Geography no worry when Supreme Court appoints judges

Early in November, Allan W. Masters filed papers declaring his candidacy for a vacancy in the 12th judicial subcircuitt on Chicago’s North Shore, where his home is located.

The odd part: Masters is currently sitting as a judge in the 9th subcircuit an area farther south.

He has been filling that 9th subcircuit seat since June, when the state Supreme Court appointed Masters to fill a vacancy created when Judge Lee Preston retired.

The court made that appointment despite the  Illinois Judicial Vacancies Act, a law that states the Supreme Court should fill vacancies with residents of the subcircuit where the vacancy occurs.   The act states: “A person appointed to fill a vacancy in the office of circuit judge shall be, at the time of appointment, a resident of the subcircuit from which the person whose vacancy is being filled was elected if the vacancy occurred in a circuit divided into subcircuits.”

It’s one more way in which the system of subcircuit judicial posts in Cook County seems to be amiss. A joint investigation by Medill Watchdog and WGN Investigates found a series of problems that plague the subcircuit system enacted in 1991 by legislators who hoped to create a diverse corps of judges from neighborhoods throughout the county. The system has led to a higher number of judges who do not pass muster in the evaluation process of a variety of bar associations; and several judges have houses outside the subcircuits from which they were elected.

The investigation also identified a series of instances in which the Illinois Supreme Court has appointed judges who do not live in the subcircuit in which the vacancy occurs.

In 2003 the state enacted the provision of the Judicial Vacancies Act, just to be clear about its expectations when the Supreme Court goes to fill vacancies on the court.

The court has never ruled on whether it considers that 2003 provision constitutional or not. It just seems, at times, to make its appointments without worrying about the niceties of geography.

Explained Cook County Commissioner Larry Suffredin, who represents the Chicago Bar Association: “The only person who can tell us what the law is and if it’s constitutional is the Illinois Supreme Court. And nobody has brought a case so it’s a little bit like not challenging people’s addresses. If nobody challenges them then the law just kind of evolves on its own.”

So when Anthony Iosco retired from the Cook County Circuit Court last year from the 13th subcircuit in the northwest suburbs,, the court chose to replace him with Lauretta Higgins Wolfson, who lives in a downtown high rise with her husband, a well-known retired judge and DePaul University School of Law visiting professor.

Wolfson, like Masters, failed to respond to repeated requests for comment.

The appointments do more than help fill temporary holes on the bench. In an elective system that many legal experts worry opens the door to uninformed voters making bad choices, the appointments give a boost to those appointed when they compete in elections to fill the seats more permanently.

In recent years, the court has on several occasions filled vacancies by appointing highly rated judges after they lose elective races. “They are supposed to be trying to find the best qualified people,” explained Suffredin.

(Part 5) - Continue Reading

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Geography no worry when Supreme Court appoints judges

See Also:

Judging the Judges: Cook County’s Troubled Judiciary Elections System  (Part 1)

Issues of qualifications: Subcircuit judges often less touted (Part 2)

Moving out: Subcircuit judges relocate, foiling geographic diversity (Part 3)

Questions of residence: Records raise questions about residences of some subcircuit judges (Part 4)

Questions of residence: Records raise questions about residences of some subcircuit judges

When Cook County assistant public defender Beatriz Santiago ran for Cook County judge last year, there were reasons to question just where she lived.

Weeks before she began to circulate nominating petitions, Santiago changed her address from the house she owned – which was outside the subcircuit in which she was running – to her parents’ two-flat house inside the subcircuit.

Santiago took her clothing and her dogs, but left behind her furniture, her big screen television and the Direct TV connection, according to testimony at a hearing on whether Santiago really had moved into the subcircuit, as she claimed. She moved back in, according to her testimony, to live with her parents; sister Leticia Santiago, and Leticia’s daughter Isabella; brother Luis Santiago, his wife and their three children; and brother Jose Santiago. Adopted brother Joel Vazquez also lived there when Beatriz Santiago first moved in, she testified.

At the end of a hearing over an opponent’s challenge to her residency, a hearing officer wrote: “There are a number of facts regarding the Candidate’s residency that are not that entirely plausible.” But, the hearing officer ruled, there also was not conclusive proof Santiago was lying about her residence, and therefore she was left on the ballot.

Read the full ruling in the case here.

Santiago is one of several subcircuit judges whose housing arrangements raised questions in a joint investigation by Medill Watchdog and WGN Investigates. The review found repeated instances where judges owned homes that were outside the subcircuit altogether, or had moved at some point outside the subcircuit from which they were elected.

The review also found records that some judges owned more than one house that held a homeowner exemption – a status that permits reduced property taxes to homeowners for their primary residence.
Santiago’s case stood out for a simple reason: the residence issue had been reviewed and subjected to outside examination.

More commonly, the Medill Watchdog/WGN Investigates probe found, nobody appears to be watching whether judges are honoring the residence laws. And with an increasing number of laws enacted that protect records of judges from scrutiny – their voter registration, their car registration, their addresses on election board candidate forms and on deeds are among the records that by law can be redacted from public view – the absence of an official tasked with monitoring their reports gains heightened significance.

(Part 4) - Continue Reading

Full Article and Source:
Questions of residence: Records raise questions about residences of some subcircuit judges

See Also:

Judging the Judges: Cook County’s Troubled Judiciary Elections System  (Part 1)

Issues of qualifications: Subcircuit judges often less touted (Part 2)

Moving out: Subcircuit judges relocate, foiling geographic diversity (Part 3)

Moving out: Subcircuit judges relocate, foiling geographic diversity

The llinois Constitution requires judicial candidates to pass three tests in order to wear the robes. The candidate must be a U.S. citizen. The candidate must be a licensed attorney. And the candidate must be a resident of the “unit” which elects him or her.

Just like aldermen or state representatives or Congressmen, candidates running for judge must live in their geographic district. In Cook County some judges are elected countywide. But  in 1991, to increase the diversity of a bench that had been too heavily white, male and Democratic, the state enacted a law creating 15 subcircuits in Cook County and dictating that the judges elected from those subcircuits would have to live there.

An investigation by Medill Watchdog and WGN Investigates found that the issue of where subcircuit judges live is one more curious aspect of how the law has played out. Many legal experts object that the law has opened the door to too many inexperienced or poorly qualified judges, even as the quality of the bench overall has gone up. On top of that, it turns out, several subcircuit judges, once elected, moved from houses in the subcircuit to posh condos or comfortable homes in suburban neighborhoods far from the subcircuit from which they were elected.

“The idea of the subcircuit was if you ran you were going to live in that subcircuit,” said Larry Suffredin, who as lobbyist for the Chicago Bar Association has played an active role in legislative battles over judicial selection.

“I do think judges help stabilize neighborhoods. They are significant public officials. They are people that kids can look up to, that neighbors can feel comfortable having in their community.”

Leida Gonzalez Santiago became one of the youngest members of the bench when she was elected in 1992, one of the first subcircuit judges to take office even despite a negative evaluation from the Chicago Council of Lawyers. Gonzalez Santiago is married to Miguel Santiago, the former alderman and state representative, who reportedly helped her onto the bench. In 1999 the couple bought a house farther north, out of the subcircuit, that would become her registered voter address.

Gonzalez Santiago failed to respond to several requests for an interview. So did Vanessa Hopkins, who won election from a far south side Chicago subcircuit in 1996, just two years after she was admitted to practice law in Illinois.  But within three years, records show, she bought a condominium in a nicer neighborhood outside the subcircuit, and signed a mortgage which included a clause stating that without a written agreement to the contrary, the condo would be her primary address.

Not everyone thought the law calling for judges to stay put in subcircuits made sense. Robert Cummins, who once sat on the Illinois Judicial Inquiry Board, has long opposed the creation of judicial subcircuits.

“Does it make any difference whether the judge grew up and lived in Hyde Park when he was elected,” Cummins asked. “Is he going to be a different person when he moves to Rogers Park?
“Frankly,” Cummins added, “we shouldn’t be looking for judges who are going to call the balls and strikes based on something other than the evidence and the merits and the integrity of the case before them.”

In 2006, state attorney general Lisa Madigan issued an opinion casting doubt on the law altogether. The legislature could not dictate, she wrote, where judges lived after their first six-year terms, once voters countywide had voted to retain them on the bench.

The ruling opened the door. “So many of these judicial deserts ended up losing the judges they had,” said Suffredin.

Judge Peter Flynn, for example, had won election from a south side subcircuit in 2000. In 2009, he and his wife jumped ship, buying a North Shore home. Flynn, who has been favorably reviewed by the bar association groups, failed to respond to requests for an interview about this investigation.

(Part 3) - Continue Reading

Full Article and Source:
Moving out: Subcircuit judges relocate, foiling geographic diversity

See Also:
Judging the Judges: Cook County’s Troubled Judiciary Elections System  (Part 1)

Issues of qualifications: Subcircuit judges often less touted (Part 2)

Issues of qualifications: Subcircuit judges often less touted

When four candidates vied for the vacant seventh subcircuit Cook County Court seat last year, one seemed to stand out.

Arthur Wheatley already had been filling the seat for two years, after a temporary appointment from the Illinois Supreme Court. The former CTA lawyer won favorable ratings from all 12 bar groups that evaluated judicial Cook County candidates last year. A Chicago Tribune endorsement even called him a “star” candidate.

And all three of his opponents in the race were given largely unfavorable evaluations by the various bar groups. One of them, Kimberly D. Lewis, did not even submit materials to be considered by the evaluation committees.

Never mind the fact that lawyers’ groups agreed she should not be recommended for a seat. A record low number of voters bothered to turn out on an unseasonably warm March primary day last year. And when the smoke cleared, Lewis had won a seat with just 7,984 votes.

So it goes in the murky world of subcircuit judicial elections, where voters with little information and little interest choose judges who often end up serving for years on countywide seats.

“It’s a ridiculous way to be electing judges,” said Anton Valukas, former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. Valukas, who oversaw prosecution of the judicial scandal Operation Greylord, and other members of the legal community long have worried that the subcircuit races open the door to less qualified candidates joining the bench because of the influence of some local politicians.

Even as the quality of the bench in Cook County has been greatly enhanced in recent years, as more exceptional judges win seats, Valukas said, the subcircuit system increases the risk of less qualified people winning judgeships.

(Part 2) - Continue Reading

Full Article and Source:
Issues of qualifications: Subcircuit judges often less touted

See Also:
Judging the Judges: Cook County’s Troubled Judiciary Elections System  (Part 1)

Judging the Judges: Cook County’s Troubled Judiciary Elections System

Cook County Democratic Party Chief Joe Berrios approached Beatriz Santiago in the summer of 2011 to urge her to consider a seat on the Cook County Circuit Court.

Never mind that the vacancy created when Judge David Delgado resigned was for the 6th subcircuit, a region on Chicago’s near north side, and Santiago’s home was in the 7th subcircuit, a region farther south.

Santiago, then a public defender, said she moved back into her parent’s house inside the subcircuit and won election to the vacancy the following year.

And so it goes in the murky world of Cook County subcircuits, a system devised two decades ago when African American, Hispanic and women legislators banded together with Republicans to shake up the system by dictating that at least some judges would come from subcircuits across the county that theoretically would be more representative of local communities.

It hasn’t necessarily worked out the way it was intended. Today there are indeed more women and people of color on the bench. But many factors beyond the subcircuit divisions — including the changing demographics of the legal profession — have helped spur that diversity.

(Part 1)

Full Article and Source:
Judging the Judges: Cook County’s Troubled Judiciary Elections System