Courtroom 302 (64 page)

NOTES

PROLOGUE: WELCOME TO COUNTY

 1
They sold cocaine:
Examples cited are from the prisoners’ arrest reports.
At the district station:
Details of the booking procedure are from Chicago police spokesman Pat Camden.

 2
Thirty courtrooms:
In 1998. By 2004 there were thirty-two trial courtrooms in the building; two courtrooms formerly used for preliminary hearings had been converted to trial courtrooms.

 3
He lost the leg:
Interview with Walter Williams’s brother, Henry Williams.

 4
He’s fast:
The deputies’ preference for a speedy judge in bond court is nothing new. In 1950, Northwestern University researcher Samuel Dash (who later would become chief counsel of the Senate Watergate Committee) spent five months watching proceedings in the Municipal Court of Chicago, including its felony branch, in which bonds were set and preliminary hearings conducted in felony cases. “A judge’s popularity among the bailiffs” in the felony branch “depends almost entirely on his speed of action,” Dash observed. “It is not unusual for the most conscientious judges who attempt to get all the facts of the case disclosed before the court to be extremely unpopular with the bailiffs and the targets of many a curse throughout the morning.” Dash, “Cracks in the Foundation of Criminal Justice,”
Illinois Law Review
, 1951, vol. 46, p. 388.

 5
Gerstein v. Pugh: 420 U.S. 103

 6
The amount of the I-bond:
In 1998, judges were still setting I-bonds in various amounts. Shortly thereafter, they began setting them routinely at $10,000.

 7
“Poor and friendless”:
George W. Kirchwey,
Reports Comprising the Survey of the Cook County Jail
(Calumet Publishing, 1922), pp. 23–24.

 8
Slickly choreographed:
This choreography is not a recent creation. “The bailiffs set up systems to insure the rapid presentation of defendants before the court,” Dash wrote about the Municipal Court in 1950. “A defendant is held ‘on deck’ while one is before the bench and is shifted into place before the judge as soon as the prior defendant is snatched away.” Dash, “Cracks in the Foundation of Criminal Justice,” p. 388.

 9
Chester’s lawyer:
Interview with his lawyer, Kent Brody.

10
A medical examiner:
Cook County Medical Examiner case report, 471 Jan. 98, and interview with medical examiner Dr. Edmund Donoghue.

11
“No man”:
From an address to the Sunset Club of Chicago (“What Shall We Do with Our Criminals?”), March 27, 1890. Printed in
Live Questions
(Donahue & Henneberry, 1890), p. 308.

12
Imprisonment of fifty thousand:
Altgeld referred to a report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics of Illinois about the number of convicts nationally in 1880.
Our Penal Machinery and Its Victims
(first published in 1884), reprinted in
Live Questions
, p. 156.

13
A “maelstrom”:
Ibid., p. 162.

14
Nearly 1.5 million:
At year’s end in 2003, there were 1,470,000 people under the jurisdiction of federal or state adult correctional authorities. Another 691,000 prisoners were in local jails. “Prisoners in 2003,” Bureau of Justice Statistics, November 2004.

15
“At every point”:
Samuel Walker,
Popular Justice: A History of American Criminal Justice
(Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 8.

ONE · WHITE SALES

 1
No small task:
Details of the procedures for bringing inmates to the courthouse from Joan Stockmal, Cook County Jail public information officer.

 2
Virtually no blacks:
The proportion of blacks in Norwood Park increased fifteenfold between 1990 and 2000—from .06 percent to .9 percent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

 3
Superman cape:
Interview with Locallo’s mother, Anna Mae Locallo.

 4
Bar associations have praised:
“Judge Locallo exemplifies the many qualities needed to be an excellent judge. He is intelligent, hardworking, fair, even-tempered and balanced in his judicial duties”—Chicago Bar Association, 1992. “Judge Locallo is widely acclaimed as having outstanding legal ability and judicial temperamant [and] … is considered to be fair and of high integrity”—Chicago Council of Lawyers, 1992.

 5
One a month:
In 2001, the forty felony trial judges in Cook County (counting its suburban courtrooms) presided over 395 jury trials; in 2002—the last full year for which such information was available—the forty judges presided over 344 jury trials. Data from the office of Paul Biebel, criminal court presiding judge in 2004.

 6
About three-quarters; just over half:
From 1994 to 2003, 76 percent of felony defendants in Cook County were convicted. Of those sentenced to prison or probation, 53 percent were sentenced to prison. My calculations from “Annual Report of the Illinois Courts: Statistical Summary,” Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts, for years 1994 through 2003.

 7
More than four of every five:
In 2001, 81 percent of Cook County’s felony cases were disposed of by guilty pleas; in 2002 and the first half of 2004, 85 percent, according to data from presiding judge Biebel. (There was “confusion” about the 2003 data, Biebel said.) These percentages include cases dismissed by the state in pretrial stages. Considering only cases resolved by pleas or trials, 86 percent of the cases were disposed of by pleas in 2001, 90 percent in 2002, and 91 percent in 2004.

 8
In fact, prosecutors:
“The trial judge shall not initiate plea discussions.” Illinois Supreme Court Rule 402 (d) (1). “If a tentative plea agreement has been reached by the parties … the trial judge may permit, upon request of the parties, the disclosure to him of the tentative agreement.…” 402 (d) (2).

 9
The most populated:
In 1998, the nation’s three largest jail jurisdictions were Los Angeles County, with an average daily population of 21,136 at midyear; New York City, with 17,680; and Cook County, with 9,321. “Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 1998,” Bureau of Justice Statistics. But inmates in Los Angeles and New York are held in facilities spread over several sites, whereas all Cook County inmates are held at 26th and California.

10
One percent:
From 2001 through the first half of 2004, 0.9 percent of the felony cases in Cook County were tried by juries, according to data from presiding judge Biebel.

11
Fifteen jury trials:
Quarterly Reports, Criminal Division, Circuit Court of Cook County, 1997.

12
Began sending its clerks into courtrooms:
In announcing its plan to monitor judges, the crime commission shrewdly suggested it was merely doing judges a favor. Judges had been chided publicly for allowing cases to “drag along for months” and for issuing continuances “on the slightest pretext,” the commission noted; and some judges had been criticized for permitting their “social and political activities to interfere with an honest day’s work on the bench.” Judges were “helpless against such criticism and no doubt would welcome the active efforts of the Chicago Crime Commission to correct any untrue viewpoint held by the public.” “In Support of the Judges,”
Bulletin of the Chicago Crime Commission
, Oct. 6, 1920.

13
A trial court judge who hesitates:
A. T. Andreas,
History of Chicago, from the Earliest Period to the Present Time
(A. T. Andreas Co., 1884–1886), vol. 2, p. 457.

14
Surged to tenth:
Criminal Division disposition statistics, Dec. 29, 1997.

15
That includes:
Criminal Division quarterly reports, 1997.

16
Misdemeanor arrests were soaring:
“Trends and Issues 90,”
Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority
, 1990, p. 141.

17
“What’s next”:
William Grady, “Approaching the bench head-on,”
Chicago Tribune
, Dec. 30, 1993.

18
Plea bargaining has been a staple:
Samuel Walker,
Popular Justice
, pp. 73–74.

19
Abolition of plea bargaining: Courts
, National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals (1973), pp. 42–49.

20
He’s fit if:
725 ILCS (Illinois Compiled Statutes) 5/104–10.

21
In psychiatric hospitals:
With Cameron’s permission, I reviewed his state mental health records at the Tinley Park Mental Health Center.

22
Inmates usually get it:
Interview with Illinois Department of Corrections spokesperson Nic Howell. In addition, inmates usually get a six-month “meritorious service” credit, also designed to alleviate prison overcrowding, and they can trim another three months by attending school while incarcerated.

23
“Truth-in-sentencing” law:
730 ILCS 5/3-6-3.

24
Cameron’s 1986 conviction:
Transcript and records in that case (85CR-3534).

25
It’s up to prison officials:
For defendants found guilty but mentally ill, “The Department of Corrections shall provide such psychiatric, psychological, or other counseling and treatment for the defendant as it determines necessary.” 730 ILCS 5/5-2-6 (b).

26
U.S. Supreme Court: North Carolina v. Alford
, 400 U.S. 25 (1970).

27
Critics:
John H. Langbein, “Torture and Plea Bargaining,”
University of Chicago Law Review
(fall 1978), p. 15.

28
But Supreme Court justices:
Speaking of plea-bargaining generally in a ruling a year after its
Alford
decision, Chief Justice Warren Burger observed that “if every criminal charge were subjected to a full-scale trial, the States and the Federal Government would need to multiply by many times the number of judges and court facilities.”
Santobello v. New York
, 404 U.S. 257, 260 (1971).

TWO · A GROWTH INDUSTRY

 1
“Lamentable but true”:
Hammett, “The New Cook County Criminal Court and Jail Buildings,”
The Western Architect
, September 1929, p. 157.

 2
A decorative fountain:
Chicago Department of Transportation press release, May 13, 1998.

 3
The county’s first courthouse; a larger one built; a courthouse exclusively for criminal cases:
Weston Goodspeed,
History of Cook County, Illinois
(Goodspeed Historical Association, 1909), p. 218.

 4
Officials predicted; “No other city”:
“Citadel of justice,” undated 1893
Chicago Herald
article, on file with Commission on Chicago Landmarks.

 5
Kirchwey:
“The next generation is likely to witness a great advance in the development of preventive measure which may materially reduce the volume of crime,” Kirchwey wrote hopefully. “The psychological and psychiatric study of the delinquent, which is now only in its infancy, may be expected to equip us with new methods of handling an increasingly large percentage of those who now find their way into jail.” George Kirchwey,
Reports Comprising the Survey of the Cook County Jail
(Calumet Publishing, 1922), p. 56.

 6
Taxpayers finally approved: Chicago Tribune
, February 25, 1925.

 7
Hopelessly hooked:
Mark H. Haller, “Urban Crime and Criminal Justice: The Chicago Case,”
Journal of American History
, 1970, p. 619.

 8
The first sites considered:
“Report of the Committee on New County Jail and Criminal Court Building,” November 11, 1924.

 9
Cermak’s real estate holdings:
“Cermak’s folly still there after 40 years,”
Chicago’s American
, April 1, 1969.

10
Courthouse opened:
“Judge rebels at new courts, halts a trial,”
Chicago Daily News
, April 1, 1929. “New courts open in storm of protest,”
Chicago Herald & Examiner
, April 2, 1929. “Judge finds his new court like a movie stage,”
Chicago Tribune
, April 2, 1929.