Chief Judge of the Circuit Court, Tim Evans, spoke to commissioners on Tuesday, October 30th regarding his budget for the upcoming year--2013. His main difference with President Toni Preckwinkle's recommendation for his office is that he wants 25 new employees to staff a Pre-trial Service Center at the court. The duties of these employees would be to independently and objectively evaluate information given by prosecutors and defense attorneys about a defendant regarding bail, bond, etc. before the trial takes place. They would assess risk to the community and would make sure the rules are followed by defendants awaiting trial. One goal of this is to keep more people out of jail before trial if they are low risk--at a savings of $145 per day. Currently 57 other employees are doing this job along with their other duties. He indicated that ideally 200 employees are needed for this Pre-trial Service Center as was the case during the 1990's. Budget Director Andrea Gibson suggested using vacancies already in the Chief Judge budget to fill those positions. There was some talk of using "turnover" numbers of employees, but it was unclear whether this was effectively used by the Chief Judge last year.
Case Management of Defendants:
Several commissioners questioned the Chief Judge regarding communication between Sheriff Dart's office, the probation department and the courts. It appears that complete information about defendants (place to stay, phone number, risk, etc.) is not transferred from the court to the Sheriff so that effective electronic monitoring could take place. The length of trials was also discussed (an increase of 3 days from last year), especially the number of continuances. According to the Chief Judge, 94% of trials take 2 years or less to complete. Basically, the Sheriff is asking for more effective case management of defendants throughout their involvement with the court system.
Juvenile Defendant Issues:
Other commissioners brought up the lack of weekend court for juveniles. If they are arrested early on the weekend, there is no one to release them so they remain in jail for longer than an adult in a similar situation. Evans replied that state law does not require charge or release within 48 hours for juveniles. If the state law were changed, he would provide a weekend judge. There was also talk of supporting staff union issues preventing weekend work.
The Chief Judge is also in charge of the Juvenile Temporary Detention Center (JTDC) which has had a temporary administrator for the past 5 years due to a court order to revamp that center. Judge Evans feels the court order will soon be satisfied and that he can select a replacement by late spring of 2013.
After much back and forth on these and other issues, Commissioner Daley suggested a "sit down" between the Chief Judge's office and the Sheriff to work out their differences for a more effective system.
Mortgage mediation has again been budgeted at $3.5 million, though $500,000 of this was not spent last year and will be carried over to next year. Ten full-time judges are assigned to mortgage mediation with about 8,000 cases per judge and over 500 days per case for the foreclosure process. According to Judge Evans, there is a space issue with not enough courtrooms in the Daley Center to accommodate all these cases.
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