Injustice Watch (https://www.injusticewatch.org/author/maricohen/)
Mari Cohen (reporting fellow) graduated from the University of Chicago in 2017 with a degree in History and English. Throughout college, she worked as a writer and editor for the nonprofit newsmagazine South Side Weekly, serving as contributing editor, education editor, and director of writer development. She has also worked as the Public Newsroom coordinator at City Bureau and as a research intern at the Southern Poverty Law Center. Mari is passionate about using new 21st century models of nonprofit journalism to report on social injustice. Before joining Injustice Watch as a reporting fellow, she served as a summer intern.
The Illinois governor said he could not support giving jail inmates easier access to vote, as long as the bill also included a provision that required corrections officials to make sure prisoners knew their voting rights upon release. The bill’s disappointed sponsor contends that the bill only required corrections officials to put voting rights literature into the packet handed to prisoners as they are freed.
The organization Chicago Votes gathered 28,000 signatures as part of its effort, along with other progressive organizations and public officials, to convince the governor to sign into law a bill to make voting easier for those locked up in Illinois county jails. A spokesperson for the governor said he is weighing a variety of bills on his desk.
A California lawsuit contends one county has left a private company to charge hefty fees, and threaten those unable to pay with jail for the right to be released pretrial on electronic monitoring. The lawsuit may be a cautionary tale as electronic monitoring spreads as an alternative to being locked up before trial.
Cook County judge Matthew Coghlan, facing retention in November, says he was not part of a meeting where a corrupt cop convinced an informant to frame two innocent men for murder. Court records, however, show he may have met the informant that day.
In settlement of rare lawsuit by Cook County Circuit Court’s chief judge against the county, courts win right to decide how budget cuts in court system are enacted; Cook County wins some, but not all, budget cuts it sought.
Cook County judge Matthew Coghlan is among 62 Cook County judges who will ask voters to retain them for new terms in the November election. But Coghlan has some issues, including a current lawsuit contending he conspired with a disgraced Chicago police detective to frame two men for murder.
Cook County’s new group of associate judges includes candidates whose backgrounds are Greek, Asian, Hispanic, Jewish, and more. But not one of the 16 judges already selected are African-American. The 17th seat, still to be filled, will go to one of two black men — leaving black women excluded.
The 16 new Cook County associate judges announced by the state court system on Monday include five who had lost primary elections at the polling place in March. But a vote by the county’s circuit judges has rewarded them with seats on the bench in any event.
The sponsor of an Illinois House of Representatives bill that would have drastically cut public access to police records—including in cases of officer misconduct—killed the bill Thursday after searing opposition from civil rights and open government advocates, including the ACLU and the state attorney general’s office. The bill was prompted by a request from the city of Chicago Heights.
State court officials plan to install equipment that will record eviction court hearings. But timing is not certain. In the meantime, tenants remain without record of what occurred, making appeals difficult.