Cameras in ctrooms encroach on Chgo

They’re not quite within the city limits. Not yet, anyway.

But it’s just a matter of time now before those among us who gather their news by relying on the resources of local television (whether you watch the actual newscast, or just watch video snippets off of a website after-the-fact) will be able to see real live moving pictures of what happened at the Criminal Courts building or other courthouses scattered across Cook County.

FOR THE PAST year, the Supreme Court of Illinois has been experimenting with the idea of permitting video to be shot of court activity so that it could be used on local newscasts.

This experiment is being done judicial circuit by judicial circuit, and has started in the rural parts of Illinois. It would seem they want to see how it works in the smaller court systems of the state, before unleashing the idea on the bureaucratic mess that is the courts in Cook County.

Thus far, five judicial circuits in 13 counties have been trying the concept of shooting video of their court activity. On Monday, court officials added the 18^th Circuit to the list.

That circuit includes the far western suburbs of DuPage County. Which invariably means that the DuPage County court system is going to get extra-heavy television coverage in coming months – all because pictures will be available to go with the reporter’s observations.

IT’S THE REALITY of television news – things that really don’t mean all that much get covered if there is video depicting the “moment of truth.” And if the video is particularly clear, the “story” will get major play on the newscast.

Eventually, the “fad” nature of courtroom video will phase out the idea of feeling the need to cover this stuff – particularly when this concept gets to all 102 counties of Illinois.

Including our very own Cook! Supreme Court officials have said more circuits will be added by the end of 2012, and Cook County Chief Justice Timothy Evans has told reporter-types that he’d like to see the program expand into Chicago by that date as well.

Although I get the sense that Cook County officials may start the concept locally in the suburban courthouses – giving us audio and video of court activity from places like Markham, Skokie and the Maybrook district in Maywood.

IT MAY TURN out that the last place we get to see anything from is the Criminal Courts building out near the Little Village neighborhood.

Although I can’t help but think that the public is going to be disappointed by the sight of real, live courthouse activity on television.

For they are going to learn just how buried in minutia and legalese much of what happens in a courtroom really is. They’re going to learn how important the reporter-type person is in terms of being able to explain what a certain legal motion meant.

It’s going to come across like a foreign language, and we’re in need of an interpreter. It’s definitely not a place conducive to visual-looking stories, no matter what some people might believe after watching too many episodes of “Judge Judy” or some true-crime drama program on television.

AND A PART of that is because of the oppressive atmosphere of most courtrooms. Whether they’re decades old, or date back to a more recent era, most of them are intended to be intimidating places with a deadly-dull look to them.

Anybody who thinks that such video will create a constant flow of “Drew Peterson”-type stories to watch every night is going to be in for a shock.

The true “feel” for a courtroom is sitting in a seat with torn upholstery with a sheriff’s deputy watching you like a hawk for any signs you’re going to act up (so he can eject you from the courtroom) and an aroma caused from decades of bad food, certain individuals who might not have bothered to bathe properly and poor air circulation in the in buildings.

The true feel is something that cannot be captured on video. You have to be there – although court is the last place that any decent human being wants to have to be in.

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How far should a person be allowed to go to get out of service on a criminal jury?

I have my own personal reason for being amused by the stories that have emanated in recent days from the U.S. District Courthouse where prosecutors and the attorneys working to defend former Gov. Rod Blagojevich are working to put together the group of Milorod’s “peers” that will decide his guilt or non-guilt in the government corruption case pending against him.

For it is likely that at the moment many of you actually read this, I myself will be tucked away in a courthouse, wondering if I am about to be called upon to serve on a jury that will decide someone’s criminal fate, or the outcome of their civil lawsuit.

NOT THAT I am going to be a part of the Blagojevich scene, or anything involving the federal government. For it is Cook County that is calling on me Monday for jury duty.

I am among the few hundred people summoned to appear at the county courthouse in west suburban Maywood, where I will sit around for the day until either being told to go home – or I am escorted into a courtroom to be grilled about my personal business by attorneys for the prosecution and defense.

Now I can understand what motivated the clowns who responded to a jury duty notice and suddenly found they were being questioned by Blagojevich’s attorneys and the federal prosecutors. I’m sure the idea of having to lose months of one’s life to serve is an inconvenience.

But the reason I refer to these people as “clowns” and say they “amuse” me (envision actor Joe Pesci going bonkers right about now) is that I know better than to claim I just don’t like politicians, or that I automatically think the defendant is guilty.

I WAS PARTICULARLY amused by the juror last week who told Judge James Zagel that being on the Blagojevich jury would hurt his chances of getting a job in investment banking. The one time I previously did jury duty, it was just three days after being laid off from my job – and having to spend an entire day (I didn’t get released until just before 9 p.m.) at the Criminal Courts building on 26th Street delayed the beginning of my job search.

Not that I would have expected anyone at the courthouse to care.

There also was the guy considered for the Blagojevich case who said he missed his first day of jury duty because of “car problems,” even though Zagel mocked him upon learning that the guy operated an auto parts store – implying he should have been more aware that something on his car was about to break down.

So I don’t plan to tell the various attorneys on Monday that I’m too busy with my life to spend time on a jury. It doesn’t work that way. If anything, it strikes me as evidence that the kind of people who wind up being considered for federal juries (I have never had that “honor”) are not the “Average Joe” because they really think they’re too important to be spared for this task.

YET I CAN fully understand why they would not want to do duty. Personally, I am dreading the possibility of being chosen for a jury – because I don’t want to have to do the commute to Maywood for any amount of time (I don’t live anywhere near that courthouse, and it is going to be at least an hour’s drive for me each direction of the trip because public transportation is just NOT a practical option – I’d literally have to go into the Loop, then take some combination of trains and buses to Maywood, which could take about three hours each way).

In short, I realize that the Homer Simpson approach to getting out of jury duty (“The trick is to say you’re prejudiced against all races”) does not work.

Personally, I don’t know what my chances are of actually getting picked.

In my times as a reporter-type person, I have dealt with some prosecutors who absolutely hated the idea of having someone in my line of work – in large part because I have an understanding of the process by which a trial operates. I might even have had dealings with some of the prosecutors or defense attorneys (although as I write this, I have no idea what kind of court case I will be considered for).

OTHERS THINK THAT my past exposure shows some sort of interest in the process, which would make me worth having around. Which means I can merely answer about what I do for a living, and have my fate fall to the whims of the particular attorneys.

Looking at the form I am supposed to fill out, it seems they want to know about my own dealings with the criminal justice system (in my case, I have never been on trial for a felony charge) and I have never sued anyone.

Nor am I currently involved in any way to a case now pending in the Cook County court system. I also have not been involved in any accident where someone was injured.

These are similar to the questions being put to those people who are going to decide the Blagojevich outcome and whether or not he is guilty (the courts don’t care if someone is “innocent,” it truly is “not guilty.”)

WHICH IS WHY on this day when I sit in the scenic western suburbs for at least a day, a portion of my mind and emotion will be with those people enduring a similar experience in the building named of Everett McKinley Dirksen.

I just hope I don’t embarrass myself like some of the prospective Blagojevich jurors did, because any case I’m likely to be considered for will NOT have the concept of anonymous jurors – the way the former governor’s trial will.

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Courthouses to remain open on weekends, at least for the time being, Evans says

Perhaps some people think the only place where crime occurs is on the South Side of Chicago and in those suburbs that happen to surround it.

That was the impression I got from learning of a plan desired by the Cook County sheriff’s police to shut down the bulk of the courthouses based in the suburbs. Sheriff Tom Dart justifies the change as a cost-cutting move, saying he could get away with less staff if the courthouses in Skokie, Rolling Meadows, Maywood and Bridgeview didn’t have to be open on Saturday and Sunday.

FOR THE MOST part, they’re not. But invariably, there is crime committed Friday and Saturday nights, which means that bond hearings have to be held. That means a judge, his clerk and the deputies needed for security, have to be on call for the weekend.

Either that, or else those defendants would wind up having to sit in a holding cell at a local police station for several days until a Monday court hearing could be held.

That would be a financial burden for the local cops (whose cells are set up to accommodate a person for a couple of hours before he is transferred elsewhere) and for the judges who would have to preside over extremely long Monday dockets.

So I was glad to learn that Chief Judge Timothy Evans (who I still think of as the former alderman who was the first loser to Richard M. Daley for mayor of Chicago) sent Dart a letter this week telling him to forget (for now, at least) any talk of shutting down those courthouses.

“SERIOUS ISSUES OF public safety, due process and court administration have been raised that I believe deserve attention,” Evans wrote in his letter to Dart, as reported by the Chicago Tribune.

Those issues include what struck me as an obvious flaw up front about Dart’s proposal – the logistics of expecting that the county could do without those four courthouses in operation for the weekend.

For Dart’s proposal would not have left Chicago and its inner suburbs courthouse-less on weekends.

The county court’s first district (which is the city of Chicago proper) and it’s sixth district (the south suburbs, with a courthouse in Markham) would have remained open.

DOES THIS MEAN Dart (who early in his legal career was an assistant state’s attorney assigned to the courthouse in Markham) really thinks all the crime is concentrated on the South Side? That somehow, the north and west portions of Cook County have no need for a judge to hand down those rulings determining just how much money someone’s family has to come up with in order to keep their loved one from spending the next few months in Cook County Jail while awaiting trial?

I’d like to think Dart, who earlier this year was extremely critical of state officials for being shortsighted enough to think that video poker revenues would resolve the state’s financial problems, hasn’t suddenly fallen victim to similar shortsightedness.

Somehow, I don’t think all those northern, northwestern and western suburbs get that peaceful on the weekends. Nor do I think their local law enforcement officials want to have to take the added time to haul their defendants into the city to achieve Justice through a court hearing.

Part of the reason Cook County’s court system is broken up into the six districts is because there is just too much potential for overload at the Chicago courthouses if they tried to do all the work there.

AND WOULD THIS mean that some of those city cases would wind up getting shuffled down to Markham tp make room for all those northwest suburban “criminals” who now need to take up court space in Chicago?

It just seems to me that this is one of those necessary expenses that we’re going to have to live with.

After all, Thursday in Chicago is another one of those furlough days – a cost-cutting measure by which city employees will not get paid. So they’re not going to work. They get the day off and most city services will not be available.

But even with the concept of furloughs, police and fire department officials are still expected to work.

THINKING THAT THE county could shut down the bond court on Saturday and Sunday in Maywood or Skokie is about as short-sighted as thinking that the Belmont District or the Calumet Area of the Chicago Police could suddenly use some time off in order to save the government a few bucks.

It just doesn’t work that way.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart is trying to portray the county’s chief judge as irresponsible (http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/12/suburban-courts-ordered-to-remain-open-weekends.html) for not going along with his desire to shut down some of the suburban courthouses on weekends.

It’s a four-day (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-il-christmaseve-clos,0,3070094.story) holiday weekend for City Hall workers – or more like five days for those municipal employees who just slacked off on the job on Wednesday.