Cook County Public Defenders Blog

Megan Tomlinson, a second year law student at Loyola University Chicago School of Law was selected as the winner of the Summer 2009 Jack Carey Memorial Scholarship.  She is the 22nd winner of the scholarship which was increased to $2500 earlier this year.  Three scholarships are given out by the committee each year and the fund was created in 2002 as a memorial to Jack Carey, former President of the Cook County Public Defenders Association.

Megan holds a B.A. from Loyola in Psychology and graduated magna cum laude.   Megan is currently clerking for Judge Solganic of the Circuit Court of Cook County’s Law Division.  She previously clerked in the Legal Resources Division of our office with Lester Finkle and Harold Winston.  Her work on the Alton Logan case inspired her to co-found the post-exoneration clinic at Loyola which helps provide legal services to individuals who are attempting to reenter society after being released from prison after being wrongfully convicted.

The next fund raiser for the scholarship is scheduled for September 1, 2009.  Like last year, it’s the Astros playing the Cubs in a  night baseball game with a two-hour exclusive party preceding the game at Wrigley Field in the patio area overlooking Clark and Addison.  Put it in your calendar and get your check in the mail because tickets are going to go fast!

Check out the flyer.

Dear Members:

Please note the following information regarding the upcoming Local Election to be held on 5/5/09.

Nominations for local union executive board positions were held on April 2nd.  The following members, upon receiving the only nomination for the position, were automatically elected to that position:

President (2-year term) – Bob Galhotra

Vice President (2-year term) – Brendan Max

Recording Secretary (2-year term) – Amy Thompson

Treasurer (2-year term) – Tim Leeming

A secret ballot election will be held for the three Executive Board Member positions and the three Trustee positions on May 5th.  The nominees for these positions are:

Executive Board Member Nominees:

Tom Stovall

Monique Patterson

Richard Porter

Bruce Mosbacher

Joe Gump

Trustee Nominees:

Paul Bellendir

Arleen Floren

Kevin Ochalla

Beatriz Santiago

Robyn Haynes

On April 14, 2009, an arbitrator ruled that “The Public Defender Salary Schedule shall be modified to provide an additional 1% increase for Public Defenders at Step 3 or above effective June 1, 2008…”

In the last contract negotiations, AFSCME proposed an additional step and a 2% increase for all assistant public defenders at Step 3 and above in addition to negotiated wage increases.  The County flatly rejected the proposed additional step, but made a counter proposal offering a 1% increase.  In response, the Union dropped it’s request for another step and proposed a 1.5% increase.  The 1% counter proposal was never retracted during the negotiations.  On June 1, 2008, the County started paying the additional 1%.  But a few weeks later, the County claimed that the parties had never agreed to the 1% increase and reduced paychecks accordingly.

The Negotiation Ground Rules state that “All Tentative Agreements will be reduced to writing, initialed and dated by the Spokesperson of each Party.”  No tentative agreement prepared by either party referenced mutual assent to the 1% increase.  For this reason, the County argued that the additional 1% proposal inadvertently “fell of the table” without mutual agreement.  However, Tentative Agreements were formalized and jointly signed off during the negotiation process onlywhen there were structural changes in a pay plan.  Other contractual changes were adopted without a sign off  The 1% increase is not a structural change in the plan such as adding a new step to the pay grid.  Further, the 1% appeared in the salary schedule prepared by the County during negotiations.  Both parties reviewed the salary schedule and made corrections, but the 1% increase was never changed.  Thus the parties reached a binding, mutual agreement and the 1% increase is a part of the contract.

M.S.

This New York Times article from April 6, 2009, discusses the steps New York is taking to deal with unreasonable public defender case loads

Click here: Public Defenders’ Caseloads to Be Capped in New York City – NYTimes.com

On April 1, 2009, retired Judge Abishi C. Cunningham, was sworn in by the Presiding Judge of the Sixth Municipal District, Marjorie Laws, as the Public Defender of Cook County.   Judge Cunningham brings with him a commitment to uphold the Bill of Rights for the indigent citizenry of Cook County.  A brief biography is available online.

Judge Cunningham’s predecessor, Edwin Burnette will leave an important legacy, that of two recent cases that bear his name:  Burnette v. Terrell and Burnette v. Stroger.   These two cases, which came down within the last few weeks and are reported under the Hot Legal Topics tab of this website, gave meaning to the statute that made the public defender an independant office, not under the jurisdiction of the Chief Judge.  The two cases establish the autonomy of the Public Defender and make clear that it is the Public Defender who controls his office, not the President of the Cook County Board.  As Ed Burnette’s attorney, Victor Henderson was quoted as saying, “[b]ut for his courage in standing up to Todd Stroger, it is likely that he would have been appointed for another six-year term.  There is a price to pay for justice and this case that price was Ed’s job.”  Well said Victor,  and best of luck to Ed Burnette.  At least he was able to complete his term with his head held up high.

I have had several conversations with Judge Cunningham and believe that he has the best interests of the office in mind.  He obviously comes with a substantial amount of experience from the bench, a first for the Public Defender, and therefore is sure to garner respect from the judges we appear before.  He has stated that he wants to work with us on many issues that our office faces.  Moreover, he wants to be more hands on and visit job sites and talk to the assistants in the courtroom and even pick up a file and try a case.  On behalf of the local and membership, I extend a warm welcome to Judge Cunningham, the Public Defender of Cook County.

In Solidarity,

K. S. Galhotra

President, Local 3315