Injustice Watch (https://www.injusticewatch.org/tag/cook-county/)
Recent DNA testing supports the contention of inmates Curtis Croft and Demetrius Henderson that they have spent years in prison for a rape and murder they did not commit, a newly-filed petition states.
Cook County’s Chief Judge Timothy C. Evans filed suit against the Cook County Board Thursday, contending the budget cuts would require laying off 161 court employees and put in jeopardy recent efforts to revamp the county’s bail system.
After all but giving up hope of release by the agency tasked with considering their parole, two inmates are searching for other ways out of prison.
If history is a guide, the principal attributes of the winners in Cook County’s judicial races will not be their qualifications — their legal experience, education, and temperament — but rather the ethnicity of their names, their skin color, gender, campaign financing, and ballot position.
Becoming a circuit judge in Cook County is a complex process. Here’s an explanation of how it works.
As judicial misconduct investigations drag on, judges in limbo outside courtrooms — with pay.
Five years after being appointed as a Cook County associate judge in 2005, Simpson participated in an ex parte conversation involving another judge and a business owner whom Simpson had talked to about detailing his vehicle. Simpson received a censure for the misconduct. Simpson is retired from the bench, is registered to practice law in Illinois and will receive $73,449.36 in Illinois pension this year.
Francis X. Golniewicz III first was appointed by the State Supreme Court to a vacant seat in 1991, and then won election three years later as a circuit judge from the 10th sub-circuit encompassing Chicago’s northwest side.
Susan J. McDunn served as Cook County Circuit Judge from 1993, when she was seated following a court challenge to the results of a contested primary election, until her retirement in 2012.
James T. Doyle was first named a Kane County Associate Judge in 1989; three years later, he was elected as a Circuit Judge. In 2000, Doyle helped launch the county’s drug court. But in February, 2005, the Judicial Inquiry Board alleged that Doyle had systematically violated the rights of criminal defendants in his drug court, among other acts of judicial misconduct. The charges were dismissed when Doyle resigned from the bench while the charges were pending. Doyle last registered to practice law in 2012 and is now retired, collecting $128,257.08 in his pension this year.