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The criminal courthouse in the City of Chicago sits as an enclave of legal activity in a downtrodden neighborhood on the western boundary of the city. Located within its environs are buildings that accommodate the court system, a jail that houses nearly 10,000 prisoners, and office facilities for the Cook County State's Attorney and Public Defender, two of the largest legal offices in the nation. While walls do not surround the complex, it nonetheless remains a facility unto itself. It is known by many names, from "26th and Cal" designating its address at 2600 West California to the title given it by a former presiding judge of the facility as "The Center of the Universe." Having been privileged on occasion to perform judicial duties within the confines of the courthouse, I still find it difficult to accurately portray activities in the nation's busiest criminal court facility.
But now, a far better writer than I has accomplished that task. COURTROOM 302: A Year Behind the Scenes in an American Criminal Courthouse, by Steve Bogira, is a dazzling yet disturbing view of the day-to-day activities occurring in one American courthouse and, perhaps most troubling, a chronicle of events that repeats itself in courthouses and courtrooms across the United States.
Bogira is a reporter for the Chicago Reader, a weekly independent publication. He gained access to the Cook County criminal courthouse by persuading Judge Daniel Locallo to allow him to observe the day-to-day activities in the courtroom occupied by the Chicago jurist. In that courtroom, as well as in the entire courthouse, the prosecutors, public defenders, and courtroom staff work together on a daily basis. All of these individuals shared their thoughts with Bogira. Courtroom 302 is one of dozens of courtrooms in the Criminal Courthouse grinding out roughly 30,000 criminal cases annually. Observing how that work is accomplished in this representative courtroom serves as a sobering lesson to anyone with even a minimal concern for the American criminal justice system.
The operations of Courtroom 302 represent a microcosm of criminal law in its glory and its squalor. Judge Locallo is chiefly responsible for the success or failure of the assembly line that produces the results in his courtroom. He is a hardworking and highly competent judge. He has the respect of his fellow Illinois judges, and he annually provides us with updated legal developments in criminal law. But even a hardworking jurist like Daniel Locallo can find the enormous number of cases on his docket to be overwhelming. The major offenses and brutal criminals get the vast majority of attention. For the rest, several minutes of justice are all the attention that the system will allow.
Several individual cases wind their way through the year-long narrative of proceedings in Judge Locallo's courtroom. In any judge's life the occasional significant case appears on the docket. Known in the parlance as a "heater," it is a highly publicized case involving either a sensational crime or a well-publicized defendant. For Judge Locallo it will involve three white teenagers charged with a brutal beating of two young blacks who wandered into the wrong neighborhood. The racial overtones of the crime coupled with the political connections of one of the defendants bring substantial pressure to bear on the Judge. Because judges are elected in Illinois, the case has serious implications for Locallo's career. How such a case impacts the independence of our judiciary raises important questions for anyone concerned about that issue.
Other cases raise equally important issues touching the criminal justice system. Larry Bates, a small-time drug offender, also will spend substantial time in Courtroom 302. Like many other drug offenders, Bates must confront a legal system that cannot adequately deal with the drug problem in our society. Treatment facilities cost far too much to maintain, and politicians are more eager to spend money on prisons than on treatment. For a repeat offender such as Bates, prison may be the only alternative. The system seems all too eager to meet the cost of prison in the range of $25,000 a year rather than spend far less money for treatment. Drug offenses are the gristle that clog the criminal system and prevent the wheels from turning smoothly.
COURTROOM 302 obviously is a book for a specialized audience. Those who are not attracted to the criminal justice system will not enjoy this insider's look into the law. Nonetheless, this is an important book, raising important issues that should concern many people in society. There are Courtroom 302's across the nation, and in each of those venues the effort to combat crime while still seeking justice endures on a daily basis. To those engaged in that battle or concerned about how America will confront criminal law issues in the twenty-first century, this is a book to be read and studied.
--- Reviewed by Stuart Shiffman
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