A totally messed up system
Wednesday, Sep 25, 2013 - Posted by Rich Miller
* More details on Bryon Champ, who was allegedly wounded by a rival gang member before allegedly taking part in a mass shooting in a Chicago park…
Champ’s criminal record includes a 2012 conviction for aggravated unlawful use of a weapon and a 2011 conviction for receiving stolen property. He was sentenced to Cook County Jail boot camp for the gun-possession conviction and had received probation in the other case, records show.
In the 2012 case, police had responded to a report of someone being shot and saw Champ running through a gangway with a gun in his hand, according to court records. When police arrested Champ a short while later, he was carrying a .40-caliber semi-automatic gun loaded with 10 rounds and one in the chamber, records show.
So Champ gets sent to boot camp, but Edward Hambrick, who had a valid FOID card and an out of state concealed carry permit, languished 14 months in the Cook County jail after being busted for having a loaded gun in his car.
It makes me wanna scream.
* And then there’s this…
Brian Otero spent nearly two years in Cook County Jail waiting to go to trial for a burglary. The jury found him not guilty, but he didn’t get to leave the courtroom like they do on TV. No, he was brought back into the Cook County Jail to be “processed” out. He was put in a small cell just off the front of the courtroom, to eventually be brought back into the jail.
Now remember, at this point, there are no charges against Otero, yet he’s being detained against his will because that’s just how we’ve always done it in Cook County. Defendants who have been held in jail awaiting trial are brought back into the jail. They can be handcuffed, searched, and locked back up in their cell even though there are no charges against them.
Sheriff Tom Dart and county officials are doing little to change the seemingly unconstitutional practice and that could cost taxpayers millions
On his way back into the jail after acquittal, Otero was put in a holding cell with a number of other inmates and three men attacked him.
“They approached me and asked me, ‘Did you win your case, are you going home today?’” Otero said in an interview in his attorney’s Loop law office. “Upon me saying ‘yes’ one of them swung at me and when he swung at me the other two grabbed me and they started hitting me all over my body.” […]
Otero was eventually brought back to his cell, to wait. Ten hours after he was acquitted he was finally released from the jail.
Fingers are pointing everywhere…
But even if the sheriff’s office makes the technological leap to the 1990s in all 17 courthouses, the rest of the Cook County court system under Clerk of Courts Dorothy Brown is pretty solidly stuck in the 70s. The whole court system is paper and carbon copies. That presents a problem for Lt. Charles Luna when he’s supposed to release someone from the jail.
And…
While it’s Sheriff Dart who is detaining people, it’s Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez who tells Dart what he needs to do to comply with the constitution. For two weeks Alvarez’s office has failed to provide WBEZ with any explanation as to whether the current practices are constitutional, or what her office is doing to ensure Cook County doesn’t have to pay out millions in settlements arising from this practice of detaining people after they’ve been found not guilty.
- Formerly Known As... - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 10:16 am:
This is insane.
I forgot about Hambrick. Talk about screwed up prosecutorial judgment.
Alvarez needs to go. Like, yesterday. Disgraceful.
- Ravenswood Right Winger - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 10:17 am:
Yet more reasons for the Cook County GOP to field decent opponents against Dorothy Brown & Anita Alvarez.
- OneMan - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 10:21 am:
Yes, I realize the Cook County court system is huge. But this is a solvable technology problem, it may require some changes in process (usually the hardest thing in any project, not the tech) but it can be done.
- Skeeter - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 10:22 am:
Dart, Alvarez, and Brown all cruise to re-election.
Meanwhile, the Chicago GOP is taking advice from the Illinois Review crowd and Fran Eaton in particular.
Somehow I suspect there may be a connection between those two.
- Angry Republican - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 10:29 am:
“Dart, Alvarez, and Brown all cruise to re-election.
Meanwhile, the Chicago GOP is taking advice from the Illinois Review crowd and Fran Eaton in particular.
Somehow I suspect there may be a connection between those two.”
When was the last time a Republican candidate for a county wide office has won in Cook County? The problem predates Fran and IR, and the reality is many people in Cook County wouldn’t vote for God if God was running as a Republican.
- Rich Miller - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 10:33 am:
===many people in Cook County wouldn’t vote for God if God was running as a Republican===
Nice hyperbole, but you are aware that there are very good reasons for this phenomenon, right?
- Anon. - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 10:37 am:
==Nice hyperbole, but you are aware that there are very good reasons for this phenomenon, right?==
Because Cook County is godless?
- Cassandra - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 10:38 am:
There are so many ways in which technology could improve the way govt agencies function. But somebody with some power has to make it a personal project. Perhaps too many politicians and bureaucrats benefit from legacy systems.
Nevertheless, I am convinced that someday soon the use of paper will disappear in bureaucracies, even govt bureaucracies. For one thing, will current kg students with their i-pads even know what to do with a piece of paper when they enter the workforce. Even I, approaching retirement age, rarely use paper for anything.
Nevertheless, you can’t blame Alvarez or Brown alone. We citizens need to put on the pressure.
Cook County would be a good place to start.
- 47th Ward - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 10:39 am:
God would never run as a Republican.
- Chavez-respecting Obamist - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 10:40 am:
Where do you even buy carbon paper any more?
- Joan P. - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 10:40 am:
I don’t know of any place where someone in custody who is acquitted or given a recog in court gets released directly from the courtroom. Granted 10 hours is ridiculous, but the jail has to do final records check, make sure the guy leaves with his property, etc.
Also, comparing a sentence to a bond decision is comparing apples and oranges.
- Skeeter - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 10:42 am:
The last I remember was O’Grady as Sheriff and O’Malley as SA.
Did either of them do anything different than the Democrats? Did either of them clean up the office?
So we have a most recent record of corruption/incompetence, and now we have a GOP that runs on a “no abortion, ever” [as if that matters in a county-wide race] platform and is controlled by a bunch of people who hate women, gays and everybody else who is not a 50 year old white Christian male.
Not exactly a winning strategy.
And do they look to moderates to lead them out of their current status?
No, they actually seek advice from Fran Eaton, best known for never winning any election.
We are in the current situation because there is no real alternative. As long as things are going to be screwed up, it may as well be our friends getting paid to screw up.
- Skeeter - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 10:44 am:
One reason for holding them for a short time at least after charges dismissed:
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-02-01/news/chi-indiana-murderer-steven-l-robbins-mistakenly-released-from-cook-county-jail-20130131_1_cook-county-jail-murderer-frank-bilecki
- Buddy Oliver - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 10:45 am:
God has to check with Madigan first.
- Cassandra - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 10:47 am:
Skeeter, I don’t think this happens very often. But some kind of electronic tracking system could prevent it.
- OneMan - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 10:59 am:
Wasn’t Pat O’Malley a Republican?
- Downstater - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 11:23 am:
Just another reason to avoid Cook County and Chicago, unless you are a connected person.
- Formerly Known As... - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 11:27 am:
I like to think that there are principled Democrats out there as well who can see this string of outrageous incompetence by Alvarez, et al.
When dealing with a rudderless Cook County GOP, it would be nice to see the Dems police themselves a bit in the Democratic kingdom that is Cook County.
After all, Democratic voters care about the integrity of our public institutions just as much as Republicans do. Especially institutions as important as our justice system.
Letting Alvarez go through a primary unchallenged is almost as bad as letting the GOP off the hook for not fielding a real challenger in the general.
- Skeeter - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 11:30 am:
“Just another reason to avoid Cook County and Chicago, unless you are a connected person.”
Let me get this right — you are going to avoid some of the best restaurants in the world, same amazing museums, a famous shopping district, Navy Pier, and the lakefront, on the basis that if you are arrested for a crime, sit three years in jail, and are found not-guilty, you then will have to wait a few hours to be released?
Sure, that’s sound reasoning.
- shore - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 11:33 am:
time for a technocrat revolution in cook county and chicago. clean out this stuff.
Nice job on the reporting.
- Demoralized - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 11:40 am:
==Perhaps too many politicians and bureaucrats benefit from legacy systems. ==
Cassandra, you consistently write about technology and I think you are exactly right about your thoughts. But nobody benefits from legacy systems. Nobody keeps them around to protect something or because they think it’s a great thing. New technology costs A LOT of money. And it isn’t a simple switch from one system to another. It takes years and years of work to do these things. When the state wanted to spend tens of millions of dollars to upgrade it’s financial systems people threw a fit about the cost. Anytime government wants to spend money people go out of their mind. If you can figure out a way to convince the public that spending money on technology is a good thing then you will have found the holy grail.
- anon - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 11:44 am:
Sure, technology would be a vast improvement. But it takes tax $$ to invest in equipment and Preckwinkle rolled back the sales tax.
- Loop Lady - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 11:45 am:
Cook County politicos who did not like Alvarez to begin with because she wouldn’t play ball, now can publicly disapprove of the way she is handling her duties…question is, who will the powers that be run against her next time?
- wordslinger - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 11:45 am:
Many people in Cook County won’t vote for Republicans that base their campaigns on demonizing many people in Cook County.
Go figure.
- Rich Miller - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 11:45 am:
===comparing a sentence to a bond decision is comparing apples and oranges. ===
Actually, it’s not. The post is about how the entire county system is screwed up, for the guilty and the innocent.
- Anonymous - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 11:51 am:
I hate to turn it into a partisan thing, but imagine the lawsuits, demonstrations, and howls of outrage if this was a Bush or GOP policy.
Instead of worrying about Snowden or Guantanamo, why aren’t the ACLU and those groups terrorizing Dart, Alvarez, et al. Aren’t there responsible Democrats who get together and say, “Dorothy Brown has got to go?”
Sorry, but Cook County and this state elects the government it deserves.
- low level - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 11:53 am:
Skeeter is right on point.
GOP countywide victories:
90 (special) and 92, Jack O’Malley
86, James O’Grady.
Frustrated republican: look at WHY and HOW those two men were able to win and you will find the answer to the problem.
Bonus points: besides the ‘96 straight party voting, find out why “back Jack” O’Malley lost that election, especially when there was an African American candidate - Eugene Pincham running in another party and Dick Devine as the Democratic candidate.
Pincham and Devine should have canceled each other out, no?
(Hint: O’Malley and “pure” GOP candidates)
- Thomas - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 12:03 pm:
Rich, a possible explanation for why the Champ and Hambrick cases were handled differently:
One of the goals of the County boot camp is to get low level defendants (usually drug offenders) who are likely facing time in state prison to stop contesting their case early in the court process, cop a plea, and agree to enter the boot camp for a tough but much shorter sentence. This has the benefit of speeding up the usually slow pace of trials at the criminal courts building, which in turn, reduces jail crowding. It could be that Champ saw the writing on the wall after his arrest and knew that after a dragged-out trial he would be convicted and sentenced to 3 or 4 years downstate — so he plead guilty and went to boot camp. Hambrick, on the other hand, knew he had a good case and probably refused to plead guilty no matter what deal the state’s atty offered him and demanded to go to trail, which he won. The real injustice in the system here may be that Hambrick’s bail was set too high by the bond court judge. From what I see, there’s no way he should have been locked up while he waited for his case to go to trial. That’s a big problem in Cook County — one that Toni Preckwinkle has complained about. Being detained while awaiting trial too often hinges on the defendant’s ability to afford bail, not the severity of the charge against him.
And == Skeeter == is on the money as far as the delayed release of that guy is concerned. Jail inmates often have multiple charges pending against them and frequently new warrants — often for parole violations — are lodged in their names after they get locked up. Checking those things takes time…as we’ve seen and as Skeeter points out, jail records people have mistakenly released 3 defendants this year after they were found not guilty in court but had other pending cases. If defendants were allowed to walk right out of the courtroom the number of wrongful releases would skyrocket.
Still, much more needs to be done to update and merge the county’s separate computer systems.
- Keyrock - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 12:09 pm:
No person or group has taken responsibility for the County’s criminal justice system. Each points fingers at the other.
Also, please don’t let Chief Judge Evans and the Illinois Supreme Court off the hook. Neither has shown leadership in reducing court delays, or seeking to improve administrative processes.
- Thomas - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 12:17 pm:
== Anonymous at 11:51 ==
You don’t know what you’re talking about.
Spend a few hours hanging around 219 S. Dearborn. The federal court docket is loaded with ACLU and other left-wing legal advocates suing Dart, Alvarez, Daley and Emanuel over various police/detention/prosecution issues. The federal courts have virtually been running Cook County Jail for nearly 40 years thanks to one consent decree or another.
Mike Cherry, the attorney who brought the Otero suit against Dart, is a big liberal Democratic fundraiser.
- Amalia - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 12:17 pm:
you know that often cited fact that Illinois is home to more elected officials from different jurisdictions than any other place in, well, I believe the universe? that’s what is going on with trying to solve the criminal justice snafus in Cook County. every official responsible for one part of the conveyor belt of justice is separately elected.
perhaps the pleas to the Il. Supreme Court can do something to help. but if you have every been at a table with reps of the electeds, or god forbid, those electeds themselves, it is a fiefdom throwdown. computer systems that don’t connect, procedures that have different aims, ox goring. it’s a mess.
the only piece that is not elected separately is the Public Defender. and please include them in the bunch and whoever has control over them, please get them in gear. The Assistant PDs could ask for faster trials. they have fewer cases on their call than the ASAs do. and as for the resource issue, ASAs do not have remotely the resources that AUSAs have so don’t overestimate the mismatch. include the PD office and the defense bar in any discussion. delays most often come from defense.
- steve schnorf - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 12:29 pm:
I’m not sure this means we need tougher sentencing laws. Champ wasn’t sent to boot camp because there was no law providing for a tougher sentence, he was almost certainly sent for the sake of efficiency to ease overcrowding in the courts, the jails, and the prisons. You get about what you’re willing to pay for most of the time.
- Former City Worker - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 12:44 pm:
Rich, you noted there are good reasons Cook County residents wouldn’t vote for God if He/She were to run as a Republican.
Can you spend some time talking about what that is?
In this case, Alvarez isn’t just atrocious at her job, she’s atrocious at selling us she’s not atrocious at her job. Her 60 Minutes fiasco is an opposition campaign ad unto itself. She is a liability, not just to justice in Cook County, but politically for her patrons, supporters, and allies.
- OldSmoky2 - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 1:07 pm:
=== Jail inmates often have multiple charges pending against them and frequently new warrants — often for parole violations — are lodged in their names after they get locked up. Checking those things takes time…===
The guy was locked up for two years. That’s way more than enough time to figure out if there are other charges and warrants. The judge, the assistant state’s attorney, and his attorney should have all had that information in front of them by the time he went to trial. There’s just no good reason he shouldn’t have simply been told, “You’re free to go.”
- Skeeter - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 1:18 pm:
For those suggesting that the lack of computers, etc. is from either incompetence of lack of funds, I’m not convinced.
It sure seems like the payroll of Dorothy Brown’s office is high due to the lack of efficiency. And it also seems that more people on the payroll benefits both Brown personally and the Cook County Democratic Party generally.
- Montrose - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 1:24 pm:
Rob Wildebore needs a shout out for some first rate investigative reporting. He has done a bang up job over the past year looking at what is happening in Illinois’ prisons. Good on him.
- Judgment Day - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 1:52 pm:
“Where do you even buy carbon paper any more?”
Not likely. Mostly, it’s all what used to be called ‘NCR Carbonless’ (multi-part) forms”. No actual carbon paper required.
But it’s almost worse - because once you get to a 5 part form, those bottom copies are almost unreadable. And if they stored the boxes of blank forms in moisture susceptible areas, then you really had fun (NOT).
—-
“But nobody benefits from legacy systems. Nobody keeps them around to protect something or because they think it’s a great thing. New technology costs A LOT of money. And it isn’t a simple switch from one system to another. It takes years and years of work to do these things. When the state wanted to spend tens of millions of dollars to upgrade it’s financial systems people threw a fit about the cost. Anytime government wants to spend money people go out of their mind. If you can figure out a way to convince the public that spending money on technology is a good thing then you will have found the holy grail.”
There’s SOME truth to the above. Here’s a different take. Most of the software applications have developed over the years - from mainframe COBOL/Assembler (etc.) systems onto MS-DOS (etc.) platforms (more than you think, and still in use), to reaching their current apex as Win 32 bit applications running on Wintel platforms. Which, btw, are incredibly expensive to operate, and there’s nothing cheap at any point in the process.
Got to have licenses for everything, and system upgrades are not only costly, but require multiple acts of God to succeed.
But we’re reaching a turning point now. All the Win 32 bit applications software out there (and there’s loads and loads and loads of it) is becoming obsolete, and medium term it’s got no future.
First off, going forward, it’s got to be 64 bit, which is a rewrite (the big software providers will tell you it’s not, but yeah, it is). Then, most of the world is moving not just to mobile, but as part of that they are moving to ARM based processors (SoC - System on Chip concept), which is most certainly NOT Wintel - and for all this legacy software to run on the new hardware/OS’s, well, not going to happen.
Can still run Inquiry through a web based front end, but processing? - not happening. That’s a complete recoding job - and that’s serious hard work, and it takes time. And today, you can’t just write a quick web app for your tablet or smartphone, because those devices don’t have the capacity to support a ‘back end’ (database). You either have to create (usually, from scratch) or seek out some tiny vendor who creates specialized web browser based (or cloud based) applications that tie to a database where you process your work.
But if you are dependent upon a legacy system that developed over years and years, well, right now, substitute/replacement web based systems don’t exist. And bluntly, most of the local and state governments have a procurement structure which seems to be designed to torture vendors.
And when the software development people who can do the work for you are all tiny (not the giants, they wouldn’t know ‘innovation’ if it kicked them upside the head) - well, time to stick with pencil and paper, or keep working on your legacy systems to stay alive.
- Skeeter - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 1:57 pm:
No, they really do use carbon paper.
If you go into nearly every courtroom in Daley Center, you will find a stack there.
In contrast, when I appear in Federal Court, most orders are delivered to the attorneys by e-mail with an hour or two of the court appearance. For more complex matters, the attorneys submit the order to the judge by e-mail (depending on the matter, either before or after the hearing) and then the judge either modifies or just signs it, and then e-mails it out to all counsel.
Federal Court v. Cook County is just night and day.
- Judgment Day - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 1:59 pm:
Besides, can you imaging the developer trying to create a system design and model a web based application/model a database for a three headed monster to be run by the likes of Dorothy Brown, Tom Dart, and Anita Alverez?
It would be the poor developer(s) asking what hideously terrible things they did in life to deserve such a horrible fate.
- Mason born - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 2:05 pm:
Here is a thought assuming there is some justification to keep him after he is aquited. Why in the name of God would you put him near any other inmates?? At that point he should be in the administrative area. The job of the police is now to protect and serve him just like any other citizen.
- RonOglesby - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 2:09 pm:
@Mason
“Here is a thought assuming there is some justification to keep him after he is aquited. Why in the name of God would you put him near any other inmates?? ”
Yup… why in cuffs, why locked in a room with “prisoners” who then attack the man.
- Anon - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 2:29 pm:
== Nice hyperbole, but you are aware that there are very good reasons for this phenomenon, right? ==
YES. Extremism abounds.
- Juvenal - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 2:39 pm:
If Dart needs an opinion from Alvarez to decide whether it is Constitutional to detain someone after they have been declared not guilty, he needs to surrender his law degree.
- Anon - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 3:04 pm:
Well this is what can happen when you rush cases through the system and try to control the population of cook county jail for budgetary reasons……
- Angry Republican - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 3:45 pm:
“Nice hyperbole, but you are aware that there are very good reasons for this phenomenon, right?”
Yes, I am aware people are biased. I’m also aware the GOP is virtually non-existent in the city of Chicago, barely exists in Cook County, has no “ground game”, and the average person thinks Republicans only care about rich white males and are a bunch of misogynists.
The IL-GOP can’t do a whole lot about people’s bias, but they should do something about all of their other issues.
As for the problems with the States Attorney and Cook County jail, the best case scenario is for Alvarez to get primaried because we all know the IL-GOP isn’t capable of fielding a candidate that can win or getting voters to the polls.
- Just curious - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 4:43 pm:
I’m not clear how Alvarez’s office could tell WBEZ what advice they’ve given Dart on this issue. Isn’t is covered by attorney client privilege?
Also, can she give an opinion to a radio station about the constitutionality of another County Office’s policy? Can anyone just ask any State’s Attorney or the Attorney General for advice?
- Anonymous - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 4:56 pm:
you can get the carbon paper from the guy that runs the mimeograph machine next to the mail room.
;-0
- West Side the Best Side - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 5:00 pm:
Mr. Hambrick was in and out of the Cook County DOC during the pendency of his case, which included issues as to his fitness, a legitimate reason for a delay in the proceedings.
- Skeeter - Wednesday, Sep 25, 13 @ 5:17 pm:
“GOP isn’t capable of fielding a candidate that can win or getting voters to the polls.”
Actually, the GOP had a high quality candidate for SA. I know her and I voted for her.
The problem is the second part. The party did absolutely nothing to support her. Rather than support quality candidates, they were putting out really cool videos and meeting with people in an attempt to ban abortion and defeat marriage equality.
They had their priorities. Of course, in 20 years will nobody will remember who was the SA but they will be able to check out that cool song, so maybe they are right.
- blogman - Thursday, Sep 26, 13 @ 9:25 am:
On the mandatory sentences for having a gun, the kid who brought the gun to the charter school for protection this week would have to go for 3 years! Is that what should happen? Judges need discretion in sentencing!