The spark for this investigation came from a Cook County court hearing in December 2020 that lasted just a few minutes.
Defendant Michael Laster walks with a group of detainees through tunnels from Cook County Jail to the Leighton Criminal Court Building for court appearances. “Honestly, it gets tiresome to go out every month, or two months, and not have any results, or any new updates,” Michael Laster told the Tribune in September.came from a Cook County court hearing in December 2020 that lasted just a few minutes.
So the reporters turned to the office of Chief Judge Timothy Evans, elected by his peers as the top judge in Cook County. He gets to decide where judges are assigned, from handling traffic tickets to managing felony cases. Evans has a research staff to help him in his job; it works with the circuit clerk’s office to obtain and analyze data.
The reporters did have another source. As part of a transparency push, the office of Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx has posted vast data sets online about cases it prosecuted, including when, for what, and what happened. It was a good proxy for court data, though not a perfect substitute.the length of individual cases from arrest to the ultimate outcome, which can include conviction, acquittal, a plea agreement or a dropped case.
Why were the delays occurring? What were the reasons that cases were pushed off again and again as the months and years went by? None of the available data could answer that question. So reporters started to dig into individual cases. Records from the sheriff’s office showed there were hundreds of murder cases where defendants had been detained for at least four years. Mahr used a computer program to randomly pick 30.
Also affected, obviously, are the people who are in detention because they were charged with crimes. These defendants, who are presumed innocent, are often stuck for years in Cook County Jail — not exactly the most pleasant place — not knowing when their case would go to trial. The reporters sent letters to a number of longtime detainees, offering them an opportunity to talk about their experience. Some accepted, speaking about how they felt trapped by a system that moved at a glacial pace.
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