sends thousands of Black people to prison because they do not have or cannot get the required licenses, not because they've been accused of harming someone.
It’s a scene that happens every weekday at the Cook County Jail: a bus transports a group of inmates, all handcuffed, to court in the Chicago suburbs. Most of those trips are uneventful; detainees are brought to their hearings and return to jail without incident. But in some cases, those buses ignite the kinds of violence the jail is designed to prevent.
A better-funded public defender’s office could be a leader in the fight for equity and justice, Sharone Mitchell said. Public defenders “put a mirror to the system and say that this isn’t working for us."
A power struggle has been brewing in Cook County, where job offers to several attorneys from Public Defender Sharone Mitchell were rescinded after confusion over the county's drug policy. Recreational marijuana became legal in Illinois last January. That complicated the hiring process for many, including a handful of attorneys offered jobs months ago by the Cook County Public Defender's Office. Their offers were revoked when drug tests came back positive for marijuana.
The database is “inaccurate,” generates “false narrative” that people released on bond are responsible for Chicago’s gun violence, critics said.
An Editorial published in the Chicago Tribune discussing the dangerous nature of prisons for ALL inmates, not just Police Officers.
Chicago Tonight interview with Circuit Court of Cook County Chief Judge Timothy Evans and Cook County Public Defender Amy Campanelli.
Amy Campanelli appeared on the Munir Muhammad Show.