Chicago DUI lawyer agrees with Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez

Recently one of the Assistant State's Attorneys (ASA's) took me to task about a blog post.  She thought I meant that the job of a 1st District, City of Chicago, State's Attorney in  traffic court was a cakewalk. I guess if one read just the title, and not the post itself, that could have been the takeaway .  Those ASA's certainly have one of the highest court call volumes around, even now as the numbers decrease dramatically. We talked about the post and I did not change it.

A few weeks ago, a different ASA advocated on behalf of one of my clients, who had received court supervision on a DUI a long time ago.  My client complied with all of the terms and conditions of court supervision but one; he forgot to come back and pay approximately $200.00 to the court in fines. His oversight caused his license to be revoked; he was subsequently charged, about fifteen years after that court date, with driving while his license was revoked.  He was now facing jail. 

I ordered that old file and placed it back onto the court's docket for my client, now no longer a young man, to pay his fine and ask the judge to terminate his case satisfactorily.  You would think this would be easy but it is not because there is a time limit on these requests and my client's time had probably expired.  The judge said as much and the ASA said she had no objection.  I could not believe this young ASA and I really was touched.  She didn't know my client and didn't have to help him at all.  She did and the judge agreed.  My client paid his long overdue court fees and fines. Subsequently, all of the jailable offenses were dismissed.

When I asked the ASA why she did what she did, she told me truthfully, that she thought she could explain herself to her boss, Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez, if it ever became necessary.  Then I saw the following story in the Chicago Sun Times:

May 5, Chicago, Il

When Thaddeus "T.J." Jimenez walked out of prison a free man last week, the 30-year-old held a cell phone for the first time.

"He was talking into a BlackBerry and someone said, 'Why don't you just send a text?' He had no clue what a text was," said Steve Drizin, Jimenez's attorney. "Slowly but surely, he's trying to stick his toe into the real world."

Jimenez, described by his lawyers as the youngest person in U.S. history to be wrongly convicted and exonerated, was cleared of the gang-related shooting of Eric Morro, 19.

His release came after witnesses to the 1993 slaying recanted their statements and investigators analyzed a recording of a man admitting to the shooting.

Jimenez was only 13 when he was arrested. He spent more than 16 years in prison.

Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez said at a news conference Monday. "Our job is not just about racking up convictions," she said. "It is ultimately about seeking and obtaining justice."

The young ASA was right, so is her boss.