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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Some people don’t pay attention

We joke about it all the time. The phrase, “the third rail” is taken to mean instant doom when used in just about any context.

Except when it comes to being taken literally.

BECAUSE I HAVE lost count of the number of stories I have reported in the quarter-century that I have been a reporter-type person that involved someone dying because they came into contact with the rail that provides the electric power that operates the rail cars on the “el.”

Do people think that the third rail kills everybody else but them? Do they think they are invincible?

Or do they think they’re the equivalent of Wile E. Coyote? How many of those anvils did he get conked on the head with throughout the years?

Too many of these stories blend into each other, because the details are so unfamiliar. I recall one instance when I was a reporter for the now-defunct City News Bureau involving a homeless person, whom it seems publicly urinated on an “el” platform and had his urine stream hit the dreaded rail.

THE “BURNS” ON his body were restricted to his fingertips, since the electricity shot up through the urine and into his fingers. Not a pretty image.

Which makes me wonder why people don’t pay attention to all those signs that get posted warning people of the electrical danger of getting too close to the tracks. Let alone the possibility of getting hit by one of those “el” trains.

They certainly were ignored by a man who, early Wednesday, thought he could walk across the tracks to get to the “el” platform on the other side, rather than using the stairs that people are supposed to use to get from one side of the “el” station to the other.

The Chicago Tribune reported that the man in question was at the California Avenue station on the blue line.

AS SOMEONE WHO has used that particular station on those occasions when I have had to cover a story at the Criminal Courts building located just four blocks to the south, it really would have been simpler for him to use the stairs, rather than jump off the platform and try to walk across the tracks to have to climb aboard the other platform.

This particular man saw things differently. Now, he’s no longer with us.

I’m sure his family will wish he had been willing to put a little more thought into his use of the “el.” Although if he was that desperate to save himself a few seconds of time, he probably was capable of doing so many risky things.

Perhaps it was just a matter of time before he perished. What a waste!

BUT THIS MAN, whom police didn’t immediately identify, wasn’t the only one who didn’t seem to think before acting this week.

There also is the story of a Chicago woman who had to go to court Tuesday in suburban Skokie, only to find herself being arrested and hit with more criminal charges after her court appearance.

For it seems this woman had a young child and two dogs with her. She knew she couldn’t really bring them into the courthouse.

So, she chose to leave them in the car, sitting and waiting while she made her court appearance. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that she now faces charges of endangerment of a child and animal abandonment.

PERHAPS SHE CRACKED open the car windows to provide a little relief. But officials pointed out that the temperatures got into the 80s on Tuesday and that the kid and dogs were in the car for more than an hour – although the woman told the county sheriff’s police she lost track of how long she was in court.

Which makes no sense to me. Anybody appearing in court ought to realize how indefinite the process could be.

One could get lucky and be the first or second person on a court call. Or they could be the last. It’s not an experience for people in a hurry.

Her behavior kind of reminds me of a guy I once saw arguing with a sheriff’s deputy at the Criminal Courts building. He wanted to be able to walk up to the court clerk, immediately get a new court date, then leave.

BECAUSE HE HAD left his car parked right on California Avenue in front of the courthouse, not realizing he’d have to wait his turn on the court call like everybody else.

Yet another person who thinks the rules of life don’t apply to them.

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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.