Revisit some of our team’s outstanding reporting from this past year, including our investigations into tax foreclosures, a rogue forensics lab, juvenile detention, wrongful convictions, and the county’s first new chief judge in nearly a quarter-century.
Posted inWaiting for Payday
Illinois fails to collect wages owed to workers in Cook County
Illinois has strengthened its labor laws and improved efforts to collect stolen wages. But hundreds of cases linger in Cook County court, leaving workers waiting years to be fully compensated, an Injustice Watch investigation found.
Posted inCourt Administration
Timothy Evans Expects to Endure
Cook County’s longest-serving chief judge is also among its most storied politicians. As he leaves office after 24 years, where does his tenure leave the courts?
Posted inYouth Incarceration
Leonard Dixon stepping down as head of Cook County juvenile detention center
The superintendent of one of the country’s largest juvenile jails is resigning Dec. 1 after a decade-long tenure marked by controversy.
Posted inYouth Incarceration
‘Horrific’ video of incident at Chicago’s juvenile jail raises questions about recent trial, experts say
Former Juvenile Temporary Detention Center employee Kevin Walker was acquitted last month of charges related to the incident, which left a 15-year-old boy bruised and unconscious.
Posted inYouth Incarceration
Former Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center employee found not guilty in incident that left a 15-year-old boy unconscious and bruised
The verdict highlights the challenges of holding detention center staff accountable for alleged abuse, advocates say.
Posted inYouth Incarceration
Rare criminal trial of former Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center employee expected to start Thursday
For decades, allegations of child abuse and employee misconduct have swirled around Chicago’s juvenile detention center. But on Thursday, a Cook County judge will begin proceedings in a rare trial of a former employee accused of physically harming a child at the facility. Kevin Walker, 58, a former rapid response team specialist at the Cook […]
Posted inDenying Innocence
Cook County’s new prosecutor has weakened an already broken system for freeing the innocent
State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke’s Conviction Integrity Unit hasn’t exonerated anyone in her 10 months on the job, and she has done little to confront more than a dozen coercion allegations against a former Chicago police detective and his partners.
Posted inJudicial Conduct
Cook County judge previously accused of ‘unwanted touching’ reassigned after clerk alleges battery
Judge Ruth Gudino was reassigned from a domestic violence courtroom in Markham after a clerk accused her of pushing him. The sheriff’s office said the allegation was unfounded.
Posted inHousing
Chicago’s invisible property owners
For four months, Russell Carter and his son couldn’t safely use the bathroom in their South Side apartment. In early February, the bathroom ceiling and walls suddenly collapsed from chronic water damage. Building maintenance came the next day to clean up the debris. Carter assumed they would come back the day after to patch up […]