Christopher Pratt is in the final week of his role as Adams County Chief Public Defender. On Monday, Pratt will be installed as an at-large circuit judge in the Eighth Judicial Circuit, filling the vacancy left by the Illinois Courts Courts Commission’s removal of Robert Adrian from the bench in February.

Carlos Acosta, a former state welfare case worker, was found guilty last year of endangering the life and health of a child in the 2019 death of 5-year-old A.J. Freund. Acosta ignored evidence of physical abuse before A.J. was beaten to death by his mother.

A leading appellate attorney reviews the Illinois Supreme Court opinion handed down Thursday, June 6.

On May 17, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed an Illinois federal district court’s ruling that the policy exclusion titled Access or Disclosure of Confidential or Personal Information excludes coverage for claims under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA).

It was on L.J.’s 11th birthday, in December 2022, that child welfare workers finally took him away. They arrived at his central Illinois home to investigate an abuse allegation and decided on the spot to remove the boy along with his baby brother and sister — the “Irish twins,” as their parents called them.

Lawyers for former Ald. Ed Burke urged U.S. District Court Judge Virginia Kendall to toss out his racketeering conviction, saying the jury in his landmark corruption trial got “carried away.”

The Illinois legislature passed the Pretrial Success Act as part of the Illinois state budget. Building upon the successful implementation of the Pretrial Fairness Act, which made Illinois the first state to completely end money bond, this grant based program will dramatically increase access to health and human services for people awaiting trial.

A judge on Wednesday rejected a law Illinois Democrats adopted last month that prohibits political parties from drafting candidates when no one was on the party primary ballot.