Candid camera captures court oral performances
Video and audio recordings of oral arguments before the Illinois Supreme Court, beginning with the January 2008 term, will be available on the Web site, www.state.il.us/court, no later than the day after the hearing.
Audio files will be in MP3 format. Video files will be in a Windows Media format. Both are compatible with most standard personal computer software.
The new technology “will provide the parties with a record of their appearances before the court,” said Chief Justice Robert R. Thomas, “and it will help the public better understand what we do.”
Three concealed cameras will be used: one in the back of the courtroom, one on a side wall, and one behind the bench that focuses on attorneys as they address the court.
In a recording room staffed by the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts, the operator will be able to select the camera to focus on the court, individual justices or attorneys.
Magistrates reviewed
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District will accept public comment through Friday, Jan. 18, relative to the reappointment of Magistrate Judges P. Michael Mahoney of Rockford and Geraldine Soat Brown of Chicago.
The court will decide whether to grant new eight-year terms to Mahoney, whose appointment to the Western Division will expire May 26, and Brown, whose appointment in the Eastern Division will expire June 18.
Magistrates are responsible for conduct of preliminary proceedings in criminal cases, pretrial matters and evidentiary proceedings on reference from a district judge, and trial and disposition of misdemeanor cases and civil cases on consent of the litigants.
A description of the position may be located in the Federal Magistrate Judges Act, Title 28 U.S.C. 631-636, and in the local rules of the Northern District.
Written comments may be submitted to the Magistrate Judge Advisory Panel, c/o Clerk Michael W. Dobbins, U.S. District Court, Room 2050, 219 S. Dearborn, Chicago 60604.
For more information, contact judicial support manager Ted C. Newman at (312) 435-5359 or ted_newman@ilnd.uscourts.gov.
Appeals judge confirmed
Judge John Daniel Tinder, who has served on the U.S. District Court in Indiana since 1987, received unanimous Senate confirmation Dec. 19 for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit.
A graduate of the Indiana University Law School and a former U.S. attorney, Tinder will succeed Judge Daniel Manion, who is taking senior status.
Court clerk retired
John M. “Jack” Waters, clerk of U.S. District Court in the Central District since 1984, retired Jan. 3. His 23-year tenure, ranked as the longest of all federal court clerks in Illinois since 1855, includes service under seven chief judges.
Waters began his public service career in 1971 as the third federal probation officer in what then was the Southern District. He was supervising probation officer when he was appointed court clerk.
He has been succeeded by Pamela E. Robinson, who has been chief deputy clerk for the past eight years.
ARDC vacancies filled
Chicago attorney Joan M. Eagle of Schwartz Cooper has been appointed by the Illinois Supreme Court as a commissioner of the seven-member Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission.
She succeeds Patricia C. Bobb, who served the maximum of nine years as a commissioner and helped foster development of professionalism standards and minimum continuing legal education standards.
Eagle, who heads her firm’s Labor and Employment Practice Group, is a high honors graduate of the Chicago-Kent College of Law who also has a master’s degree with distinction in music.
During her nine years of ARDC experience, she has served on both a Hearing Board and an Inquiry Board. Her term as a commissioner began Jan. 1.
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Chicago attorney Gordon B. Nash Jr., a partner in Drinker Biddle Gardner Carton, was appointed to the ARDC Review Board on Jan. 1. He succeeds ISBA past president Leonard F. Amari, who served the maximum eight years.
A graduate of the Loyola University School of Law, Nash is a member of the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism. A past president of the Chicago Bar Association and the Chicago Inn of Court, he has chaired the Illinois Board of Ethics and the Constitutional Rights Foundation.
Birkett is elected
DuPage County State’s Attorney Joseph E. Birkett has been elected to serve as the 72nd president of the Illinois State’s Attorneys Association through Dec. 1.
Birkett said that since its inception in the 1930s, the association ”has provided clarity and focus to the responsibilities of state’s attorneys in the Illinois criminal justice system (and) a unified voice in Springfield on matters that affect crime and punishment.”
Prosecutors on move
Steven D. Weinhoeft, first assistant Sangamon County state’s attorney, has been appointed to a Southern District federal prosecutor post in Fairview Heights.
Springfield attorney John C. Milhiser will fill Weinhoeft’s Sangamon County vacancy on Feb. 1. A former assistant state’s attorney, Milhiser left in 2003 to practice with Barber, Segatto, Hoffee & Hines.
His wife, Gail L. Noll, is a law clerk in U.S. District Court for the Central District.
Defender will retire
Macon County public defender Jon C. Baxter plans to retire from both his office and his legal career on Jan. 31. Admitted to the Illinois bar in 1969, he has been full-time public defender since 1998.
Baxter became a part-time assistant defender in 1980, taking cases of indigents assigned by the 6th Circuit in addition to his Decatur practice
Courthouse funds OK’d
U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin and Rep. Don Manzullo announced Dec. 26 that sufficient funding for a new federal courthouse in downtown Rockford is included in an omnibus spending bill signed that day by President Bush.
The previous allocation of $41 million will be supplemented by $58.8 million to continue the project, now estimated at almost $100 million. Construction could be completed this year.
Durbin said the new courthouse will be secure and efficient, and will meet the needs of the judicial system for many years. The site is large enough for expansion requirements during the next 30 years.