Justice Cunningham announces application process for three Circuit Court vacancies

Supreme Court Justice Joy V. Cunningham has announced an application process for three Circuit Court vacancies, one countywide, and one each in the 1st and 13th Subcircuits.

The countywide vacancy was created by the retirement of Judge Mary Ellen Coghlan (vacant effective September 1, 2024). The 1st subcircuit vacancy was created by the election of Judge Carl A. Walker to the Illinois Appellate Court. The 13th Subcircuit vacancy was created by the retirement of Judge Shannon P. O’Malley. (Yes, Judge O'Malley was defeated for retention, but he chose to retire as of November 30, before his term expired.)

The Supreme Court's press release about this new application process notes that applicants will be screened by Justice Cunningham's new screening committee.

Applications for any of these vacancies can be downloaded from this page of the Supreme Court website. Completed applications must be submitted electronically. The deadline for filing for any of these three vacancies is 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, January 21, 2025.

The persons appointed to fill the vacancies will serve until the first Monday in December following the November 2026 election.

To be eligible for consideration for appointment, the applicant must be a lawyer in good standing, licensed to practice law in Illinois, and a resident of the county or subcircuit at the time of the appointment.

CBA's Barristers Big Band at Andy's Jazz Club on December 30

The Chicago Bar Association's Barristers Big Band will perform at Andy's Jazz Club, 11 E. Hubbard Street, on Monday, December 30, at 6:00 and 8:15 p.m.

Reservations (available at the Andy's Jazz Club website) are required; the shows tend to sell out in advance.

Tickets now on sale for CBA's Bar to the Future

Drive your DeLorean over to the Studebaker Theater, 410 S. Michigan Ave., for the Chicago Bar Association's 101st Annual Bar Show, Bar to the Future.

The Wednesday, January 8 performance is billed as a preview/dress rehearsal. The curtain rises at 7:00 p.m. for that performance, at 7:30 p.m. for the Friday, January 10 show, and at 2:00 p.m. for the matinee finale on Saturday, January 11. Tickets and pricing for every show is available at this link.

Linda Sackey appointed to countywide Hooks vacancy

Justice P. Scott Neville and the Illinois Supreme Court have announced the appointment of Linda Sackey to the countywide vacancy created by the recent retirement of Judge William H. Hooks.

The appointment is effective January 24, 2025 and terminates December 7, 2026.

Sackey was admitted to practice in Illinois in 2006, according to ARDC. She currently serves as a Judicial Clerk to Illinois Supreme Court Justice Mary Jane Theis.

The press release issued by the Supreme Court in connection with this appointment, notes that Sackey began her legal career as a staff attorney for the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. She then worked as an associate at Mayer Brown LLP for five years. From 2013 to 2018 Sackey was an Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Appeals Division of the Illinois Attorney General’s Office. She also served as an adjunct professor at The John Marshall Law School (now University of Illinois Chicago School of Law) in 2016. Sackey has been with Justice Theis since 2019.

Sackey has been active in several bar associations, including the Cook County Bar Association, the Women's Bar Association of Illinois, and the Black Women Lawyers’ Association. She has served as a member of the Board of Directors of both the CCBA and the Appellate Lawyers Association, according to the Supreme Court's press release.

Wake and funeral arrangements announced for retired Appellate Court Justice Thomas J. O'Brien

Retired Appellate Court Justice Thomas J. O'Brien passed away this past Saturday at the age of 92. First elected to the Circuit Court in 1976, O'Brien concluded his judicial career on the Appellate Court, serving pursuant to Supreme Court appointment from 1994 to 1995.

O'Brien will be waked this coming Monday, December 16, from 4:00 to 8:00 p.m., at Glueckert Funeral Home, 1520 N. Arlington Heights Rd, Arlington Heights. The funeral Mass will be celebrated on Tuesday, December 17, at 10:30 a.m., at St. Alphonsus Liguori Church, 411 N. Wheeling, Prospect Heights. There will be additional visitation at the church from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday morning.

O'Brien's daughter Carol and I worked together on the Loyola Phoenix back in the day. The Phoenix even endorsed O'Brien's successful 1976 judicial campaign. Granted, the endorsement was probably not dispositive....

Although I suppose it looks rather presumptuous in print, my legal career sort of 'tracked' O'Brien's judicial career. As a newly-minted lawyer, I appeared in front of him when he was hearing Municipal jury motions on the 13th floor of the Daley Center. O'Brien was soon promoted to the Law Division Motion Court... and I, also more seasoned, was soon arguing motions before him regularly there.

Many lawyers may remember that Judge O'Brien used to have a binder with him on the bench, chock full of citaitons that he would toss out while deciding substantive motions at their first hearing. I wasn't the only one writing these down while waiting for my case to be called. It was not then the custom to automatically give 28 days to respond and 14 days to reply; Judge O'Brien would decide if a particular motion merited this special setting.

I had a number of these contested motions, usually on behalf of insurance company clients. Judge O'Brien was no fan of insurance companies. So when these afternoon hearings took place, I knew how they were going to turn out as soon as O'Brien took the bench. If he was cheerful and complimentary -- praising the brief I'd written, for example -- I knew I was certain to lose. On the other hand, if he came out looking slightly pained, maybe a little upset, I knew I had a shot. Judge O'Brien may not have liked my clients, but he followed the law; he looked -- he looked carefully -- to see if the law gave him an 'out' -- but he went, if not always willingly, where the law led.

No one can ask more than that from any judge.

And if I lost -- when I lost, as I often did -- Judge O'Brien always had an explanation. A reason. A flaw in my logic. An error in the procedure followed by the insurer on this occasion. Something. I have never yet met a client who was satisfied with a loss, but the ability to provide a cogent, plausible explanation for a disappointing result sure helped.

I appeared before O'Brien at least once when he was on the Appellate Court. I had a great theory, I thought. The way I saw it, all I needed was in Section I of my brief. I laid it out before the panel at oral argument... and, quite full of myself, said something like, "if you accept this, I can stop right here." Justice O'Brien punctured my balloon, but in a nice way: "No," he said, "why don't you go on?" (I won that one... just not on my pet theory.)

But I will end this reminiscence with one more Motion Court story. Opposing counsel and I were arguing a discovery motion, and like Grant after the Battle of Spottsylvania Courthouse, I was prepared to fight it out on this line if it took all summer. My opponent was similarly inclined. After we'd both spouted quite a bit, Judge O'Brien cut us off. He reminded us that the courtroom was full and that he couldn't inconvenience everyone else while waiting for us to finish beating each other up. He directed us to the jury box, saying he would give us a full hearing at the end of the call -- not that half hour motion call, we understood that instantly -- but after the last motion of the morning -- probably about noon.

Of course, I would like to think that I was the good guy here, but there's only a 50-50 chance. Eventually, though, one of us leaned over to the other and said -- quietly -- very quietly, so as not to incur any further judicial displeasure -- "I guess we're being kept after school." Whichever one of us said it, it broke the ice, and we'd soon worked out an agreed order.

Still, we waited. We both realized that premature presentation of our overdue agreement would not be kindly received.

At the very, very, very end of the call, Judge O'Brien called us back up. We informed him of our peace treaty. He beamed. "I was hoping you would do that."

There are judges who are well-versed in the law. There are judges who are good presiders, skilled at handling a roomful of quarrelling, querulous lawyers. It's the rare judge who are strong in both areas. Such was Judge O'Brien. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Photo courtesy of the O'Brien family

Chief Justice Theis announces process for filling 11th Subcircuit vacancy

Illinois Supreme Court Chief Justice Mary Jane Theis has announced that applications will be accepted for a temporary appointment to an 11th Subcircuit vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Mary Colleen Roberts.

Applications are available at this page of the Illinois Supreme Court's website. The deadline for completion and return of the application is 4:00 p.m. on January 3, 2025. The application must be returned electronically and as a single document. (Note that, in a story posted earlier today, the deadline for applications to three vacancies being filled by Justice Cunningham was 5:00 p.m., not 4:00 p.m. That's not a typo; each justice can set such deadlines or groundrules as he or she sees fit.)
This appointment, once made, will expire on December 7, 2026. To remain in office, the successful applicant would have to run for, and win, election to this seat in the 2026 election.

Applicants for this vacancy must be lawyers, licensed to practice law in the State of Illinois, and residents of the 11th Subcircuit.

Roberts was first elected to this 11th Subcircuit seat in 2006.

The Supreme Court's press release announcing the application process is available at this link (note that, at press time, the link worked in Chrome, but not in Firefox).

Justice Cunningham announces appointment process for three subcircuit vacancies

Illinois Supreme Court Justice Joy V. Cunninghman has announced that applications for temporary appointments to three subcircuit vacancies will be accepted until December 23 at 5:00 p.m.

The vacancies to be filled are those created by the retirements of Judge Thomas W. Murphy (3rd Subcircuit) and Associate Judge Callie L. Baird (her vacancy being assigned to the 16th Subcircuit) and by the appointment of Associate Judge John A. Fairman to the 15th Subcircuit vacancy to which he has since been elected (this last vacancy being assigned to the 19th Subcircuit).

Applicants for these positions will be screened by Justice Cunningham's recently announced Judicial Selection Committee. Applications can be downloaded from this page of the Supreme Court website.

The persons appointed to fill these vacancies will serve until the first Monday in December following the November 2026 election. Successful applicants would have to run for, and win, these seats in the 2026 election.

To be eligible for consideration for appointment, the applicant must be a lawyer in good standing, licensed to practice law in Illinois, and a resident of the Subcircuit at the time of appointment.

The Court's press release announcing these vacancies is available here.

CBA condemns threats against Judge Thomas Nowinski

The Chicago Bar Association has issued a statement condemning threats made against Judge Thomas Nowinski.

The statement, posted to X, states in pertinent part, "Regardless of one's views on the merits of any judicial decisions, threatening judges and their families is not acceptable in our society under any circumstances. Threats made against those we have appointed or elected to administer the rule of law undermine our democracy and judicial independence and must be denounced by our community and responded to by law enforcement to ensure the protection of our judges and court personnel."

The threats referred to in the CBA's statement were reported in this Chicago Sun-Times story by Andy Grimm and Sophie Sherry and this CWBChicago story by Tim Hecke.

FWIW readers are presumably well aware of the tragedies underlying this controversy; for those who may not be fully up to date, this November 24 CWBChicago report by Tim Hecke provides helpful background.

CWBChicago, for one, is reporting that the Office of the Chief Judge is "investigating to determine whether any employee failed to follow policies and procedures" in these cases. I don't pretend to know what these investigations will reveal, or what they should determine.

I suspect, however, that there will be blame enough to go around: whether it will, or should, rest on the judge, or the State's Attorney's Office, or on the "court official responsible for providing pretrial assessments for judges to consider," or on some combination of these, or in what proportion, is not something I can calcuate or predict. I don't know Judge Nowinski personally; I don't believe we've ever met in person. But I would be astounded, whatever the investigations may reveal, if he were not profoundly affected by the two cases where persons he did not detain went on to murder persons they'd previously threatened.

But the impulse to blame the judge for these tragedies should not result in threats to the judge's safety. Clairvoyance has never been a prerequisite for judicial service; that this judge has not been blessed with second sight should not alone be disqualifying. Judge Nowinski would not have been the first judge to imagine that electronic monitoring devices are blessed with properties that they really don't have. According to CWB Chicago:

[Chief Judge Timothy C.] Evans has a history of overstating the real-world capabilities of the GPS-based system.

Speaking to the Union League Club in January 2022, Evans described the domestic violence GPS system and the electronic no-go zones around the victim that the accused is not supposed to enter.

“And also, we can contact the victim,” Evans continued. “And we can say, ‘Madam victim, the potential perpetrator is outside of Macy’s right now on the Washington [Street] side, and if you have to leave, please go out the Randolph side, don’t go out the Washington side. He’s in a zone that he shouldn’t be in, but we want to tell you so you can avoid getting attacked.’”

In reality, an individual with knowledge of the system says, humans do not regularly monitor individual GPS zone violations in real-time and they described real-time, personalized intelligence warnings like the one Evans described at Macy’s as “Fantasyland.”

If the Chief Judge believes that electronic monitoring devices are equipped with these fantastic, but fictitious properties, it might not be so surprising that some of his subordinates might also believe similar things. Even if they shouldn't. There are, moreover, some judges who apparantly cling to the charming, but dangerous, belief that Orders of Protection are bulletproof, a belief based perhaps, at least in part, on their own ingrained obedience to following court orders, to the point that they can't imagine that anyone else might not feel so constrained.

But I am not here to pile on judges: The best judge is constrained by the record before him or her, namely, the evidence provided by the witnesses, the arguments of counsel, and the reports of court agencies. And, of course, most importantly, the text of the law itself constrains courts. Judges are required to follow the law. It is always easy to blame the judge when a terrible consequence follows from a judicial decision, and blame may often be justified. But sometimes the terrible consequence might be the logical result of a judge applying a bad law.

I do not pretend to know whether the laws applicable in these cases should be considered to be part of the problem. I never practiced criminal law. But I am wary of politicians, including those who have a vested interest in a statute, or group of statutes, because they supported those statutes in the first instance, saying that the judge alone should wear the jacket in any given case.