Today, the Law Office of the Cook County Public Defender testified at a Public Hearing of the Illinois Supreme Court Rules Committee. Assistant Public Defender Sam Goldberg spoke in support of a proposed change to Illinois Supreme Court Rule 307 that would allow interlocutory appeals of a trial court’s decision to transfer a child’s case to an adult criminal court.
Our office represents almost every child who the State petitions to prosecute in adult criminal court. As a result, we see the impact these transfer decisions have on our child clients and their opportunities for rehabilitation. This proposal to allow appeal of the trial court’s decision in a transfer hearing would give a child, who the appellate court believes should not have been transferred to criminal court, the opportunity to benefit from the unique services available through the juvenile court system.
As the law currently stands, the decision to transfer a child to criminal court is only reviewed after the case has fully resolved—often years later. The result is that affected children have no meaningful opportunity to appeal the transfer decision at a point when reversal could change the course of the case. The current process also wastes precious resources, burdening criminal courts and practitioners on both sides of these often-complicated cases.
Read our full public comment on the Illinois Supreme Court’s website here.
We are grateful to Assistant Public Defender Michelle Booker (Markham), Assistant Public Defender Sam Goldberg (Markham), Associate Director of Legal Services David Roleck (Youth Defense), Attorney Supervisor Lee Shevell (Youth Defense), and Deputy Public Defender for Policy Sharlyn Grace for their work preparing this public comment. Special thanks to Sam Goldberg for attending today’s public hearing to provide testimony to accompany the office’s written comment.
Thursday, April 9, 2026