A building named in his honor?
Throughout his legal career, George N. Leighton fought for justice. Does the courthouse named in his honor reflect his legacy?
Read more
The Cook County Courtroom Observer Goes to Law School
From watching jury trials to working FOIAs, veteran trial lawyers school journalists on who holds power in the U.S. legal system Joel Collins has stood in hundreds of courtrooms during his more than half-century as a South Carolina attorney, but one conviction has remained constant — his faith in
From First-Degree Murder to Probation: Two Tales of Keshia Golden’s Prosecution
What happens when the initial charge and the resolution tell radically different stories about the same conduct? For nearly four years, Cook County prosecutors maintained that Keshia Golden committed first-degree murder when she fatally stabbed her boyfriend, Calvin Sidney. On Monday, they were finally scheduled to prove it. Instead,
How can prosecutors continue pursuing a case after a court throws out a conviction?
This morning, the Chicago Sun-Times published an investigation into Ivy Kelly's decades-long fight to clear his name. According to prosecutors, Kelly and a co-defendant fatally shot Joseph Ward on Dec. 10, 1999. At Kelly's 2003 bench trial, the State's case relied
Did a Printout of a Facebook Stories Archive Become the Basis for an Alleged Parole Violation?
Last week I expressed my dismay over a recent development in one of the cases I've been following. A man who had just been released from pretrial detention was returned to custody. The allegation: He violated the terms of his parole by visiting the Facebook page of the