Criminal Courts
Police | Prosecutors | Bail and Pretrial | Cook County Jail | Illinois Prisons | Parole and Clemency
Appeals and Wrongful Convictions
More than 75,000 criminal cases are opened in Cook County each year. We investigate failures in the criminal legal system, from arrest to incarceration to reentry.
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A law passed in 2021 empowered prosecutors to revisit excessive sentences, but so far, only two people have been released. Said one: ‘Two years into it, it’s helped two people?’
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Hundreds of Cook County probationers have been required to wear an electronic alcohol-monitoring bracelet, even in cases unrelated to alcohol. A single judge, Judge Gregory Vazquez, was responsible for more than one-third of the orders.
A collaborative journalism project that explored more than two decades of Cook County court data to understand how the system operates.
More Criminal Courts
Family sues Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart over ‘brutal’ jail death
The family of a man who died in Cook County Jail last year after he was beaten by guards is suing Sheriff Tom Dart alleging civil rights violations and demanding punitive damages. The 73-page suit filed last week in the Northern District of Illinois by the stepfather of Cory Ulmer, who was 41 when he…
Costs triple, delays mount in vital tech contracts
This investigation was reported in collaboration with the Chicago Tribune. In a flurry of contracts inked a decade ago, some of Illinois’ most powerful political figures declared it was time to fix their obsolete and expensive computer systems. Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle called for an online method to deliver error-free property records and…
Cook County’s conviction integrity unit repeatedly denied freedom to incarcerated people who were later cleared
Still in prison after 18 years despite the flimsy evidence of his guilt, Kevin Jackson tore open the letter from the Cook County conviction integrity unit — a squad in the prosecutor’s office set up to dig into cases such as his and free the wrongfully convicted. He was filled with hope prosecutors in the…
Sheriff Tom Dart skips hearing on Cook County Jail deaths as families offer tearful testimony
The Cook County Board of Commissioners held a hearing Wednesday on the health and safety of people incarcerated at the Cook County Jail in response to an Injustice Watch investigation which found 2023 was the deadliest year in the jail in at least three decades. In its investigation, published in June, Injustice Watch looked into…
Reporter’s Notebook: Snapshots from watching 8 Cook County judges at work
The second floor of Cook County’s main criminal courthouse on the corner of 26th Street and California Avenue is unlike the other floors, weirdly cramped. Its winding, narrow hallways lead to low-ceilinged rooms that feel like they were inserted into the building as an afterthought. In late August, I walked into Judge Joanne Rosado’s courtroom,…
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