Recalling her early career experiences as a coach for the Chicago Park District and for the Special Olympics, Chief Justice Anne Burke views her tenure as chief justice as being the head coach of a very good team of judges and court administrators. Justice Burke’s three-year term as chief justice ends October 25, 2022. She also informed the court at the beginning of its September term that she will retire from the court on November 30, 2022. After 16 years on the Illinois Supreme Court, Justice Burke said, “the race has been run and it is time to pass the gavel to a successor.” 

As chief justice, that successor is Justice Mary Jane Theis who has served on the supreme court since October 2010. As a justice, the successor is Appellate Court Justice Joy Cunningham who will take office December 1, 2022. 

Justice Burke’s judicial career began in 1987 when she was appointed a judge on the court of claims. After seven years, Governor Edgar appointed her to be special counsel for Child Welfare Services. In 1995, Justice Burke was appointed and later elected to the appellate court. In 2006, she was appointed and later elected a justice on the Supreme Court. She became chief justice in October 2019. 

Justice Burke cites as one of her major accomplishments as chief justice leading a revamping of the judicial branch through the impact of Covid. Those changes involved improving technology throughout the court system, particularly in rural counties downstate. Statewide there was the initiation of remote hearings via Zoom. Zoom hearings, she told me, will remain in some form. Justice Burke says the remote hearings are especially valuable for initial hearings in traffic court and in downstate counties where remote hearings can alleviate the long travel distance and travel time.

One of Justice Burke’s efforts was a statewide series of listening events across Illinois in 2020 conducted in collaboration with the ISBA and its then-president, Dennis Orsey. Justice Burke credits those events with drawing attention to the needs of many counties across the state. One example was improved wi-fi access and new procedures in Whiteside County that enabled public defenders to communicate electronically with their clients in custody and exchange documents with them. 

Justice Burke notes there may be fine-tuning modifications to the new Safe-T Act that will, among other things, eliminate cash bail effective January 1, 2023. Part of the reforms in that law that encourages Justice Burke is a long-overdue expansion of pretrial services in all counties of Illinois. That program, she says, will provide more information on defendants so judges can be better informed in making decisions on whether a defendant should be kept in detention or released with conditions. The law, she says, will provide state funding to help cash-strapped counties have pretrial service officers to provide that information and public defenders to represent indigent defendants. Justice Burke points out that the role of the courts will be to implement the law that the legislature has drafted and approved. 

While Justice Burke is looking forward to retirement and more time with family, she says she will not be disappearing from public view. She is not prepared to say what future plans she has, but she does say that she “will not be silent.”