Federal Court Judge Virginia Kendall said Cook County's central bond court is a mess, that's where suspects have their first hearing after arrest. Civil rights attorney Locke Bowman agrees that county judges are dropping the ball there.
BOWMAN: They have the frontline responsibility to make the decision who stays in jail awaiting trial and who doesn't. They are doing an abysmal job performing that function.
Bowman says the judges are just locking everyone up. He says they need to identify defendants who don't pose a threat and release them, that would eliminate persistent overcrowding at the jail. Bowman and attorneys for the people who run the jail say the state judiciary has been unresponsive to their requests to sit down and figure out a solution to overcrowding.
Chief Judge Timothy Evans says he's all for beefing up pre-trial services, the division that would identify harmless defendants who could be released while awaiting trial. He says he's asked the county board for funding but plans to move ahead regardless.
Dispatches from Chicago's south side.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Blaming Cook County Judges
CPR:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment
PLEASE READ FIRST!!!! Comment Moderating and Anonymous Comment Policy
While anonymous comments are not prohibited we do encourage you to help readers identify you so that other commenters may respond to you. Either read the moderating policy for how or leave an identifier (which could be a nickname for example) at the end of the comment.
Also note that this blog is NOT associated with any public or political officials including Alderman Roderick T. Sawyer!