Our support lines in our special positions, and we have a number of positions that are either soon to be posted, have already been posted during validation, or somewhere down the process.

In the coming months, we are excited to transition many of our talent acquisition responsibilities from the Bureau of Human Resources to the PD's office.

That proposal is in front of the compliance office in the OIIG.

That transition will allow for us to continue to work on the hiring process as speed to the prior process.

And we don't want to just go fast for fast sake.

We want to be able to pick from the best candidates.

And we know that the best candidates have options and speed is integral to that process.

So I want to thank the Bureau of Human Resources and the President's Office for their commitment in finding solutions to problems that we've been working on for a long time that we've already seen lots of solutions to.

So as we think about our spending, it's also important to note that we are lean.

Our 95% of our budget goes towards staffing as compared to smaller numbers at the sheriff and state's attorney's office.

There's no fluff in our budget.

But not only are we lean, um, we have a budget that does not, you know, it's it's not the same as some of our other partners.

Uh with that said, uh, we know that we want to continue to provide the best services that we can.

And as we think about our spending, it's also important to note that although we represent uh clients in the second largest county uh in uh uh the second largest court system in the United States, um, there are several offices out there, similar to the public defender's office that has that have a little bit of a larger budget.

Again, our goal is not to meet budgets of other offices.

Our goal is to uh provide uh the highest level of service we can, and we do that really through um meeting the minimum workload standards that are out there.

Um and and on the minimum workload standards, um, really over the past five years, the president and the board has been committed uh to closing the gap and getting us at a place where we can meet those minimum standards, but to answer the questions about how we get there after a very competitive procurement process.

Thanks, Rafi, and your team.

Uh the law office has contracted with the RAN Corporation to conduct a comprehensive and localized workload study.

Uh the RAN Corporation has been nationally recognized for developing workload standards that reflect modern criminal defense practice.

Um they're great at defining professional and ethical responsibilities.

And RAN was a really excellent choice because they've helped to uh work on the previous national standards, and they're working with large offices like LA County, the Maryland State system.

Right now, they're in phase one, which is gathering the general number of cases we have and applying them to the previous national standards.

However, their goal is to go far deeper, a far more academic study that includes a local time study, a review of current practices, more complex categorization of the types of cases that we handle, and interviews from experts, review of the local legal system, and together they will produce a far more detailed um number when it comes to uh where we need to be at when it comes to staffing.

The simple um statistical analysis of that phase one initially reflects uh a pretty shocking number um that we need 303 attorneys to meet those minimum standards for actually adult criminal cases only.

This is a this is a heavy number.

Um this is an initial analysis.

Um, and uh but it's important to note that that initial analysis does not include all of the work that we do.

With that said, we recognize that a fully staffed constitutional compliant public defender's office will require lots of different staff, um, a number of staff, but we also understand that we need to um be committed to incremental investments each year to work to those minimum standards, and we thank the board and we thank the president's office for working with us to continue to make those incremental investments.

We also know that staffing gaps exist outside of the attorney levels.

Um, so it's also important to note where we are at with investigators and paralegals and other specialists, and the next slide will talk a little bit about that work.

Uh the parallels are are still, we're still working to get those ratios to national standards, but we thank the board uh for helping us move uh down that pathway.

You know, as we continue to work on staffing, uh those staffing issues are compounded, compounded by ever-changing legal landscape, including an explosion in digital discovery.

We've been talking about this for a few years.

Um in our FY25 budget hearing, we showed you a pretty similar chart uh covering 20 to 23.

At that time, we were handling 267 uh terabytes of data.

Uh in just 18 months, our digital discovery, the amount of data we're storing for cases have exploded to one petabyte.

Um, when I was told what what when somebody said what is one petabyte, or do you know what one petabyte was?

Uh I said, No, I don't.

So uh Nico, uh our uh associate director for data uh did a great job explaining for me, explaining it to me.

Uh one terabyte is one thousand terabytes.

What is one thousand terabytes?

That's eighteen million USB flash drives worth of data.

Uh to put that in context, if you put the USBs on the ground, uh that list, that line would stretch 37 miles.

It would uh stretch from my fellow alumni, Commissioner Britton's district in Gunco to Commissioner McCaskill's district in Pullman.

It would run 37 miles, it would go through Commissioner Marita, Gaynor, Degnan, then Vasquez, then Scott, then Anaya, then I think Scott again, uh then Commissioner Stance, Larry Daly, my commissioner, more, and then McCaskill.

Uh we're saying we're saying this because it's a tremendous amount of data.

Um it's a ton of video, and that's video that must be reviewed by our attorneys because the stakes are incredibly high.

We know that Cook County has been named the wrongful conviction capital of the United States.

Illinois makes up about 15% of the wrongful conviction cases nationwide.

And quite frankly, it's not just about wrongful convictions, it's about stopping them before they happen.

Despite popular opinion, just because someone is charged with the crime does not mean they're guilty.

Even the SAO's dashboard indicates about 60% of felonies ending convictions.

That means 40% of the felonies that the SAO brings on the system does not result in a conviction.

That's not a flaw in the system.

That is the system.

We live in an adversarial system where allegations do not necessarily mean that something happened, that we live in a community that there is harm, but every allegation isn't true.

Many of those dismissals and diversions and acquittals are the result of the hard work of our defenders.

Put simply, public defense protects against wrongful convictions and excessive sentencing and police misconduct.

But let's put a real story to the numbers.

He's a 29-year veteran in our office, um, worked with Nicole Pelleggy at assisted public defender in our trial technology division, and Ashley Waglis, an investigator assigned to Maywood.

The team helped to bring uh helped an instant client get acquitted of uh charge of murder, a charge that can sit carry 40 years of life.

Um and I think the story tells a lot about what the public defender's office does and the need to um continue to improve um our technology um uh portfolio.

When we received the case or we received the investigation from uh from the police, they were surveilling the streets.

Our client was one of those people out on the street, was certainly not a killer.

I feel like there's this big misunderstanding that police investigate a hundred percent of the case.

I'm constantly locating interviewing witnesses that the police never even touched on.

Um finding people that are in the background of body worn cam video.

I'm going back out to scenes, taking pictures, finding uh surveillance video that the police never found or documented.

With uh video evidence, uh we received some of that.

Um there was ultimately a uh a missing video that we received at the last minute from the prosecution at the eve of trial.

We had this really scramble.

So we needed our our uh tech division support to help us being able to open it, being able to review it.

That was one of the things that showed to us and showed to the jury that our client, while in the area, which we knew he was, uh, was not the shooter.

In video and audio evidence, it's we it's gonna be seen as more objective.

And if you can highlight what like highlight what's actually happened in a like a self-defense case, something like that, uh, it can change everything.

Digital evidence has greatly changed the way in which we prepare and go through an entire case.

The traditional investigative techniques don't work.

You need to be able to review, analyze, organize, and go through with a fine-tooth comb voluminous amounts of digital evidence, and but you also have to have the specialized knowledge to know what you're looking at.

The videos, uh, we're getting those from multiple sources.

Police agencies from uh CTA, private surveillance cameras and video cameras, people's phones, all this sort of stuff.

When I see the uh file batches that they will get for one case and just the endless, like just gigabytes of data they have to go through.

And sometimes it's 40 minutes of a of a police car sitting in a sally port in some police station, and someone has to go through that and make sure nothing not you know, there's nothing important in these files.

The other thing is the mass of cases that we're hit with.

We have everything piling on.

I would like to see my division grow just by virtue of being the only person doing this sort of work, it can be very overwhelming.

Um sometimes I just like I'm glad I have the computer processing power because I think I would have to tell people I I can't do this by the time you need it.

The prosecution and Chicago police have massive amounts of resources as far as their tech support, their personnel.

Wins like these concede that we have saved a young man's life from spending decades or the rest of their lives in prison.

The reality of this case is that it's not an outlier.

Um through 2023 to 2026, through just dismissals and not guilty dis not guilty dispositions on felony cases only.

Our defenders have saved roughly 25, 761 years of incarceration time for our innocent clients and our clients found not guilty.

Um listen, the reality is that the harm uh occurs in our community.

I'm from one of those communities.

You can't deny that.

But at the same time, the existence of harm does not mean that every allegation that comes through the legal system is true.

That's not just misconduct, that's the reality of adversarial system.

The public defender office keeps people and communities hit hardest by mass incarceration.

It means parents at home with their children, community members building up their neighborhoods, workers building their careers, and taxpayers creating riv revenue to support the county services.

Besides ensuring freedom and reuniting families, our work stabilizes communities.

Our primary responsibility is the shoulder is that shoulder shoulder representation for clients.

But we've learned through our work that's impossible to advocate for the fair treatment of our clients without identifying and cataloging when individual members of law enforcement who choose to break the rules, engage in misconduct.

That need has been magnified by changes in misconduct policy of the State Attorney's Office.

So to ensure that our clients are respected, we've created a police misconduct unit, and they work with our arrest response division and put in a credible amount of work.

Only two more videos left, they're short.

Well, here's the second one.

It's from Mel Delgado, uh assisted public defender in our legal resources division, and from um our associate director of legal services in our arrest response division, Abby Clo.

They're gonna talk a little bit about their work.

This is the epicenter for wrongful convictions.

For years, things have just been deplorable when it comes to police misconduct that led to so many innocent people being wrongfully convicted.

The police without accountability uh tracking that our office is doing will be instrumental in trying to be at the forefront of uh identifying rogue police officers, police officers who are abusing people.

365 days a year, 24 hours a day.

Um, clients can call our hotline and we have an attorney pick up.

They express what it is that they need.

Um, and if they're in custody, we come to the station and we represent them.

It's life-saving for a lot of people who have no understanding of the system.

They've never been arrested before, some of them.

They don't understand what's happening to them.

They are anxious, they are scared.

All the divisions and the units in this office work together.

Uh it's just ours seems kind of melt because of the fact that they're the first ones on the scene with the police officers.

It's important for us to be able to go to Mel and say, hey, do you does this officer have a history?

Is this is this a one-off?

I not only track all information that comes to our office regarding news articles, alleging police misconduct, track any kind of COPA BIA internal affairs documents that could be useful for on our clients' behalfs.

Uh, I also track all information that our attorneys send to us.

Part of my job is also for us to be proactive when we start seeing patterns of a police officer doing things over and over again.

We should be aware of it.

One of our roles is to get into the police station, you know, before the police have an opportunity to interview the client.

We want the client to know that they have a right not to speak to the police.

And many clients don't know that, and many clients don't interact with the police on a regular basis.

During sort of the George Floyd protests, there were a lot of people arrested who were not getting phone calls.

Everyone in custody has a right to three phone calls within three hours.

That is statute.

So what people were discovering is that they weren't really getting access to those phones.

So there was a lawsuit brought, um, and the result of that was consent decree that went into effect in February of 2023.

And in that consent decree, certain things are required.

Um posting of our phone number on the walls, the three calls within three hours, um, telling people that they have a right to call and that they aren't just appointed an attorney at court.

They're actually appointed at the station.

And they haven't been put into effect.

So currently we are re-litigating with the city, and we are hoping that as a result, our clients will be advised that they can call us immediately at the station.

If that results, and if our phone number is given to clients, everyone in custody, from a misdemeanor to a murder case.

That will make our phone calls and our uh need exponentially higher.

So we will need way more people than the twelve attorneys that we currently have.

We need to be the checks and balances on this to track the stuff to make sure the clients get their rights to our phone call to make sure that there's an attorney there to advise them of their rights so that we are moving forward and not backwards.

Big thanks to uh Abby Edmil, especially for wearing orange and green for the orange and blue for the video.

I very much appreciate it.

Um thank Aaron for that pity laugh.

Um finally one of the greatest gifts uh of this year's budget has been our ability to expand our immigration division and meet the challenges of the current political moment.

Uh our commitment to our friends in the immigration community and the defenders for all coalition has been to grow the skies and soap scope of our division.

Given the times we wanted our to close our presentation with a short description of their work.

We have the tendency to get lost in the numbers and miss the real world impact of our uh of our work delivers.

We talk about the cases and the workloads and the employees, but we're talking about real lives impacted.

We'll conclude our presentation um with some thoughts from our immigration uh immigration uh division, and I want to thank our digital communication specialist Ellen Woodward and our deputy of communications Dr.

Eugenia Orr for putting these videos together.

In immigration, you have the right to an attorney, but you have to find an attorney or ha find a pro bono attorney.

So a lot of times it involves you pitching your case as to why you are worthy of representation, why you deserve to be heard.

His case really evolved as we um took it on.

Um he had been the victim of a lot of trauma in his home country.

He had also been the victim of um trauma traveling to the United States, but also he was the victim of a stabbing in the United States.

So he had difficulty adjusting to life in the United States.

And the more we uncovered that, the more we realized he needed the support system of our social worker.

We also needed to um line up a an evaluator, a forensic evaluator for him in order to document both what had happened to him psychologically, but he still had a lot of bruises on his bodies left over from what he injured um in his home country.

For me as a social worker, I was able to call a client every single week, uh, do check-ins with the client, check in their mental health, advocate while they're detained, right?

In this particular case, we were actually able to work with the client and the detentions uh staff to get him medication for his RPTSD like symptoms.

Uh when release, I was able to help him uh come back to the city, uh, able to get him resources for food clothing, as well as help him with immigration appointments afterwards too.

In immigration law, the burden is on us to show why this person qualifies for relief, and we are working often on a very tight timeline.

There's just so much that goes into putting a filing together for immigration court.

We're talking about, you know, hundreds and hundreds of pages of evidence that the respondent has to submit.

Our paralegal supported him so much and our um and our social workers supported him so much.

Because even after we won his case, that wasn't the end of the journey for him.

We still had to get his documents.

So his I94, which allows him to work and show that he did when his case, it took us probably six to nine months.

So Mr.

Gracias a Dios Yapul can have me permissible trabajo and Segura Social.

There is something that changes every single day, and it's been really difficult for us to keep up with all of the changes.

When I first started, we were only um covering Chicago Immigration Court.

Because that's what covered Wisconsin, Indiana, Kentucky, some of Oklahoma.

But now it's expanded.

It's not based on where they live, it is based where there's space.

So an individual can be detained outside of our courthouses and be sent to a completely different state and be under the jurisdiction of a completely different state, also.

So I think that's also made it difficult for us to keep up because now we're working in different circuits, not only the Seventh Circuit.

I don't think that you can survive in this immigration system without having legal representation these days.

Funding this division is one of the first steps.

Thank you all so much.

Commissioner Scott.

Thank you, uh Vice Chair, for honoring uh my request.

Uh public defender Mitchell, uh, I appreciate the work that you and your team does.

It is so important for communities, specific specifically the ones that I serve uh where people do not have the means to represent themselves, and so the work that you do is so very important.

So I thank you for all that you do.

Um I also want to thank you for your break in the presentation and allowing some of these videos so that uh we we have some some faces with instead of people just reading words to us, so I I appreciate that.

Um you talk a lot about technology in your presentation and and how the work that you do is moving uh fast and and ever more um you know towards technology.

Uh I I know in in I think the last budget we you know we approve the the ability to get you more computers.

How is that process working and what what do you need or what can we do to help you move that a little bit faster so that the technology that you're providing or that you need is at your fingertips and the fingertips of your attorneys.

Thank you so much, Commissioner Scott.

Um thank you so much for your support and the board support of uh our refresh.

Uh essentially what happened was that you know computers have a shelf life and we make those determinations about the shelf life is and we've been working with the Bureau of Technology to create a more accurate shelf life for our computers.

Uh we moved down to three years of shelf life.

Um so those are existing defenders making sure that they have computers that uh are both updated um and have all of the specs necessary uh to run everything we need to run when it comes to digital discovery.

So we are in the process of receiving those computers for this year.

We receive the computers for last year, and we're working with the Bureau of Technology to kind of think through how we can uh best assist their team in ensuring that we can get computers as fast as possible.

And you know, with with procurement and you know, Bureau of Technology and the three-year shelf life.

Um are we doing enough again?

What can we do to help you and uh you know, or are there thoughts of how we get that technology to you faster so that you know when those three years are up, those computers are are ready and available so that they're updated and you are able to do the work that you need to do.

Yeah, we want to be uh assistance with the Bureau of Technology and ensuring that we could uh you know help uh in that process of getting computers.

You know, there are a lot of uh responsibilities the county has, and we know that we take uh a significant amount of resources to do our work, and we just want to be of assistance when we can to ensure uh that we can get our defenders the support they need.

Um when I go to 26 in California and Markham and Maywood uh and all the other uh places, our line defenders the first thing they talk about is kind of tools they need.

We've done an incredible job improving the technology of our office.

I cannot state the improvements that this board and the president have have presented for our defenders, and we want to continue that momentum and really you know, you know, computers, uh case management, um, our e-discovery system are like the baseline of that work.

You can't do this work.

I know a fellow attorney knows you can't you can't do this work without that those you know those boxes checked.

Well, we we sincerely want to want to help you in so when we have conversations of what we can do and you can do offline, just let me know and and direct me and and how uh we can help uh the the Bureau of Technology get you what you need when you need it.

Um to to your point about case management, if if I'm not mistaken, you guys were implementing an a new case management system and you uh did you you took that out to RP and you where where are you in in securing a new system?

Yes, sir.

Uh so we I think started the process of our current case management system and Rafi might or others might know.

I think we started or Aaron or Nico in 2013 with our current, I think that's when the process started.

I think we launched our system like sometime around 2016.

Um and uh that that program is starting to see a little bit of its age, shows a little bit of his age.

So right now we're in a competitive RIP process uh to bring on a new case management system.

And by case management system, I just mean like essentially like the the file file system, the official file system of all of our cases.

So we're in the process now.

Um it is a obviously confidential process, but I think we have a lot of strong uh applicants, and we feel like we're going to be able to get a system that's not it's not just having a new system, it's about having a system that optimizes our ability to provide high level resources.

We have a giant office, lots of attorneys, lots of cases.

We need a case management system that can allow for us to uh improve the quality of representation that we provide, and we believe through this process um that we will get we will get that done.

And we're very, very appreciative of procurement, the Bureau of Technology, and all of the um folks uh in our office that are pre that are that are uh participating in that procurement process.

What I'm most proud of is that we have a mix of both managers, administrators, and line attorneys that are in the procurement process.

We want to hear from folks that have to make those high-level decisions system wide, but also the folks that are working on the ground who know what they need to do the work every day.

So I'm really excited about that process.

Um the the visual that really stuck out to me in your presentation is when you talked about um, you know, if you you put um uh all of those um USB Yeah, all together, and and it goes all the way through twice through mine.

Noted twice in my district.

Uh straight line.

Um so to comb through all of that, right?

I mean, you you need you need staff, you need um systems in in order to go through that so that you your staff doesn't have to comb through all that.

Um you talked a little bit about how you're bringing on more attorneys and and your numbers may be deceiving, this deceptive because you got a lot of offers out and you're just waiting on them to come back.

In addition to staff, right?

What else do you need in order for you to help um get through all the comb through that data and make sure making sure that you do exactly what you need to do, and that is represent those who are underrepresented.

Yeah, we're so lucky to have Joel and Nico who work in our data and trial technology teams that have been helping us strategize what we need.

We've also really been talking to our attorneys.

I think the thought is that we want to, I think our end goal is we want we you know, we you know, we want our attorneys to do legal work, the the things that they got their degree for.

Um, and then we also want to provide a kind of environment of people assisting them, right?

That can help them do some of the work that may not require specifically a legal degree.

So we've really been kind of expanding our team around our legal staff when our administration came into the office.

We had five paralegals.

Uh I remember I had a conversation with Commissioner Moore, one of my first uh um uh hearings where he's like, why aren't you using more paralegals?

Well, we took them up on that.

We're now up to about 33, 34 paralegals.

Chris is gonna kill me that I don't know that number specifically.

Um one of our deputy public defenders who managed our paralegals.

Um, but we're increasing that.

We're also you know, talking about expansion to our trial technology team, um, thinking about how we can best use our resources.

We're developing a discovery clerk position um that will help us um target individuals to help support our team.

So it is a mix both of staff that are non-legal and also thinking about what resources we can provide.

So, like our you know, our case management system consists with that, right?

In terms of being able to like review video, uh uh being able to take video, translate into text and be able to search word search, lots of things like that.

Um we are working on, you know, things on our uh legal research side with uh West Law and some of the AI functions within West Law.

We're trying to take a really kind of there's not one answer.

They're like 13 different answers, and we're trying to trace down all 13 different answers.

Um I I was just gonna ask you about uh like AIG technology that kind of takes the words that you need to sort through and then give you specific videos so you don't have to comb through all of that.

Uh is that is that something that you guys are looking at?

Is that on the horizon?

Is that something that's in that that new system that you're bringing in terms of trial management?

Yeah, currently evidence.com, which is provides you know, is a kind of facilitator for a lot of our digital discovery, uh has some of those capabilities.

We're in constant communication with them to launch new tools.

Um, you know, we are obviously the second or third largest public defender's office, depending on how you would count it.

Um, so we have unique needs, and I think we are engaging a ton um with that team on developing new ways to kind of add efficiency.

Uh we know that you all can give us people, um, but we will not be able to close a gap that has existed for decades and decades and decades.

So while there are certainly concerns with AI that we've got to think about, we gotta make sure that we're not signing made-up cases, and we've been working with our professional development team to help train our attorneys to do that.

We also have to take advantage of this ability to close the gap when it comes to capacity.

We just know that we aren't gonna ever get to like 100%.

It's just that that may not ever happen, but we can use AI to help uh close that gap.

So we're trying to kind of balance that.

Well, uh you know one, I'm I want to again thank you for the work that you and and all of your team do.

Um I I appreciate, you know, as we're having conversations, how you're training these young attorneys to make sure that they have what they need to be able to represent the people uh who are in in the county of cook.

Uh and I I commend you on the work and the training and all of those things that you do to make sure that we are competitive as one of the larger um states' attorney's offices in the country.

And I know that work is so competitive uh in this legal landscape and the work that you're doing to make sure that we're competitive, making sure that those folks are trained, making sure that uh they have the tools and the resources that they need to be able to uh defend these people who who uh individuals who need this this defense.

And so again, just want to thank you and your team for all the work that you do and want to want to lend my support in any way that I can to make sure that your office has what it needs uh to represent the people of the county of cook.

Well, thank you so much.

I'm the 764th person, you should be thanking.

We have an incredible amount of attorneys, specialists, investigators, and support staff that dedicate their life to doing this work, and I really appreciate it of them.

Leadership starts at the top.

So I want to thank you and then everybody below that.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Commissioner Degman.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for being here, Sharon, for the work you do.

I mean, we all appreciate that.

And I think the video highlighted in a really beautiful way, showing that there is a number, you know.

When you think about the public defender's office, you think about you know, people defending and your your right to have a fair trial.

And I guess I didn't even know that there were that many folks that ended up.

40% of them having not guilty or um adjudicated in their favor.

So that's a significant amount.

Um, and that's a testament to, you know, a system that's broken.

So I appreciate the work you done and uh that you've done and everything you do to keep fairness in the system and alive and well every day.

So um let's start off with uh some of the federal officials and arrests around in and around courthouses.

So your office has been a vocal and often first line of defense when federal officials try to make arrests in and around courthouses.

So what has the county coordination look like between your office and the sheriff's office, the clerk at the circuit court, the chief judge, state's attorney, and the president's office.

I know that we also got um notifications from our emergency management team when uh they have information, but you know, a lot of offices doing a lot of different types of work in communications.

So for your part, um what does that look like?

What do you feel like the gaps are and where could we find kind of improvements to kind of cut down on multiple communications about one issue and kind of streamline that?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's just gonna take continued work.

We've seen a lot of leadership from the president's office and the board of commissioners.

We really appreciate the work uh done by the JAC regarding ICE activity courts.

I I get teens notifications uh almost every other minute with our uh deputy public defender, uh Charlotte Grayson, our associate director, or sorry, our uh our attorney supervisor Heena Missouri and her team uh kind of at the lead of it.

Um there uh when I think about this, it typically is around kind of two things.

I think that we we currently have a we have a state law, we have local court, a local court order.

Uh we need to figure out how to wait how we can fully maximize the power of the uh county to continue uh to to enforce the laws that you all have done such a great job pulling together.

Um we would love to see um more engagement on how we can protect proactively make uh some of these protections real on paper.

Um you um we talked about or what the short this board talked about with the sheriff's office um about some of the things we can do on remote appearances.

Uh we know that we actually have a Illinois Supreme Court rule, Rule 45 that says that remote appearances shall uh be available, and I think that we have a chief judge judge uh in Chief Judge Beach that is committed to uh seeing that through.

We've been in communication with Chief Judge Beach about uh thinking through how we can get individual compliance among the individually elected uh judges.

Uh, some of them do a really good job, some of them, you know.

Um state's attorney also has to, you know, triangulate into that situation between your office, their office, and OCJ.

How is that going?

You know, I I think that you know, on the ground, we would love it if there weren't objections to uh folks appearing uh via Zoom.

That doesn't happen systemically, but it can happen where you see sometimes uh objections to people appearing on Zoom from some the party opponents sometimes.

We would love to maybe see that discontinue a bit.

Um let's put a pin in that.

Like, isn't the person that's most likely to be harmed by that, the defendant themselves?

And if so if the defendant is agreeing to it and they're represented by counsel and they're agreeing to it and the judges agreeing to it.

What's the state's attorney's office saying that that they don't think that's a good idea?

Um, maybe that's a question for that person.

Yeah.

Okay.

As I was saying it out loud, I was hearing myself answer that ask that question.

But I think historically, you know, the person that's most put into disadvantage by remote hearings are the defendant.

Yeah.

And I want to be clear like listen, this is a really big court system with lots of different individual actors in it.

I think oftentimes there are uh resolutions that happen at the top level and thinking through how you execute those decisions on the ground is a is a constant challenge where they're talking about technology or immigration or at all.

So I I think oftentimes uh we and it happens with our office.

We need to sometimes figure out that there are you know decisions that I make or our leadership team makes in thinking through how we can get those decisions down to the ground.

And I think that's gonna be part of the issues that we face as we really think about this incredibly incredibly just awful threat that we see coming from the federal government.

Well, I think you know, before this mid-year budget hearing week, I have meetings, my meeting with you and I have a meeting with every separately elected, and kind of what's come out of that in our multitude of conversations around federal enforcement is just how much money it has cost the county to just respond in a reasonable way to federal enforcement in a space that we have found it to be either patently illegal, going against Illinois law, and it certainly goes against the fabric and grain of what we here believe in.

And so traditionally, when we're dealing with the federal government, it's in alignment.

It's saying, hey, can we coordinate with you on health care or the environment or a lot of good things?

What has not happened is us being in direct conflict when we end up spending money, significant money to keep our people safe.

So I think that there has to be more of a global conversation in the county about exactly how much money have we spent defending the rule of law in Illinois, moving towards keeping justice at the forefront and a healthy conversation about what is protecting our people, our people in Cook County, how much is that cost?

So at some time in the future, when there is a more reasonable federal administration, that we can go back to that administration and say this is the cost to the county, and this is a cost that we expect to be reimbursed for.

And that is a cost that is going to be split among your office, the sheriff's office, the state's attorney's office, the chief judge's office, the offices that have been responding to these threats.

So I would formally like to ask you to put together an idea of how much money you've spent in labor cost, personnel costs, or hard costs in order to defend against what we have taught largely talked about here as a threat to our people and to our communities.

So I think you know, that's not gonna happen.

A reimbursement's not gonna happen now.

We could ask for it now and you know, and memorialize it and document it.

But I think over time, you know, we have a huge budget shortfall, and to be spending money and throwing that money out the door that could be used to spent and support people to me is horrifying.

So I'd like to see us document it and make sure that we're asking for that money back.

We we would love to provide that for you, Commissioner, and I think I would be remiss if I didn't say that they're also the kind of the psychological impacts that our um staff face.

Um there are attorneys and support staff and investigators who are coming home to this.

Um there are also people at work who have faced uh threats from individual officers, uh federal officers threatening them.

And I don't know how I put that impact on paper, but I'm gonna do the best that I can because we are are so happy to resist this.

We we uh this is wrong, and we're gonna do the best that we can to stop it.

And we want to be the front line for that defense.

In the event we get any money back, maybe there could be a fund or part of that money could be used to support people with some mental health needs that they have in response to this, not just people who work in the county, but people who are affected outside of the county employee structure.

Yeah, I understand why sometimes people may not react in the most pleasant and appropriate way.

I understand that sometimes people may react with passion, and I would hope that we would have stakeholders that would understand that.

I think, yeah, I think we all understand it.

When you're threatened, you don't always act in the most logical way.

You you it's fight or flight or freeze.

Okay, let's move on to the reimagined youth detention program.

I know that you were uh you know, had a large amount of effort that kind of went into that program.

Has there been any discussion in the last few months with your office about how that would move forward?

I'm gonna ask our deputy chief of staff, Sap Feelett, to come up here and talk a little bit about that work.

Hey, okay.

Hey.

Thank you for the question, Commissioner.

Um as you know, there's been a lot of your name.

Oh, I'm sorry, hey everybody.

I'm Sav Felix, I'm the deputy chief of staff.

Thanks for having me.

Thanks for the question.

Um, as you know, there's been um quite a bit of transition.

I know at OCJ they recently hired a director of juvenile services.

So my understanding is some of that work is on pause so that that person can transition transition into their role.

Um, and I think they have some positions that are have been posted and they're looking to hire.

So we've not um been meeting around that, and I think we've all just kind of been informed that they're letting that person kind of transition in and start to develop.

I haven't yet should.

But she's um she presented to a group of like justice stakeholders and stuff.

So I'm hoping to connect with her after budget season.

Okay, sounds great.

Um, so uh during the last budget hearing in the fall, and then today you talked a little bit about access to phone calls being an issue.

That is something that we've heard a lot about over the last eight years.

At least I have, I don't know if it was a primary discussion before I got here.

Um CPD at the time has had varying degrees of uh success.

So I know you just gave us an update on that.

Is there additional, I mean, what additional work could we do or what else is out there that we haven't talked about?

There, I don't even, you know, technology, is it what's the I mean the next step is to see what happens with the the uh consent decree.

We are in active litigation right now.

Um you just saw you heard from Abby Clow, who's our associate director running not only our arrest response division, but really running as a point person uh liaison to our attorneys um in that litigation.

I think that there could be some significant changes um that result from uh that litigation, and when those changes happen, uh there may be ask of this body uh to help respond.

And and I think that's when we'll need this body to help us uh really I think just ensure that um we're responding to protecting the constitutional rights that exist, you know, they're not new rights, they're rights that have always existed that have been acknowledged by both the US Supreme Court uh in the Illinois and the legislator.

The right thing to do.

Yep.

All right.

So you note we visited, I visited with uh Commissioner Stamps, the Freedom Defense Center when it was first opened.

And that provides a legal representation to I think 91 clients right now.

Um and it's provided resources for 164 non-attore services referrals, hosted almost 100 events, held almost 2300 registered registered attendees.

So you're doing a great job.

It's a great idea and a great concept.

Is that something that you're going to maintain?

Can you grow it?

Are there other communities like to see that in as well?

I just think it's such a great idea and a great extension of the work you do.

Yeah, we'd hope to.

Um I think if we were to redesign the criminal legal system or the public defender's office from the ground up, uh it would be much more like regionally based.

And the opportunity to have a presence in communities like Roseland in Austin and uh uh and really stake out both legal support but other supports is really important.

Uh before we do any expansion, uh I want to get this right.

Uh we want to get this right.

So there are lots of questions uh to to be answered.

I think we're doing a great job, but um we will I think perfect uh the work in Roseland and perfect the work in Austin uh before there are really any conversations about um doing anything next.

Sounds great.

Well, I would would have um asked about your hiring, but you kind of already went into that.

So I just want to say thank you for being here and all of the work you continue to do.

And if you need anything from us, just please be vocal, which you always are.

Thank you, Commissioner, for keeping me accountable.

Of course.

Commissioner Naya.

Thank you, Vice Chair, welcome, Public Defender Mitchell and team.

Um so you mentioned something important um in your presentation in regards to not only the workload, but also um your willingness and push and advocacy um to have um the best and fairest chance of representing all of your clients and the fact that there are disparities within your office and um obviously other public defender offices throughout the country, um, but even with some of the other counterparts here locally.

Um and I just wanted to really uplift that um and sit on that because in a time when yes, due process is is is being um almost written off by the federal administration and a time when um representation is so crucial to ensuring the integrity of um you know this country and the rights of every uh individual.

Um it is extremely important for us to support your team to uplift the work that you all are doing and to ensure that um that we do everything in our power in closing that gap.

And in a time when budgets get tight and when um folks are being asked to kind of you know take a step back, I think it's important to really um look at the the meaning of an office like a public defender's office and the work that it does.

So I wanted to just publicly state that because um you know you all are doing amazing work.

Um it is very difficult work.

It is work um that um uh that really impacts whether a person is incarcerated based on your presentation and what we know statistically, whether a person loses years of their life, what 20 you know almost 26 uh thousand years um and and I think it's so important.

Um so I just wanted to, you know, second a lot of the things that you've uh stated, and uh I know a lot of members here on the body um truly believe that uh the public defender's office um uh is a pride and joy of of Cook County.

So I just wanted to publicly state that.

Thank you, Commissioner.

Um so I had some questions um in regards to you know the evaluation that's happening, um, et cetera, but you already kind of went through that um in your presentation.

So I'm gonna go into interpreter services if if I can.

Um so does your office provide compensation for bilingual pay?

It does.

Okay.

Um and then how many uh do you uh currently have that do bilingual pay?

Uh or that um are being paid bilingual pay.

About 50 folks receive uh bilingual uh like a bonus basically.

And is that um throughout your offices?

Is that um all uh positions?

Yes, ma'am, throughout the county.

And then which ones are the positions that particularly any any we have you know 55 or 56 jobs within our office, any job is eligible as long as you are a member of the union.

And then does the person need to request it or what is the mechanism or implementation of that?

The person needs to request it, and then we conduct a test uh that test is uh we've accessed out outsourced to a language provider um and they are able to tell us that that person is is is proficient.

Um and then once that test is uh successfully completed um uh that person now uh receives a bonus for uh this extra skills that they provide our office.

Okay, and then can you walk us through the difference of um interpreters?

So, like do you all have in internal interpreters or do you all utilize other so there are kind of two things here that so when somebody's before the judge before a bench, there are interpreters that are provided by the court.

But as you know, there's lots of work that has to happen outside of just arguing before a judge or you know, appearing before a judge.

So we do have um uh interpreters in our office.

I will be very honest that we um do not have as many interpreters, and that's not because we don't have the budget for it, but we've you know just struggled to be competitive in that field.

Uh so we took a step back.

Uh we worked with uh BREORF Human Resources Labor Division along with our union to negotiate um a new job description, um which included kind of better salaries for so that we can be more competitive.

Uh there are a lot of market related things that we can talk about that we need to get more competitive on.

I think that we are some of the way there.

So we hope to be hiring more interpreters uh relatively soon.

We also understand that even if we hired a bunch of interpreters, given the vast size of our office, um, you know, across you know 13 different physical sites in 23, 24 different divisions, uh, we would need a non-person based solution to this.

Um so we work with our grant writer to uh provide uh or get a grant for uh digital translation devices.

Um we uh helped uh we kind of piloted a number of dice devices.

Uh big shout out to our deputy of administration, Janessa Geralds and uh Jennifer and uh Aaron and our team in First Municipal that helped a lot of work along with uh Rodney Carr, first assistant, and we were able to find a device that we liked, and now we are awaiting kind of approval from BOT to get those devices out the door, as that there is an AI component in.

I think that BOT obviously wants to make sure that there are all the security uh provisions necessary, but we hope to get those devices out the door.

They're physically with us.

We have them, we got the money for them, we bought them, and we're hoping that that will help to improve our language access, quite frankly.

Uh I'll be very honest.

I think we do a lot of good things good.

I think I've done a good job of helping to approve the quality of representation in our office, but I think this is one place where I've not uh met the moment and I want to I want to do better, and those devices I think will help us.

Um I think we need to get better on language access, and we will.

And big shout out to you and and Commissioner Marita who has pushed us really hard on that.

And can you the actual um personnel that are interpreters?

Um what's the caseload on those?

Do you know?

It's heavy.

I mean, it's tough to say the case though because there's both like short-term responsibilities and long-term responsibilities.

They also do transcription as well.

And we've kind of tried to find some technical um solutions for those transcripts transcription needs.

So I don't know if I can give you a specific number.

I can try to pull um some things and we'll get it to you, but I will say that the caseload is heavy.

Um, and we need more, and quite frankly, that's not a budget thing.

That's that's we need to, you know, get this job back on the market um and see if we can help fill some of those gaps.

Perfect.

Thank you.

Now moving on to ICE and federal immigration agents in our courthouses.

Um, I think uh we have all seen that you all have been at the forefront um of documenting but also ensuring that the rights of individuals are uplifted.

And I'm gonna be really clear.

I think um what we all know that the federal um agents are circumventing local protections.

Um obviously there's a legal process to do things within the criminal justice system.

Um, but federal agents have now, because of quotas or whatever the reason, whether it's political, et cetera, have really circumvented again the the local protections that we have here, which is a huge problem.

It violates a lot of people's laws, if it uh or um uh protections, I should say, and constitutional um uh laws.

So I think it's extremely important um that collectively, and I shared this with the sheriff's office, and we'll um share this also with the state attorney tomorrow that we work collaboratively in ensuring that there is protection.

So obviously we have seen an increase of dangerous uh conditions within our courthouses due to those agents being not only in inside the courthouses but in the surrounding areas.

So can you describe some of the conditions that you've seen with federal agents when they appear before the courthouses?

It's quite terrifying.

And we talk a lot about in the system uh appearance rates and and maintain make ensuring that people come to court.

And we have a system right now or practice right now from the federal government that disincentivizes people to resolve their conflicts in the way or their allegations in the way we'd want.

We're trying to do all that we can.

Our goal really now is to figure out how we can best optimize those rules and how stakeholders can best meet the moment.

We can't stop the federal government from doing things, but we can probably there's there's maybe a little bit more room on the table to do things.

And you know, to your point, um have you observed any specific improvements that you suggest either to this body um and what what does that you know in a perfect world, what what does that look like, right?

Um for you all to um allow or give um that um respect obviously to your clients for them to access you know their day in court.

You know, I think there's things that they can there are more things to be done.

Um I think that you know we see federal agents coming into court.

I think the sheriff is right that sometimes they come into court um going in the clerk system.

Um but I think the reality is that if a federal agent cannot produce a signed judicial warrant, then sheriffs should ask those agents to leave the courthouse.

Again, we can't let perfection be the barrier to progress, right?

So if we can be more active uh in doing those things, noting that this is really, really, really tough.

Um I think we could also uh think about kind of you know the work in terms of remote appearances.

Um and I'm really, really, really hopeful.

I I'm convinced that the chief judge is is right on this issue and wants to be uh uh supportive of this uh so I'm very very thankful that we uh have the chief judge with us.

Um I think that there are things that we can do on the prosecution side.

Um, you know, charging offenses at the highest level um and not thinking about the immigration implications is something that we should be thinking about in terms of individual practice, um, you know, objecting to remote appearances.

I'm not sure why we're doing that in 2026.

Um, there's some you know internal things that could be done as well that we would love to document to this board.

Um to your knowledge, um, of any of the your clients that have been detained, um, do you all have personal knowledge of uh judicial warrants being presented?

Because we hear that some of them may, some of them might, but what I'm hearing is that we've never actually seen one.

Um, meaning that there might have been another paper a paper that was presented that is not specifically a judicial um warrant, criminal warrant.

So I'm just wondering is this uh an issue that you all are also seeing?

Yeah, we're definitely tracking um there are no judicial warrants that we are aware of.

We've definitely seen a step up in the in the number of abductions.

Um ICE rarely gets, doesn't really ever get judicial warrants for those civil immigration arrests.

So you know, I I think we do.

And do you do you all also represent JTDC?

Um housed in the JCC.

So we we see sorry, who are in the JTC.

So we we say who are in the J D C we've seen that just recently there was uh JTDC uh individual that as soon as they stepped outside of um of there of the of the actual physical building, they were detained and woke up in Florida.

Um I just want to uplift that um because these are minors, these are individuals that we don't really know, you know, whether it seemed like it was a targeted uh arrest, but we don't really know how they received either the information release information.

So do you all have insights on any of that those tactics?

And um and you know, is there anything else that you all can share through your perspective regarding cases like those?

Yeah, that that was I think you're speaking of what about one of our clients.

He's was detained with uh his parents and two other adults.

It was a uh violent abduction that uh was really beyond the pale.

Um our attorneys are working on it.

We're trying to speak with him.

Uh he's actually being housed in an adult criminal jail.

Um we don't know how this child was targeted yet.

Um, but you know, that's the power of our immigration division and also kind of the limitations that we have people that are trying to find people who have been abducted in in tracking these cases.

Um but there are probably uh not a lot of specific details that we can share at this time.

But we are uh trying to do the best we can to uh protect that child's rights, um, freedoms and life.

Mayor, um I had some questions regarding the immigration division itself, but you answered some of them in your presentation, so thank you.

Um just wondering, you know, how have the federal uh government actions in the last few months have impacted the work that you all are doing?

Are you all receiving more requests?

And do you have a number of cases that you're because of um capacity you can um you cannot take and you have to turn over to other partners?

Yeah, there's no way we can take on um all the cases that were our our help is needed.

There's no doubt about it.

Uh our work is really thinking about how we can expand our capacity to help take on more.

Um I was literally in the elevator coming down here with our one of our paralegals um and some of the interns.

Um I asked them how it was going.

She said, not so good.

Yeah.

Um, if you have the specific number of how many cases are turned away, if you can send that over to this body, I would truly appreciate it.

Yep.

Um you mentioned something very crucial that I've believed in ever since you started working in in creating the um immigration division with your predecessor, um, which is the Padilla Um assessment and the importance of that and the importance of you know having even a state attorney look in that into that through their lens, but also you all internally to figure out.

Um, so you know how many um assessments have been conducted um uh you know, obviously since since the division started, and if you don't have that, how many do you um what is the what does that look like, I guess in the last year or so?

Yeah, FY25 we did 789 Padilla uh assessments.

Uh we are now around 374 individual Padia assessments.

Um we're also uh at about 54 community presentations.

I think one of the most important things that we've seen is the adoption of or the continued adoption of the immigration division within the law office of the Cut County Public Defender.

I think when it started off, it was built, it was built kind of as a kind of outside kind of secondary, kind of different type of work.

Like there's the immigration work and there's a criminal work.

And I think that one of the things that we've seen is and one of the things we're trying to work on is a stronger integration of that work so that our attorneys are more relying on um our immigration division to provide uh those assessments.

Uh we brought the work under our uh deputy public defender Charlotte Grace, who is probably the most capable person I know, um, who has been uh great on the policy side, and we're trying to do the best that we can uh to integrate that immigration work with our entire office.

Um we've been working with the Defenders for All Coalition.

We made a commitment uh to a three-year plan, increasing our staffing.

Um they understandably, I think what a little bit more.

Um and we will work with them to see how we can increase our capacity while also noting that our kind of day-to-day mission is provide that criminal work, and we can't, you know, that there needs to be growth in both sides.

They can't they can't be competitive with each other.

Uh we want to continue to to do that work on both sides.

Absolutely.

Um again, thank you so much, um, public defender, and uh, and of course, thanks to your team, you know, Charlotte is phenomenal, and so is Sav.

So I'm very appreciative of uh your team, your willingness to, you know, work with us, answer questions, but also um primarily just again just be such a partner in the work.

Um so um thank you again for being here today and and for everything you all do.

Appreciate you.

And with that, uh Chairman, I have concluded my questions.

Thank you.

Commissioner I think you chairman and uh uh defender Mitchell.

Uh congratulations on your first annual heroes luncheon.

It was very nice and to recognize even your own staff and the hard work that they do uh for the county.

So I appreciate the invitation.

Thank you.

I last saw Commissioner, he was at our Hall of Heroes.

We kind of launched a uh kind of hall of fame um of uh great public defenders, both attorneys, uh support staff specialists that have done the work.

Uh it is the brainchild of our chief of staff, Aaron Goldstein, who sits behind me and you uh uh suffered through uh hours of speeches because public defenders tend to be uh verbose, and we really appreciate your presence there, Commissioner.

Yeah, that was very touching.

There was some uh unfortunately there was a few of them that weren't there because they were deceased, but there is nice your family members who were there to get recognized.

It was very uh touching.

Thank you, sir.

I really appreciate it.

So you know, uh, look for it.

And I was gonna it's gonna get bigger and bigger, and I know it is.

Yeah, it's in a year, but I think they're gonna be called.

First annual one is successful, and um the competitive process.

A lot of good defenders.

Excellent.

Um, you obviously you're here for the ask.

Uh you obviously you need more more attorneys, more paralegals and more social workers, I'm assuming.

Yeah, you know, we have caseworkers, and I and I want to be very clear that this body has has invested in this um uh this office and and we are showing results of that investment.

So I appreciate you and we want to continue to move toward those national minimum standards and developing local standards to make sure that we're doing the best that we can for our clients.

And you also have translators as well.

We do have uh we we have two interpreters there.

And the language is basically Spanish, isn't it?

Yes, yes, sir.

Okay.

Um I think most of the questions that some of my colleagues already asked.

Oh, the immigration, I know there was an agreement in terms of how many immigration lawyers do you have right now.

I think as you see it was it's growing, or how many immigration lawyers do you have currently?

I think we have I think we're eight.

Yeah, I believe we have eight.

Eight, I think you're supposed to go up to twelve, I believe, by next year.

Yeah, we have a three-year plan to continually increase um our immigration division, uh, both on the attorney uh side.

Uh we're gonna be adding a supervisor uh as well, um, and on the social worker side.

Yeah, it's gonna obviously what's going on right now in Cook County with uh federal agents here.

That's probably gonna the demand is probably gonna increase, unfortunately.

But the need is the need is there.

Um that's you know, uh again, just appreciate uh the work that you're doing.

Uh in comparison to the uh office of the state's attorney's office and compared to yours and and the balance, the amount of attorneys that they have and the amount of public defenders that you have, how does it affect your office?

Um, you know, I think commonly the thought is that the state's attorney does things that we don't, and that's true.

They they do uh civil work and that work is important.

Uh I don't want to act as if that the the folks that they need their folks.

Um but there is a gap.

Um, and that gap matters, right?

Um I think if you have a more uh uh aggressive states attorney, um that means that there needs to be a a response to that when it comes to the things that that we need.

So um it matters.

I think every single person, if their loved one was represented, they would want an attorney that didn't have 50, 60, 70, 80 cases.

They'd want an attorney that had the time um necessary to provide the support that that loved one needs.

And we're at a point in our society where I think one out of two um Americans have a loved one either involved in the criminal legal system or um um recently involved in the criminal legal system.

So um our our goal really is just to meet those um those standards, right?

We're not we're not we're not looking for anything more than that.

Thank you.

I like the video that you presented earlier.

I mean, unfortunately, sometimes you get folks out there that's been there at the wrong time at the wrong place, and they get accused of something that they didn't do.

And well, I was worried you guys are gonna be mad at us because we we had a lot of videos, but uh hopefully they will see it.

I've seen it.

I probably have the friends that were just the wrong time, wrong place, and then they got caught up in in the hoopla, and they suffered a consequences.

But thank you very much for your work.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, public defender Mitchell, for the all the great work that you do.

I wanted to just point out one thing that I see in the numbers here uh that I think is reflected in many of the conversations we've had.

And that is, you know, you you there's clear documentation of the gap between your office and the state's attorney's office.

And you've you've made the case for increasing the number of attorneys and the number of staff in your office.

But one of the things I really truly appreciate is I want to say that sort of the the measured approach that you've taken to expanding um your staff.

In other words, your your requests have never been larger than you've been able to realistically manage in terms of recruiting and retaining and growing your department.

And that I think is reflected in the numbers that you've shown us.

And it also lends a lot of credibility to the asks that you've made.

Thank you, Commissioner.

The other thing I was wondering about is how you managed to draw a 39 mile line through a map of Cook County and not cross my own.

I apologize.

I thought I I was very nervous that maybe I needed to like the crowd flies.

But given that there's actually a point to that.

Um the things that were popping through my mind as I was looking at this this.

First of all, I was remembering back to my postdoc days and the day that we got our first 500 megabyte uh uh drive for our network and it was the size of an air conditioning unit.

Um and then the fact that we I've got a little, you know, one square centimeter micro SD card in this phone that is 500 gigabytes.

And so your your uh 39 mile line is already obsolete.

Yes.

And but there's a point to this, and that is you know, you you you came to this board and it asked for uh you know, a budget to upgrade your department's computers, and you know, we've we've hopefully helped with that, but you're I you know I I worry that you're still playing catch up with the state's attorney's office, and I was wondering if you could speak to whether or not um your uh budget and your plan in terms of upgrading or technology um will will put you on pace uh for a comparable level of of access to technology with the state's attorney's office.

Yeah, I think that you know obviously the biggest number really is around the case management system.

If we you know you've provided dollars for us to uh bring on a new case management system and then thinking about the computers, again, the real question now isn't so much about the dollars for the computers as the logistics of getting those computers on.

Uh so we uh are really uh continue to be excited to work with BLT to make sure that we're getting those refreshed computers um uh soon.

Uh I think there's also the note that you know we have new employees that come on, and when those new employees come on, uh we are in a position uh to provide those computers very early in their process, like usually the the first day.

So I want to thank the BOT for uh helping us to do that work.

So uh the work for us really is about and we just want to be of assistance, you know.

We have a team available um that if it if we ever get the call and the ever get the tap on the shoulder uh to you know purchase the computers ourselves and do that work ourselves, we stand ready to do that.

To follow up the three year lifespan that you have for computers, that's that's adequate to keep you on par.

We believe that if we get the three years, we'll be in a very good place.

We've also really outlined kind of the computing power um that's necessary, and we've kind of uh broken up that computing power between like litigants and uh litigators and non-litigators to make sure that we're being efficient and we're not you know giving everybody kind of you know that there's certain levels of computing power that some people need for the based on the responsibilities and other folks can use smaller computers that are more on nimble.

Um so we've been trying to be cognizant of that.

That's all the questions that I have.

Thank you.

And I if I can just correct the record on one thing.

I uh we have an active team chat, and uh I've been corrected that we have 65 defenders that are receiving bilingual pay.

I think I cited 50.

I apologize.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Sharon and team.

Quick what I have a couple questions.

Most of them have already been answered.

So I know that you do a lot with a little, and I'm just gonna say what it is.

So as the cases go up, your budget is staying the same.

I think your ask is low.

And I'm saying that because when we look at some of the other asks that are coming in to actually do um extensive work uh on top of what they already have, um, they're not seeing the level of growth that you see.

So I'm just wondering if you uh your team may want to go back and just kind of reconsider what additional things.

And I'm speaking specifically for the fifth district because I know that a lot of the work that you do is kind of um centralized in the Chicago area, but however, we need to bring some additional resources out south, um, like the Freedom Defense, it's an excellent program.

We know that it's it works.

I'm a matrix a metrics person, so I see the metrics are there.

It proves it it paid for itself, basically.

And so we need to bring something like that further south, um, especially as it relates to housing, employment.

So when people are being, you know, under your watch, we can kind of divert some of the behavior.

I also think we need to um allow you to put something in your line items to add more mediation um versus going straight to trial or sitting in jail waiting for a court date if we could do something else on that level.

And that leads me to the question how many clients do you actually have on EM?

Um is it 30 30?

We let's get back to you that number.

I think it's in the 3,000 range, but I want to make sure I'm accurate.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

Yeah, please.

Because I'm just wondering for those that are on EM, we know that those ancillary services, the housing, the umployment, getting them the correct medical care.

Some of that can kind of deter even substance abuse services, can deter them going any further in the trial system, which would help your budget significantly.

And um, thank you both for a very extensive briefing.

I know we spoke at in-depth, and I'm just wondering with regard to our local colleges, our local universities, their law firm, their uh law departments.

Are we looking at bringing any of them any of them in or developing MOUs for them to be interns?

So we have very much expanded our I only laugh because this is a hot topic.

Um we've really expanded our internship program.

Uh uh I think my first year, our first year here, we had like 40 or so interns.

Certainly, that number is depressed a little bit uh because of the pandemic in the summer.

Um, I think at this point we're in the we're a hundred close to 200 interns, summer interns.

So uh knock on wood, public defense is hot.

Uh listen, we're coming out of the uh Floyd Taylor Uprisings with people wanting to use their law degree to help protect people.

Um, and we've tried to capitalize on that.

So we have lots of interns.

I'm a alumni of that program.

I think it's a great program, but I'm biased.

Uh but it's run by our professional development team, and quite frankly, the vast majority of people we bring in at the entry level tend to come from that program.

Um, I think in our last PLA class, like maybe 80 to 90 percent were from the internship program.

So it is is also an opportunity for us to um socialize the idea of this work because public defense work is really complicated, it's difficult, it's not for everybody, but through that program we're able to get a really strong, strong staff.

And quite frankly, I want to be very clear that this board has in contribute increased its contribution to our office, right?

Um, and you guys have ex you know done a great job with that, and we we just want to continue that work.

I don't want to say that we've just been stagnant this last five years.

That's that's not been the case.

You guys have have helped us in the president's office along with the commissioners have have been very supportive of our office, but the internship program is is is really important for us, and we have increased it and we've also really really thought about recruitment as well.

Um, our chief of staff, Aaron Goldstein is has you know has been really helpful with uh getting out to you know law schools, getting out to HBCUs and and thinking through how we can uh pull in a diverse uh set of um staff, whether we're talking about attorneys, uh investigators, support staff or specialists.

When you look at the um the salary gap between uh bringing in an entry-level S uh state attorney or an entry-level PD, uh what are we doing to incentivize or increase our salaries on the PD side to make it more attractive for them to want to be recruited to this office?

Yeah, I mean, we have a very, very, very strong union.

Uh asked me, I think uh works with uh the BHR labor uh in TBAs to ensure that we have strong salaries, they could you know always be stronger, but um I'm you know proud that we're at a good spot.

Uh I think the entry level we're looking in the round of 79, 77.

Uh it jumps into the 90s after that second year or close to the 90s, and by your fourth or fifth year, uh you can make a salary that's uh approaching uh or is that six digits?

You know, you you probably will make more money at Latham and Walkins, but uh you certainly can earn a really strong living uh being a lifelong public defender.

Um you obviously can take advantage of the loan repayment programs that hopefully they still exist.

Um and um, you know, and pension, pension is very strong.

Um, although I I know our friends that ask me about have something to say about some changes.

Um but with that said, I I think that this is our our work really has been around how we can improve our processes so that we can uh capitalize on how kind of strong the market is for this work, right?

So our salaries are strong, they can be stronger, but you know, we on my side I'm constantly thinking about on our side, we're constantly thinking about how we can improve uh uh retention and recruitment.

Absolutely, and lastly, just thank you for your um being ahead of the curve as it relates to AI.

I know that you guys are doing a lot of work trying to see what types of technology would not only work for your office but be user-friendly to the consumer, because so often we um build out things that are good for us as workers, but not for the actual end users.

So I appreciate that.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Commissioner.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, before I get started with my questions, my chief of staff would like to say Go Badgers.

Oh my gosh, how about if you want to confront her?

She's uh with the glasses sitting over there.

I didn't see anything.

Um in the uh mid-year budget review, there was mention of a um a 40,000 dollar grant that was awarded to your office.

Congratulations.

Um, and in that grant, there is an item.

Well, one of the things uh that should be part of that grant is conducting community listening forums.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

Hi, Commissioner Sai Felix, Deputy Chief of Staff.

So the grant that you're referencing is our grant from the Illinois Supreme Court for access to justice.

And the purpose of that grant is really to ensure that we improve access from the perspective of public defense for folks folks that might be experiencing different types of disabilities or neurodivergence.

Um there's three key pieces to that.

The first is comfort kits.

So we invested in 50 comfort kits, so things like lap pads, fidget toys, um, things that can be helpful for folks that might not be comfortable in the courtroom or even meeting with their public defender um to create that sort of level of comfort for folks.

Um the second piece is training um our attorneys.

Um so we're um we're working with equipped for equality and um access living for our training and our focus groups.

Um so they'll be providing a training during nutshell, which is our big annual training for um our attorneys on um ways of both supporting clients um that might have disabilities, but also litigating um issues around that um and ensuring that they have access uh in the courtroom.

And the third piece is the community listening session.

So we are lifting up both of our freedom defense centers to host those listening sessions for clients of the public defender's office, but also neighbors, other people that might be impacted by the system that aren't necessarily our clients to talk about their experience with the public defender's office and the court system and ways in which it could be more accessible to them and meet their needs.

Great.

Thank you for that explanation.

And that sounds like a really good way to see you know what else we need to do to make people feel comfortable in these unfortunate positions that they find themselves in.

Um, and you know, many of my colleagues here have mentioned the significant gap um that this office has in comparison to our other uh criminal justice partners.

Um I know we talked quite a bit about the immigration unit, particularly.

Did we mention the caseload for um each of those um staffers?

Um I can get you um to the bottom on immigration.

We can get you those numbers.

I apologize.

Okay, thank you.

I would also be interested in just knowing, like sort of like the average caseload because you know, again, this is an office that is uh underfunded, and so I'm just curious as to you know what the caseload for a um public defense staffer is that is not working on immigration specifically.

Um I hate that I have now experienced going to court supporting my friends multiple times for different kinds of offenses, you know, related to um what we've experienced in Operation Midway Blitz, which you know has not just impacted immigrants, there's a lot of you know, protesters and folks practicing their First Amendment rights that were also, you know, for the first time, quite a few of these people in court.

Um, and so we'd love to just know what that case load looks like.

Yeah, um, certainly the work has changed.

Um, you know, we've seen especially with immigration, um, kind of a we've kind of moved away from activity.

It's green.

Maybe I'm not doing a good job of speaking into it.

User error commissioner, use the error.

Um, so we've kind of transitioned our work on the immigration side, at least, moving away from kind of the work in the immigration courts to working on more habeas work in the federal courts.

So the the case loads a little bit lower lower because the work has become a lot more extensive um and dense.

We did a lot of work previously on the bond stuff and trying to get people out of detention.

That has really been closed off to us, so our work has come more expansive.

But we can certainly get you kind of the numbers on our caseloads.

What I can say is that our defenders are very, very, very busy.

So depending upon where individual is, the caseloads can be different.

So individual handling a homicide cases, the cases can be in the 20s, which we want to get down.

Really division the do felonies can be anywhere from between like 35 to 60 or 70 on average, and then our misdemeanor caseloads are a little bit higher.

So again, the only way to reduce those caseloads and workloads is to either hire you know more people and work more efficiently or reject cases.

And that's just something that we're not interested in doing, right?

We want to be uh really the attorney for the people, I would say.

I think that's us.

Um so we want to continue to do that work for all that cannot afford their own counsel.

Thank you so much.

And um I just also want to thank you and your staff for being so responsive to our office.

And you know, as Commissioner and I mentioned, um, we also have worked with a lot of your staff on the detentions that have happened in and around our courthouses.

Um I know that there's been some questions around what the fiscal cost of all of this is, but you know, it's not just a fiscal cost, it's a generational cost in terms of the impact that uh we will feel in this country.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

Commissioner Gainer.

Hi, sorry, I was following online and we had a chance to talk before.

Um, I I yeah, we had it we had a chance to meet about your budget before.

I'm really pleased with the direction things are going, and I'm really excited about the hiring, and I'm sure you've covered it already.

About just I think one of the best news stories out of this office in the county is just the increase in speed in hiring, but also the caliber of people that you're getting, and I I think it's tremendous because many people have alluded to there's no shortage of needs for it.

So excellent.

And um just good, keep up the good work.

Thank you so much, Commissioner.

I appreciate your support.

Chairman, I I know you end up.

Responded to um Commissioner Angular and reference interpreters.

Yes.

Yes, we have a hotline, a language hotline that we use.

We also have another um party that we use as well.

So there are um multiple um kind of solutions to the language access problem, but we can continue to get better.

But yes, we do have a hotline.

Thank you, Chairman.

Public Defender Mitchell um and team.

Again, thank you for everything that you that you do, uh, your impactful work.

But I'm um I'm troubled by the following.

So goal one for FY26 is the reduction of workloads.

Yes, sir.

Yet I'm looking at materials that show that your department has the second largest caseload in the country.

And I'm showing that relative to funding, fifth in the country.

And by a lar large uh margin, you know, behind certain other counties.

So at 118 million, what could you do if we even doubled that?

What could you do that you're not now able to do?

I mean, I I think the thought is pretty simple.

Uh Chief of Staff Aaron refers to it as the brother test.

Um I think if my brother were represented, I would want him to have an attorney that had the capacity to devote the amount of time necessary to ensure that his rights are protected.

And I think that we are dreaming of a world in which our attorneys have the time to both represent these cases fully and also communicate with families in the way they see fit.

And making decisions about who you can provide your best to um just isn't a world that quite frankly, people who have access to money have to deal with.

I believe that our attorneys are the finest in the county in the state and the region.

I'm biased, but I think I have I can prove that up.

But one thing that they don't have that others do is time, right?

They don't have the time.

I'm biased but I think I have I can prove that up but one thing that they don't have that others do is time right they don't have the time if so you know we want to work um we we can't double our office in a in a year we we can't do that we would not ask you to do that we want to make sure that we're training folks that we have the space to actually do it but our odds has always been help us continue to contribute to that size right um we're not going to catch LA County in one year but we can get to those minimum caseload standards and that's always been our goal.

So if this was my work across the street the private sector I'd have a three to five year strategic plan to get certain things done.

Yes sir mindful that you guys are putting 10 pounds in a five pound bag you may not have such a plan but I think it would help us if instead of us having great briefing sessions in July and in meetings such as this in in July we have a mindset as to an outlook over the next three to four years when a number of us will be serving in this capacity so that year round it can we can be more mindful of what needs to be done for us to help equip your department with all the tools that you need to really provide the services to the residents of Cook County that they deserve.

Thank you so much commissioner and I think one of the things that will help us with that is our work with RAN Corporation to create this workload study that will give us uh help us to give you that roadmap so that we can get to the places we want to go in the coming years.

Good good and then the last thing I wanted to uh raise I wanted to follow my colleague uh Commissioner McCaskill who has asked some great questions about the usage of law students etc and you noted that you have a pretty it sounds like a robust summer interim program.

Do you have three L's or law students working um around the the the the calendar year here yes we have three sessions we have a fall session we have a spring session and a summer session.

Good so there are interns working and we take a host of interns we have senior law students that use their 7 Eleven one of the greatest I think benefits of interning at the public defender's office is you can use your 7 Eleven uh you can work under the close uh um supervision of our attorneys and get up and actually do work closing arguments opening arguments again under the strong supervision of our staff but even if you don't have a 7 Eleven you're a first year or second year student you can get very involved in the work and the thing I love about the internship the most is you know I intern quickly in big law uh a lot of coffee making a lot of copy making um that is not our internship you get you learn what it means to be um a public defender uh you're right there with your defenders whether it's in the jail it's in the courthouse um it's back in the office you learn what it means to do the work and you get good at it and we use that internship as a great source for our uh hiring at the PLA and APD one level and have we found that Loyola Law School is a is a good partner relative to this absolutely they've got a great clinic on family law uh the civic what's it called civics civis I think it's the way to say uh Civitas Law Center I uh I spoke there a couple years ago they are a great supporter of our work and uh you know they provide a lot of people on the criminal side but a lot of our family defense attorneys uh come from that clinic it's a great clinic whereas you know I went there eight hundred years ago and I thought it was seven hundred I'm just it was oh yeah it was six hundred but uh uh I'm actually um gonna be hosting a meet and greet for the dean and I'm gonna invite all of our justice involved department you got my cell phone number thank you nothing further chairman thank you very much thank you