By The MacArthur Justice Center

Laquan McDonald’s family representative and 21 local community-based and civil and human rights organizations urged in a letter Tuesday that Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and Kane County State’s Attorney Joseph McMahon to ask Cook County Judge Vincent Gaughan to take legal action to seek a resentencing for Jason Van Dyke in accordance with Illinois law.
A jury convicted Van Dyke of second-degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery – one for each bullet he shot into McDonald. The letter contains a detailed analysis of the laws Gaughan violated when he sentenced Van Dyke to serve just over three years for these convictions.

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Posted on January 30, 2019

By Andrea Germanos/Common Dreams

A new index released last week offers a sobering look at how democracy is faring in the United States.
According to the 2018 edition of The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index, the U.S. doesn’t even make the list of top 20 – its demonstrably “flawed democracy” notching it the 25th spot.
The ranking is based on 60 indicators spanning five interrelated categories: electoral process and pluralism; civil liberties; the functioning of government; political participation; and political culture. Each category gets a 0-10 score, with the final score being the average of those five.
Topping out the index are Norway, Iceland, Sweden, New Zealand, and Denmark. They are each declared “full democracies,” as their scores, all above 9.22, were easily above the 8.2 threshold. With a final score of 7.96, the United States, in contrast, earned the “flawed democracy” label. The country’s highest score was 8.22, which it earned back in 2006 and again in 2008.

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Posted on January 29, 2019

By The Office Of Inspector General

The City of Chicago Office of Inspector General has released its fourth quarter report for 2018 to the City Council. The report summarizes the Office’s activity from October 1, 2018 through December 31, 2018. This quarter’s report contains summaries of concluded OIG investigations, inquiries, and other activities, including:
* An OIG investigation which established that a high-ranking CPD supervisor directed on-duty CPD officers to chauffeur the supervisor’s child from school to a district police station in a CPD vehicle on a weekly basis, for approximately one year, in addition to monitoring the supervisor’s child for recurring two to three-hour periods while on duty.

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Posted on January 25, 2019

Including added value by the Beachwood such as links and light editing for clarity and style.
1. Community Members Demand Full Investigation Of Cook County Gang Database | From Olivia Albrecht, Brighton Park Neighborhood Council
As scrutiny of law enforcement databases increases nationwide, community groups are challenging Cook County’s continued use of a gang database to profile and surveil residents.
In December, then-Commissioner Jesus “Chuy” Garcia officially requested an audit of the county’s gang database by the Cook County Inspector General. Following the audit request, his replacement, Commissioner Alma Anaya, introduced an ordinance that would prohibit the use of the database until the completion of the inspector general investigation. But on January 22, a scheduled vote on the ordinance was abruptly cancelled by Commissioner Stanley Moore, chairman of the Criminal Justice Committee.

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Posted on January 24, 2019

By Illinois PIRG

Every year, corporations use complicated schemes to shift U.S. earnings to subsidiaries in offshore tax havens which helps them dodge both state and federal taxes. Reforms to end tax dodging in Illinois would reduce revenue loss by $1.3 billion, according to a new report called “A Simple Fix for a $17 Billion Loophole,” released Tuesday by the Illinois PIRG Education Fund.
“When multinational businesses dodge millions in Illinois taxes, that money doesn’t come out of a hat. It means either means we have less money for public priorities like education or other taxpayers end up footing the bill,” said Abe Scarr, Illinois PIRG Education Fund director. “Luckily, there are ways for Illinois to even the playing field, and recover more than $1.3 billion for critical services without raising rates.”

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Posted on January 16, 2019

By The Office Of Inspector General

The City of Chicago Office of Inspector General has completed a second follow-up to its May 2016 audit of the Administrative Hearings’ adjudication timeliness which concludes that DOAH has not fully implemented corrective actions related to the audit findings.
The original audit assessed whether DOAH used nationally recognized performance measures of clearance rate and time to disposition to assess the flow and timeliness of cases under its purview. OIG found that DOAH did not measure or set standards for clearance rates or time to disposition, and that the Department’s lack of monitoring impeded its ability to identify potentially problematic backlogs and cases of unusually long duration.

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Posted on January 14, 2019

Excerpts from December’s “Preliminary Findings of the Investigation into Catholic Clergy Sexual Abuse of Minors in Illinois” from the Office of the Attorney General.
The following preliminary findings are based upon information the Office has obtained through meetings and interviews and its review of thousands of pages of documents, including information and documents provided by the Illinois Dioceses, files related to clergy sexual abuse maintained by the Illinois Dioceses, communications with survivors of clergy sexual abuse, discussions with experts on clergy sexual abuse, and discussions with law enforcement officials.
Scope of the Problem: Clergy sexual abuse of minors in Illinois is significantly more extensive than the Illinois Dioceses previously reported.

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Posted on January 11, 2019

By The Uptown People’s Law Center

Just days before the opening of trial in Lippert v. Baldwin – a case challenging the inadequate and dismal quality of health care provided in Illinois prisons – the parties reached an agreement to resolve the case. The agreement, which is embodied in a consent decree and must be approved by the court, is the latest development in a case first filed as an individual complaint in 2010.
As part of the decree, filed in court last week, the State of Illinois has agreed to a court-approved monitor who will oversee a complete overhaul of the system for providing physical health care to some 40,000 state prisoners.

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Posted on January 8, 2019