McHenry County Blog

A press release from the McHenry County Circuit Court:

Twenty Second Judicial Circuit Seeks Input on Extended Media Coverage

On February 1, 2013, at 2:00p.m., the Twenty Second Judicial Circuit of McHenry County will be hosting an open forum meeting to discuss the possibility of entering the Illinois Supreme Court “pilot project” which allows members of the media to bring cameras into the courtrooms.

Joseph Tybor, Press Secretary for the Illinois Supreme Court and Tom Jakeway, Deputy Court Administrator for the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit of Boone and Winnebago Counties will be in attendance to answer questions and address concerns about the project.

Members of the media, McHenry County State’s Attorney’s Office, McHenry County Public Defender’s Office, McHenry County Sheriff’s Office, McHenry County Clerk of the Court, McHenry County Bar Association, McHenry County Administration, Court Administration and judges of the Twenty Second Judicial Circuit are invited to attend this meeting. I

Interested members of the public are also invited to attend.

The meeting will take place in the McHenry County Jury Assembly area located on the third floor of the McHenry County Government Center located at 2200 N. Seminary Avenue in Woodstock.

On January 24, 2012, Chief Justice Thomas Kilbride issued order MR2634 authorizing extended media coverage in the circuit courts of Illinois on an experimental basis.

Extended media coverage, under certain restrictions pursuant to the Policy for Extended Media Coverage in the Circuit Courts of Illinois, allows members of the media to bring both still and video cameras into the courtrooms to photograph or video record proceedings.  For additional information about MR2634 and the policy concerning extended media coverage please go to www.state.il.us/court/SupremeCourt/Announce/2012/012412.pdf

For questions or other information pertaining to the meeting on February 1st, please contact Dan Wallis, Trial Court Administrator at jdwallis@co.mchenry.il.us or (815) 334-4351.

Springfield’s State Journal-Register is running a story about the Circuit Courts in Winnebago Counties allowing cameras in their courtrooms.

Think Belvidere.

Think Rockford.

The order will be issued on Monday.

Associated Press reports that Boone and Winnebago will make 13 counties where local judges allow photo taking and videoing.

Here is an article worth sharing from Illinois Statehouse News:

Illinois Supreme Court gives OK for cameras in trial courts

January 23, 2012

By Scott Reeder | Illinois Statehouse News

SPRINGFIELD — It is time for Illinois courts to become more transparent by allowing cameras into courtrooms, Illinois Chief Justice Thomas Kilbride told Illinois Statehouse News in an exclusive interview.

On Tuesday, the state Supreme Court is expected to announce it will allow trial court proceedings to be filmed and tape recorded for the first time in the state’s 194-year history, Kilbride said.

Illinois is one of 14 states where cameras in trial courtrooms are either not allowed or not used, according to the Radio Television Digital News Association, a professional organization serving the electronic news profession and dedicated to setting standards for news gathering and reporting.

“The idea behind this is simple. We need to have the courts be more open. By having the public keeping an eye on what is going on in the courtroom, it can act as a check in the balance of power,” Kilbride said.

But the value of cameras in courtrooms goes beyond accountability to help instill public trust in the court system, said Al Tompkins, a senior faculty member at the Poynter Institute, a nonprofit center for journalism studies in St. Petersburg, Fla.

“If we don’t have cameras in courtrooms, it’s left up to shows like Law & Order to give the public an impression of what is going on in the judiciary,” he said. “Of course, what is going on in the courts is much better than that, and the public should be able to see what is really going on.”

The Illinois high court unanimously approved the measure this month, and it will be part of the court’s policy Tuesday.

The move is a positive step toward holding judges, state’s attorneys and other elected officials who work in courtrooms accountable, said Mike Barnhart, president of Sunshine Review, a national organization that promotes government transparency and accountability.

Kilbride said that when he was seeking to be retained on the Supreme Court in 2010, several news reporters asked whether cameras should be allowed in courtrooms.

“I told them I favored it, but that I was just one vote on the court,” he said. “It’s happening, quite frankly, because I pushed for it, and a majority of the justices agreed to it.”

The new policy includes some restrictions:

• Jurors and potential jurors may not be photographed.
• Cameras and recording devices will not be allowed in juvenile, divorce, adoption, child custody and evidence suppression cases.
• No more than two television cameras and no more than two still photographers will be allowed in a courtroom at one time.
• Victims of violent felonies, police informants and relocated witnesses may request that the judge prohibit them from being photographed.

Although the policy goes into effect Tuesday, the chief judges of Illinois’ 23 circuit courts are responsible for implementing the policy. Once a chief judge of a circuit court applies and is approved by the Supreme Court, news media may request to cover eligible cases electronically in that circuit court.

Members of the news media are responsible for applying for electronic coverage each time they want to cover a particular case. Specific details of the application process will be released Tuesday.

At this point, the program is being billed as “pilot project,” so chief judges may choose not to have their circuit courts participate. Kilbride said the effectiveness of the pilot project will be reviewed by the high court at a future date and a decision will be made on whether to continue this program.

The new policy only allows for members of the “established” news media to photograph, film or tape record sessions. Residents and those working for non-traditional news organizations, such as Internet blogs, initially are being excluded from filming or recording court sessions.

But the high court may review the policy later regarding electronic coverage of courts by residents and non-traditional media.

“I can understand a court’s desire to preserve decorum — whether it’s a photographer from a newspaper or an ordinary citizen using their cell phone to take a picture — but it important to remember that the nature of the media has changed radically in the last 10 years,” Barnhart said. “While I think this is a step in the right direction, it does distress me that some are included in this policy, and others are excluded.”

The policy does not address the use of cell phones. The intent is for only professional-quality cameras and recording devices.

Kilbride resides in Rock Island, which is part of the Quad-Cities, a metropolitan area that includes parts of Iowa and Illinois.

“I know from my experience living in the Quad-Cities that cameras in the courtroom have worked quite well on the Iowa side. They have been well accepted by judges and lawyers. I have no reason to believe that won’t be the case in Illinois,” Kilbride said.

He said the new Illinois policy is modeled after the Iowa policy, which has been in effect since 1979.

Roger Ruthhart, managing editor of The Rock Island Argus and The (Moline) Dispatch, called the new policy a positive step.

“I don’t look for this to be something we use every day, but in bigger cases, such as murder trials, I do anticipate sending a photographer,” he said. “Right now, we send a sketch artist to these types of trials. By being able to photograph, we will be able to provide the public with a more accurate depiction of what is happening in a court case.”

Although Illinois has not allowed photography or audio recordings in the state’s trial courts, it has allowed news cameras in the Supreme Court and the Illinois Appellate Court since 1983. The Supreme Court also posts audio and video of all oral arguments on its website the same day they occur.

Kilbride said he sees another benefit to the new policy.

“It will serve as a good civics lesson for people to see what is happening within the courts,” he said.

If you were a suburban Republican, how would you like to have a Cook County Judge helping decide your political future?

That’s the situation that Congressman Joe Walsh is in.

And, considering that the Chicago Tribune is promoting his child support hearing as the number one thing happening tomorrow, Walsh can expect a full-court press.

Walsh’s court hearing is even more important than everything happening in the General Assembly’s Springfield Veto (or maybe Veto Override) Session.

Sitting through an hour of Judge Thomas Meyer’s court proceedings before the Zane Seipler Special Prosecutor request case has convinced me that the 22nd Circuit Court Judges should hire a management consultant.

Most of the hour was spent re-scheduling cases that were not ready for trial.

This does not seem like a good use of the time of a $171,000 a year public servant hired to made judicial decisions.

I would bet that a management consultant would have these attorneys queuing up in the Circuit Clerk’s Office where a clerk would use a computer program to schedule future hearings to match the judge’s available days with those when both attorneys could make it to his courtroom.

And one does not need a Master’s Degree in Public Administration, which I earned at the University of Michigan, to be able to realize that vast improvements could be made in the work flow at the Courthouse.

Also obvious was that the Courtroom doesn’t qualify as an open forum.

While Judge Meyer could be heard most of the time, hardly any of the male lawyers talked loud enough for spectators to understand their words.

Only two female attorneys, Jennifer Gibson and Sandy Kerrick, projected their voices well enough to be heard.

Whatever microphones in use certainly do not work well enough.

Because of population grown since the year 2000, McHenry County gets two new associate judges.

The selection process for these $171,000 jobs is in process. Twenty-nine lawyers have applied.

But now the County Board has to find a place to put two new judges.

Space is tight in the courthouse. You know government expands to fill all room available, a variation of Parkinson’s Law, I think.

So, what to do?

It appears that the County Board is about to do something logical, something that is should have done at least a decade ago.

What’s that?

Open branch courthouse in the population center of the county, southeastern McHenry County.

And, while most of Woodstock is in the southeastern McHenry County, the Courthouse is in the northern half of McHenry County. I refer to its inconvenient location as “the Hebron site.”

Court is already conducted in Crystal Lake’s City Council Chamber. It’s called Administrative Court and is a way the Home Rule City of Crystal Lake can extract money from people without sharing any with county government.

But that court certainly proves Crystal Lake has an adequate courtroom.

I see no reason that the Algonquin Village Board room wouldn’t work either.

Or the Huntley Village Board room. It was certainly big enough to hold close to 200 folks mainly interested in high tolls to fill their wallets.

So, move traffic court to the cities where the tickets have been written.

When I called the Crystal Lake City Manager’s Office I was told no inquiry has so far been made.

So, if you have an empty room that might work as a courtroom, raise your hand. You might get some rent for a room that otherwise might remain empty.

Oh, yes. Might be good to have plenty of parking.

On Friday, the 2nd Appellate Court in Elgin released its opinion agreeing with Associate Judge Thomas Meyer that the arbitrator in McHenry County Deputy Sheriff’s Zane Seipler’s firing was just.

McHenry County Blog printed a comprehensive story on the decision and even linked to the entire opinion.

To summarize, Deputy Jennifer Asplund got a 3-day suspension for doing something worse than and the Justices thought the arbitrator’s recommendation of re-hiring with similar discipline was appropriate.

So there have been Saturday and Sunday editions of the Northwest Herald, McHenry County’s newspaper of record, and the Daily Herald, which periodically dips into McHenry County, but no article about the decision has appeared.

Wonder why.

Earlier this week McHenry County Sheriff Keith Nygren won a Federal Appellate Court decision because the lawyer handing the case for the plaintiff wrote such a bad brief.

Today Nygren lost a State Appellate Court decision because his side of the case was so bad.

The last part of the decision written by Appellate Court Justice Michael Burke with Justices Mary Schostok and Joseph Birkett concurring tells the tale:

“We find the determination that there was no just cause to terminate Seipler and that the appropriate remedy was a three-day suspension fell within the authority granted to the arbitrator under the CBA as well as the explicit stipulation by the parties concerning the scope of the arbitrator’s authority.

“For the reasons stated, we affirm the decision of the circuit court of McHenry County.”

As a result Associate Judge Thomas Meyer’s decision ordering Nygren to re-instate Zane Seipler as a Deputy Sheriff, Nygren appealed the case.

In affirming the Circuit Court decision, the Appellate Court panel noted that Deputy Jennifer Asplund had done essentially the same thing Zane Seipler did, but had only received a three-day suspension.

The higher court noted that the arbitrator had made that recommendation.

The decision points out that “judicial review of an arbitral award is extremely limited,” because the statute’s intent was  “to provide finality for labor disputes submitted to arbitration…The Act contemplates judicial disturbance of an award only in instances of fraud, corruption, partiality, misconduct, mistake, or failure to submit the question to arbitration.”

““Thus, a court is duty bound to enforce a labor-arbitration award if the arbitrator acts within the scope of his or her authority and the award draws its essence from the parties’ collective-bargaining agreement,” the order notes in quoting a previous case.

Seipler’s Fraternal Order of Police attorney made that argument before Judge Meyer.

Nygren argued that “the arbitrator’s award reinstating Seipler to his position as a patrol deputy must be vacated because it violates the explicit public policy of employing law enforcement officers who must be held to high standards of honesty and credibility.”

The decision continues,

“Plaintiff argues that keeping Seipler on the force will impugn the reputation of the entire Department. Seipler and the Union respond that the arbitrator made a rational finding that Seipler is amenable to corrective discipline and that, therefore, the award reinstating Seipler does not violate public policy. “

A case supporting Nygren’s position is cited: “a court cannot enforce an arbitration award made pursuant to a collective bargaining agreement where the award violates public policy, but continues with a countervailing decision which said that “the public policy exception is an extremely narrow one and should “not otherwise sanction a broad judicial power to set aside arbitration awards.”

The legal authorities pointed out for the public  policy exception to be valid there are two steps that must be climbed:

1. identifying a well-defined and dominant public policy and
2. concluding the arbitrator’s award, as reflected in his or her interpretation of the agreement, violates public policy.

The Justices summarized the issue like this:

As stated by the trial court, “[t]his concept is so obvious that no further discussion as to the basis of the public policy is required.” The arbitrator also found that Seipler’s conduct violated department rules and that the misconduct warranted discipline. Thus, the only question here is whether reinstating Seipler violates public policy.

Commenting on the arbitrator’s decision, the court said,

“The arbitrator found that, during the four years Seipler worked for the Department, he was recognized for his work ethic, he was commended for being among the officers who wrote the most traffic tickets, and was not regarded as a poor worker or had a history of disciplinary problems. The arbitrator determined that a three-day suspension was warranted in lieu of discharge. Implicit in these findings is that Seipler was amenable to discipline.”

The reasoning continues:

“Plaintiff’s argument lacks credence when compared to the discipline imposed in Asplund’s case.

“Plaintiff’s suspension of Asplund for three days instead of following the recommended termination exemplifies plaintiff’s belief that the integrity and best interests of the Department were not compromised by allowing Asplund to remain a member of the Department.

“Moreover, we find plaintiff’s attempts to distinguish the present case from the Asplund case unavailing. Asplund wrote false tickets in violation of the same public policy at issue here.

“In fact, it is arguable that Asplund’s situation was more egregious than Seipler’s because Asplund’s explanation of the events was not credible; whereas Seipler acknowledged his violations.

“As pointed out by the trial court, ‘[w]hile [plaintiff] argued that Deputy Asplund issued citations to people who had actually violated the law, the fact remains that the citations that were issued were inappropriate and seemingly violations of the public policy that [plaintiff] now demands be strictly construed.’

“Given plaintiff’s treatment of the Asplund matter, we cannot accept plaintiff’s argument that public policy demands that Seipler be terminated.

“Accordingly, while perhaps we may have decided the case differently, we hold that the arbitrator’s award reinstating Seipler to his former position and that a three-day suspension was appropriate discipline, after implicitly concluding that he was amenable to discipline, does not violate any well-defined public policy.”