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News :: Prisons |
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CU Citizens for Peace and Justice Sees First Victory in New Year. |
Current rating: 0 |
by Sandra Ahten
Email: spiritofsandra (nospam) hotmail.com (unverified!)
Phone: 217-367-6345 |
01 Jan 2005
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The new year has brought a change of policy at the Champaign County Jail. The Sheriff Department has changed the visiting policy, eliminating the 50 person maximum on the number of visitors allowed per visiting session. Activism works! Read all about it! |
Jan. 1, 2005
The new year has brought a change of policy at the Champaign County Jail. The Sheriff Department has changed the visiting policy, eliminating the 50 person maximum on the number of visitors allowed per visiting session. The advocacy group CU Citizens for Peace and Justice is thrilled with the decision.
Under previous policy, in order to be assured a visit, visitors would have to arrive 2 or 3 hours before visiting time started so that they could be one of the first fifty people in line. Under the new policy the Sheriff’s department has stated that anyone who arrives at the jail before the hours for visiting are over will be allowed to visit.
A sergeant with the Sheriff’s office was interviewed by WCIA today. I was there during the interview, as I had just been interviewed as a representative for CU Citizens for Peace and Justice. He said they had made the change as soon as it was “brought to their attention that it was a problem.” He also talked at length about the concern for the mental health of the inmates and that the Department recognized the need for the inmates to have contact with their families.
With this acknowledgment, CU Citizens for Peace and Justice intend to continue with their plan to advocate for the additional changes that they have determined necessary in light of the 3 suicides at the county jail in the last six month. Included is a focus on eliminating the extortionate phone contract that provides a $14,000 a month kickback to the county.
To read more about this story see
http://www.ucimc.org/feature/display/22865/index.php
To sign the petition that will be presented to the County Board on January 20 go to
http://www.petitiononline.com/cucfpj/petition.html
CU Citizens is a Champaign/Urbana multi-racial and multi-ethnic organization that works to education the citizens on local policy, thereby building coalitions to effect governmental change.
In 2004 CU Citizens for Peace and Justice addressed two issues and saw victory on both items. They successfully lobbied to stop the Champaign Police Department from providing tasers (stun guns) for their officers. They also advocated for two men who were arrested for “eavesdropping” while they were filming police stops to have their charges dropped.
To become involved with CU Citizens For Peace and Justice go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cu_citizens/ |
This work is in the public domain. |
Comments
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Re: CU Citizens for Peace and Justice Sees First Victory in New Year. |
by Ricky Baldwin
baldwinricky (nospam) yahoo.com (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
01 Jan 2005
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Congratulations! That's great news! Now on to the next victory!
Ricky |
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Re: CU Citizens for Peace and Justice Sees First Victory in New Year. |
by Local Yocal
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
02 Jan 2005
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Way to go Sandra, and CU Citizens for Peace and Justice. These are never easy battles and it's sad that it had to take 3 suicides to wake the officials up, but this could begin a series of long overdue. Thank you Sandra Ahten for your viligence and dedication to this extremely important situation in our county. |
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Re: CU Citizens for Peace and Justice Sees First Victory in New Year. |
by Joe Futrelle
futrelle (nospam) shout.net (verified) |
Current rating: 0
03 Jan 2005
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Just saw this--it made my day. :) |
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Re: CU Citizens for Peace and Justice Sees First Victory in New Year. |
by Local Yocal
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
05 Jan 2005
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The Sheriff has declared that the inmates who killed themselves are mentally ill. Determining they were mentally ill contradicts how the three men were handled in our criminal justice system over the years. Not one attorney ever motioned for a psychiatric evaluation of these men, never declared their client unfit to stand trial, never asked for their cases to be transferred to the Department of Mental Health for an involuntary committment, and all three men were considered able to serve time in prison or perform whatever the punishments were as a result of their cases.
Then, after they kill themselves, the Sheriff cites the 'ol unexplainable, mysterious disease of "mental illness".
So what does Sheriff Walsh know that local attorney's and judges don't?
Is it possible the three men lost hope, because they were not represented fairly in court?
Why is the legal defense of the poor always the first cut to be made in the budget?
Local attorney wants top job
Published Online May 10, 2003
By MARY SCHENK
News-Gazette Staff Writer
"Why do I want to be state's attorney? There's a lack of leadership," said Ratcliffe, now in private practice doing defense work. "There's a serious backlog of hundreds of cases. Victims and witnesses have to wait sometimes over a year to have their cases heard."
Ratcliffe said he also believes the state's attorney's office "overcharges like crazy" - meaning it charges people with felonies when a less serious misdemeanor charge would suffice - and that he "will set a policy of charging and closely monitor that."
Felony trial backlog not easily solved
Published Online May 12, 2003
By MARY SCHENK
News-Gazette Staff Writer
On average, about five felony cases get heard by Champaign County juries each month. Townsend said he's considering having juries in for three weeks in July to help with the backlog.
At the April 30 pretrial conference, some 473 cases were called over a day's time. Of that number, 76 cases were announced ready for trial. Ed Piraino of Champaign, who has a high number of felony clients, complained that he doesn't always get negotiated plea offers from certain prosecutors in a timely fashion. And phone messages, e-mails and even appointments to discuss cases often go ignored by a few prosecutors.
Public Defender Randy Rosenbaum agreed that is a large part of the problem but also noted that the state is now charging some crimes as felonies that used to be charged as misdemeanors. And he said that to get a prosecutor to agree that a less serious conviction is warranted often means continuing the case for a few months to give the prosecutor ample time to research and think about it.
Defenders bracing for more cases
Published Online Nov 29, 2003
By MARY SCHENK
News-Gazette Staff Writer
Come Monday, Rosenbaum, the Champaign County public defender, and five of his colleagues in the office will inherit 392 new cases.
The transfer of cases is the result of a decision made earlier this year by Presiding Judge J.G. Townsend that the county's poor, accused of serious crime, will be better served by a fully staffed public defender's office than by private attorneys on contract with the county to represent them.
The switchover coincides with the beginning of the county's new fiscal year.
"We're up to the challenge. The system has to work. We'll make it work," said Rosenbaum, adding in his self-deprecating style: "Who really wants hair?" "We're basically bracing ourselves and doing the best we can to be prepared," Rosenbaum said.
He estimated that for the first few months his attorneys, even with two additional felony attorneys on board, would probably have their workload doubled, from about 50 cases to 100.
The American Bar Association recommends that defense attorneys not handle more than 150 felony cases in a year in order to give each the attention it deserves.
"Probably every public defender in the state exceeds it," Rosenbaum said of the standard. "I do want to stress that it's going to be tough for us the first few months just to absorb it. In the next few months, it will be much more manageable."
Handling felony cases, in addition to Rosenbaum, are Kevin Nolan, who is hoping to leave the office should he be elected state's attorney in Douglas County in 2004; Janie Miller-Jones; Scott Schmidt; Dave Appleman; and Anthony Ortega.
Auditor questions defender´s purchases
Published Online Feb 7, 2003
By MIKE MONSON
News-Gazette Staff Writer
URBANA - With the end of the county budget year only a few days away last November, Champaign County Public Defender Randall Rosenbaum went on a spending spree with his county credit card, records show.
He bought for his office a television/VCR for $149.99, a toaster for $19.99, a microwave oven for $69.99, $100 for clothes for use by indigent defendants, $100 for two briefcases for his assistant public defenders' use, a printer-scanner for $149.99 and then a three-year warranty on the printer for another $99.99 and a phone headset for $199 for his office's receptionist.
That's a total of nearly $890.
The auditor's office shows the public defender's office didn't spend $2,140 of a $630,000 total budget. In the office supplies line item, Rosenbaum didn't spend $136 of a $5,913 budget
Rosenbaum said each of the expenditures was justifiable.
"It's for office use," he said. "We're not buying it for one of the attorneys as a present."
The television/VCR is needed by his office "because we frequently get DUI (driving under the influence) videos from arrests," Rosenbaum said. "We frequently get drug surveillance tapes. We probably get a couple videotapes a week to review. We don't watch TV. We don't get reception in the Lincoln Square basement."
The public defender and state's attorney are temporarily located in the basement at Lincoln Square Mall in Urbana while the old courthouse is being renovated into office space.
The toaster and microwave oven are for office use, Rosenbaum said.
The two briefcases were purchased for instances where assistant public defenders have a large number of files to transport to court, he said. Those briefcases are for office use only and not taken home, he said.
Rosenbaum said his office already had one or two rolling carts that can be used to transport files, but he said those are difficult to use when there is snow outside.
The public defender said he bought the printer/scanner because his new office will be split into two sections and he wanted a printer for each section.
He said he bought the phone headset because his office's receptionist is frequently asked about court schedules and must check those schedules on the computer while talking on the telephone to a client.
He said he bought $100 worth of clothes, a couple pairs of khakis and dress shirts, because defendants need to be reasonably dressed when appearing in court. The law does not allow clients to appear in a jail jumpsuit, he noted.
Most clothes offered for use by defendants are donated, Rosenbaum said, noting he makes donations himself "every time I gain 20 pounds."
Race for the hot seat
Published Online Oct 17, 2004
By J. PHILIP BLOOMER
News-Gazette Staff Writer
Finney said the Champaign Police Department seems to have been paying a high cost for quite some time. There are 190 cases from 2003 to the present that the department has sent to the state's attorney's office where they continue to languish.
"They've not been dismissed, not charged, not sent back for further review. They're just not addressed," Finney said. The cases involve a mix of felony-level situations and misdemeanors. He said the statistics are not kept, or revealed publicly, to embarrass Piland, but the numbers have been tabulated because the department needs to keep track of open cases.
What's charged and what isn't
One of the chief criticisms of Piland's office is the pattern of charging crimes, what gets charged, how seriously and what does not.
The "overcharging" criticism refers to the filing of multiple charges on a single offense, charging felony burglary charges in misdemeanor shoplifting cases, and bringing convicted felons back from prison to plead to additional charges on a concurrent sentence.
Crime statistics from the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts show that Champaign County files three times more felonies on a percentage basis than the state average. Sixty-one percent of the cases charged in the county in 2003 were felonies compared with the state average of 20 percent. The conviction rate on those felonies was 64 percent compared with a state average of 67 percent.
Public defender changes sought
Published Online Sep 8, 2003
By MARY SCHENK
News-Gazette Staff Writer
URBANA - Champaign County's presiding judge is suggesting a rather sweeping change in the way poor people accused of felony crimes are represented.
Judge J.G. Townsend has proposed hiring two more full-time public defenders and doing away with the contracts now held by four local attorneys to represent indigent clients.
"It is the case that we simply cannot continue to offer an appropriate level of representation for defendants in felonies without finding a way to devote a considerable amount more time to it," Townsend said.
"It's real clear from observing in the courtroom, from talking to lawyers who have the contracts now, that we would have to add probably at least two contracts or find some other way to try to deal with the added numbers and the complexity of felony cases. We believe that by adding full-time people to the public defender's office, and without spending any additional money, we can accomplish what we hope to accomplish."
If the board agrees to the change, it will amend a system that's been in place for almost nine years.
In 1994, in what was billed as a cost-cutting measure, a Republican-controlled county board reduced the number of full-time public defenders from eight to five and hired four attorneys on contract to handle about 80 percent of the felony caseload. Democrats opposed the proposal, which left the public defender's office with a full-time public defender and five full-time assistants to handle some felonies, and all the misdemeanor, juvenile and traffic cases.
Barbara Wysocki, chairwoman of the Finance Committee, and a member of the Democratic majority on the board, said she won't predict what the board will do but she's ready to return to the fully staffed public defender's office.
"I think there are probably efficiencies to be gained by relying on public defenders rather than private attorneys who have to look out for their own business as well as almost be on call for these kinds of cases," she said.
"As I understand it, sometimes cases are put on hold because they can't find an attorney. I've heard of situations where a contract lawyer barely had five minutes to introduce himself to a client (before a court hearing). I don't think that's justice, particularly for people who need it more than others because of their financial circumstances," Wysocki said.
Lenik agreed and said a return to the old ways may mean the loss of a great deal of experience.
"You may be trading lawyers with lots of knowledge and experience for lawyers just out of school a few years. The people who do this work now are extremely experienced and really know what they're doing. Someone out of school 20 years is less likely to take a starting or midlevel job in the public defender's office," she said.
"Historically, assistant public defenders, because the pay is relatively low, are relatively inexperienced attorneys," said Bruce Ratcliffe, an Urbana attorney who currently holds one of the contracts.
David Rumley, an Urbana attorney who has the fourth contract, said a move to put all the public defenders in-house could cause more frequent problems with conflicts of interest since the public defender's office typically cannot represent more than one client in a multiple-defendant case.
John Taylor, an Urbana attorney who gave up his contract to Ratcliffe earlier this year, said he was handling about 125 felony cases a month, a typical caseload.
"It worked out to $126.72 per case," he said, adding that he met most of his private clients at the jail while working with his court-appointed clients. "If a guy can come up with a $200 retainer, I'm already getting paid more than on the contract."
Of the four contract lawyers, all say they spend differing amounts of time on their court-appointed cases.
Lenik estimated 40 to 45 percent of her time, admitting she delegates initial interviewing of clients to an assistant. For Ratcliffe, it's "probably 85 to 90 percent."
Ding estimates 65 percent of his time is spent on contract work, while Rumley said he has to "work very hard to spend only 70 percent of my time with the contract."
"It's not getting any less," Rumley said. "There doesn't seem to be any effort among judges to allow us to manage our time any better. The demands (for court appearances) seem to increase rather than decrease."
Rosenbaum, the public defender who serves at the pleasure of the circuit judges, said he believes that efficiencies can be accomplished even though there will be fewer bodies handling felonies.
"If this is all you do, a lot of what you do can be streamlined," he said. "I think many people are believers that there should be a strong central public defender's office. Most attorneys and the public feel that way. In the long run, it's a good solution." |
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