For the first time in nearly a quarter century, Cook County sees a new chief judge take office today.
It’s a job that’s rarely in the spotlight, with outgoing chief Timothy Evans emerging from near seclusion only for occasional social club luncheons and press events promoting the court’s latest feel-good initiative.
But his successor, Charles Beach, who ousted Evans in an upset vote by the county’s judges in September, will find himself under bright lights on day one.
That’s because the county’s electronic monitoring program, most of which came under the control of the chief judge’s office earlier this year, is sagging under withering criticism after CWBChicago revealed that the man accused of setting a woman on fire aboard a Blue Line train in the Loop last month was wearing an ankle monitor issued by Evans’ office at the time of the horrific crime.
Our further investigation revealed that Evans’ staff was aware that the accused man, Lawrence Reed, had repeatedly left home without permission, yet they took no action to bring him back.
And, over the weekend, we reported that a man recently charged with shooting another man on the Red Line was also on the chief judge’s monitoring program.
Now it will be up to Beach, a judge since 2017, to manage the fallout of those headline-making cases and figure out how to fix a program that, by Evans’ own admission last week, has no law enforcement mechanism to address AWOL defendants.
Multiple programs
Cook County actually has four electronic monitoring programs, three of which are run by the chief judge: a GPS-tracking system for domestic violence defendants, a pretrial curfew system for defendants ordered to be home during certain hours, and the full-blown monitoring program for defendants who, at least on paper, are supposed to be in their homes around the clock.
The fourth system, operated by the Cook County Sheriff’s Office, is being phased out. The sheriff’s program served as the county’s customary “24/7” monitoring system until officials transferred responsibility to Evans’ office on April 1. The sheriff’s office will continue to monitor participants who were already in its program on that date, but no new participants are being admitted as the operation winds down.
The sheriff’s program is different from the chief judge’s systems in at least two important ways. First, the sheriff has armed law enforcement officers who can go out to find and apprehend participants who disappear while wearing ankle monitors. Second, the sheriff’s operations are subject to public review under the state’s Freedom of Information Act. The courts, including the chief judge’s monitoring systems, are not subject to FOIA and they have no internal law enforcement mechanism.
In April, Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke flagged the lack of enforcement as just one of many problems with the chief judge’s operation, which she called “a serious threat to public safety.”
After staying silent for more than a week after the CTA fire attack, Evans issued his first public statement about his monitoring programs last Tuesday, but only after the Chicago Tribune criticized his office in an editorial that cited CWBChicago’s reporting.
In that statement, Evans admitted that his staff does not try to apprehend people who abscond from electronic monitoring. The staff does not notify law enforcement either. Instead, they take note of the violations and pass them on to the judge at the defendant’s next court date.
Even in what Evans called “major violations,” such as the unauthorized removal of an ankle monitor, the chief judge’s staff does not notify law enforcement. Within 72 hours of the band’s removal, they notify the relevant judge and the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, neither of which has any way to track down and apprehend the violator.
Essential movement
The state’s criminal justice “reform” law, known as the SAFE-T Act, adds to the nightmare. Under that law, a defendant on electronic monitoring is not considered an escapee until they have been away from home without permission for 48 consecutive hours. The law also allows participants to leave their homes 16 hours a week for “essential” activities. But where they actually go, and the essentialness of their activities, is not closely monitored.
And for every day a defendant wears an ankle monitor — whether they are at home, on the streets, or setting someone on fire on the CTA — they earn a day of credit to be applied toward any future prison sentence in their case.
Murder defendants on monitors
Currently, there are 62 people awaiting trial for murder or attempted murder on the sheriff’s monitoring program, according to the office’s records. Another 46 are charged with sex crimes.
The chief judge’s programs include another 41 murder or attempted murder defendants and 109 sex crime defendants, up from 27 and 47 a year ago, respectively.
Something needs to give, and incoming Chief Judge Charles Beach is the guy who will have to figure out what that “something” is.
It seems unlikely that Beach will be able to hand responsibility for the monitoring programs to the sheriff. That program is being wound down because Sheriff Tom Dart complained for years that judges were putting dangerous people on his monitoring system who should have been kept in jail. He wants nothing to do with it.
At a minimum, Beach will need to develop or outsource an enforcement mechanism for the court’s monitoring programs. Simply having staff memorialize violations in a memo and notifying offices that have no enforcement tools serves no one.
And because the courts are exempt from FOIA, they remain a black hole where poor procedures and failed programs can hide. The only information the public receives about their operations is what the chief judge chooses to release. That’s another policy that serves no one — other than the chief judge. Exactly how Beach will address those transparency issues, if at all, remains to be seen.
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