Cook County Public Defenders Blog

As many of you know by now, Todd Stroger made some secret and inappropriate moves with the Public Defender budget: he hired another high-paid “advisor” and hid the salary on the Public Defender budget.  At a time when assistant public defenders have been laid off due to budget reductions, this move is unacceptable.

The union has been in contact with County Commissioners about this situation, and some have expressed outrage about this budget slight-of-hand.  Our hope is that the Commissioners see Stroger’s latest move, and many others like it, as a improper disregard for the budget process and the will of the County Board.  We are trying to keep Commissioners’ attention on this issue and on the plight of our office as a result of the layoffs.  We have sent a Letter to Commissioners seeking action.  If anything good comes of this, we will let you know.

By Tim Leeming:

We have been told that our friend, former Assistant Public Defender, Ronald P. Alwin has passed away.  He retired from the office in 2003. 

His son, Scott Alwin has contacted our Office and informed us that services for the family will be at the Denzer Methodist Chuch, Saturday, May 26, 2007 in Denzer Wisconsin.  The Cook County legal community will organize a tribute to Ron later in the summer.

As you know, Ron’s charm and easy wit sometimes concealed his first-rate intellect.  He grew up in a small town in Wisconsin and received a scholarship which allowed him to graduate from the University of Chicago Law School.  He devoted himself to criminal defense work and practiced at the Appeals Division for over 30 years.  He taught Legal Appellate Advocacy at Loyola Law School.  A quick search on Lexis indicates that Ron had 144 published cases in Illinois, and many hundreds of unpublished opinions.  His most recent “big” win was  People v. Steven Smith, 708 N.E.2d 365 (1999), perhaps the only death-penalty case ever reversed by the Illinois Supreme Court based on arguments concerning reasonable doubt.  The case was featured on the front page of the Chicago Tribune. 

Ron was a devoted attorney, a teacher, good company and a friend to many.  He is missed.

Here also is a link to the obituary in the Daily Law Bulletin. http://www.chicagolawbulletin.com/news/gettoctext.cfm?TOCUID=22314337

The union expected some political hires in the office- even with the budget crisis and all the layoffs of bargaining unit members and firings of supervisors and support staff- but this is a little too much. Check out the story:

The election results have now been updated and have been certified by the Chair of the Election Committee, Erin Farrell (BV) and are as follows:

President:  Kulmeet S. “Bob” Galhotra (unopposed)

Vice President:  Brendan Max (unopposed)

Secretary:  Amy Thompson (unopposed)

Treasurer:  Tim Leeming (unopposed)

Executives-at-Large (top three vote getters)

Bruce Mosbacher           153 votes  

Joe Gump                    177 votes

Monique Patterson         159 votes

Arlene Floren                113 votes

Thomas Comstock         100 votes

Richard Porter                82 votes

Thanks for voting. The new board will be sworn in at the first board meeting in July.

The following members had their notice of elections, which were mailed out in March, “returned to sender” because of bad addresses. If your name is on this list, then please contact personnel and update your address immediately. Thanks!

Iesheia Haynes

Terrence Watts

Joseph Stachler (currently laid off)

Quentin Banks

Theresa Nelson

Bertha Ribbeck

Monique Medley

Tiffin Price-Horton

Brian Scanlon

Rojelio Garza

Brett Balmer

David Colaric