{"id":417237,"date":"2025-12-01T13:08:32","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T13:08:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/417237\/"},"modified":"2025-12-01T13:08:32","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T13:08:32","slug":"timothy-evans-expects-to-endure-chicago-magazine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/417237\/","title":{"rendered":"Timothy Evans Expects to Endure \u2013 Chicago Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story was reported by Injustice Watch, a nonprofit newsroom in Chicago that investigates issues of equity and justice in the Cook County court system. Sign up here to get its weekly newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In early 1991, Timothy C. Evans was running for a sixth term as alderman of Chicago\u2019s 4th Ward. If he had any premonition about his impending loss, he wasn\u2019t showing it. \u201cI expect to win without a runoff,\u201d he\u00a0told the Chicago Reader<\/a>. \u201cThe race is not always to the swift,\u201d he said, referencing an Old Testament verse. \u201cIt also goes to he who endures. And I expect to endure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soon after, Evans lost in a runoff to longtime rival Toni Preckwinkle. Though Evans refused to issue \u201cpolitical epitaphs,\u201d it seemed a deflating end of a public career in a city that had nearly made him mayor two years earlier. The Tribune\u00a0described him<\/a>\u00a0as \u201cwashed up in city politics.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

But Evans was right to eschew epitaphs, because a year later he was elected judge. And within a decade, he had ascended to the top of America\u2019s second-largest county court system. A far cry from being \u201cwashed up,\u201d he was favored by the city\u2019s elites for a state Supreme Court seat and lauded by the legal community for the reforms he had implemented as an administrator. Over the next quarter-century, Evans, 82, became the longest-serving chief judge in the history of the Cook County Circuit Court.<\/p>\n

In September, his tenure came to a surprising conclusion when he\u00a0lost his eighth reelection bid<\/a>\u00a0to Circuit Judge Charles Beach \u2014 a relative newcomer to the bench with no background in politics. As the county\u2019s vast and complex court bureaucracy prepares for its first change in leadership in decades, questions about Beach and his plans abound. His election would have many believe the courts no longer need a career politician at their helm. But Evans\u2019 story suggests otherwise.<\/p>\n

Evans\u2019 political acumen allowed him to endure as chief judge for 24 years and to enact significant progressive change in the inherently conservative courts, often for the benefit of the most vulnerable people to come through the system. His actions often seemed to come under duress, and his inaction was often criticized. But he achieved longevity in this role by keeping enough judges happy, absorbing public pressure, and weathering scandals unperturbed. His deliberative and self-assured leadership style was also well suited to the peculiar nature of the circuit court, an institution whose opaqueness is baked into law, whose principal actors are themselves elected officials, and whose bureaucracy is an entrenched extension of Chicago\u2019s old political machine.<\/p>\n

Evans grew up in segregated postwar Arkansas. As a child, he and his white friends would play football down by the railroad tracks, so the adults wouldn\u2019t see them together. He earned money by cleaning an illegal gambling parlor where only white people were allowed. \u201cBut you still had to get along with those people,\u201d he said. \u201cWhy? Because they tipped.\u201d His mother, a teacher, moved the family to Chicago when he was 15, after Arkansas\u2019 governor temporarily shut down public high schools in the state capital to prevent them from integrating.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Evans\u2019 father had played high school football with Glenn T. Johnson, who would eventually become the second Black appellate court justice in Illinois. In 1966, while Evans was a student at John Marshall Law School, Johnson ran to become a judge in the Circuit Court of Cook County, which was scarcely two years old. It was Evans\u2019 first experience as a campaign soldier, and it ended with a celebration thrown by the Democratic Party at a Loop hotel. The winners were treated to cold-cut sandwiches prepared by Mayor Richard J. Daley\u2019s wife. As the well-lubricated machine crowd dispersed in the wee hours of the morning, Evans\u00a0reportedly whispered to Johnson<\/a>: \u201cI like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson introduced Evans to 4th Ward Ald. Claude Holman, one of a handful of Black City Council members and a self-described \u201cpuppet for Mayor Daley.\u201d After graduating from law school, Evans, with Holman\u2019s help, started a series of government jobs. When Holman died in 1973, Evans won the subsequent 4th Ward aldermanic election with a huge campaign war chest, and was backed by Daley to replace Holman as ward committeeman.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Evans (second from left) with Mayor Richard J. Daley and other newly-elected aldermen in 1973. Like most Black aldermen of his day, Evans got his start in the old Democratic political machine. \u201cI viewed the machine as a vehicle for getting involved in the political decision-making process,\u201d Evans would explain years later. \u201cI always thought it could be changed from within.\u201d Photograph: Guy Bona\/Chicago Today<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people talked about me as a possibility to be the first black mayor of Chicago,\u201d Evans, just 30 years old, told the Tribune after his victory. \u201cBut I don\u2019t have any illusions along those lines. My horizons are set to be a good alderman, and that\u2019s all I\u2019m worrying about.\u201d He also denied charges of being a machine stooge, assuring reporters: \u201cI am not the mayor\u2019s man.\u201d Still, like most Black aldermen, over the next decade he was a reliable machine ally \u2014 until the 1983 election brought Harold Washington to City Hall.<\/p>\n

Washington was looking for a floor leader in the City Council, and didn\u2019t seem to care that Evans had a past with the machine. During a first term marred by the \u201cCouncil Wars,\u201d a targeted obstruction of Washington\u2019s legislative agenda led by white South Side aldermen, getting anything done required buy-in from the opposition. Evans \u2014 likable, eloquent, well-dressed, and exceedingly polite \u2014 was the best bridge-builder in Washington\u2019s camp.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe skills he had as a get-along guy worked,\u201d recalled David Orr, a key Washington ally on the council. Evans was not only a well-known colleague to the machinists (politely referred to as \u201cregular Democrats\u201d) but was \u201csmooth,\u201d Orr said. \u201cHe could travel well between the regulars and a smaller number of independents.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Washington died unexpectedly less than a year into his second term, Evans was seen by many as the rightful successor to the mayoralty. But the machinists on the City Council instead installed Eugene Sawyer, a Black alderman they thought they could more easily control. They turned out to be wrong, as Sawyer continued the Washington agenda. Evans pushed for a special election in 1989 and ran a high-profile but \u201cpenniless\u201d campaign as the \u201cHarold Washington Party\u201d candidate.<\/p>\n

\"\"From top left: Evans next to Mayor Harold Washington in 1983; Evans kissing his mother Tiny Evans at his mayoral campaign office in 1989 while his father George Evans checks petition signatures; Evans with Alderman Ed Burke during a 1989 City Council debate about property taxes. Photographs: Quentin C. Dodt, Michael Fryer, and Jose More\/Chicago Tribune<\/p>\n

Evans and Sawyer were trounced by the machine, and Richard M. Daley took over the city for the next 22 years. People who were active in Chicago politics back then still wonder if Evans was serious about becoming mayor: How badly did he want it? Had he made a deal with Daley to run and divide the Black community? If so, in exchange for what?<\/p>\n

Reconciling with Daley and the rest of the white machinists would have made political sense for Evans, Orr says. The regular Democrats were emerging from the 1980s with a sordid reputation for racism. Meanwhile, Evans, who was still very popular in the Black community, no longer had a patron or access to the levers of power, especially once he lost his seat on the City Council. He and his old opponents stood to gain by standing together.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat doesn\u2019t mean Tim Evans is a sellout,\u201d Orr said. \u201cIt just means he\u2019s who he is: He\u2019s a smart politician.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"In 1985, Evans traveled to Shenyang, China with Washington and Orr to develop a sister city program. Photograph: Courtesy of Thelma Evans<\/p>\n

Throughout his time as alderman, Evans maintained a solo law practice and represented clients in estate, family law, and personal injury cases. But he wasn\u2019t content to live a life outside of public service.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Evans had not dreamed of becoming a judge, he said. But in 1992, Cook County held the first elections in its new judicial subcircuits, which had been drawn to bring more diversity to the bench. It presented Evans with an opportunity. \u201cThat\u2019s how these things happen for me,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Chicago Bar Association and Chicago Council of Lawyers found him qualified for judge, and he won by almost 14,500 votes. Preckwinkle, who had backed Evans\u2019 opponent in that race, observed that his rise to the top of the courts in the next few years was \u201cmeteoric.\u201d<\/p>\n

Evans was sworn in at a challenging moment in the circuit court\u2019s history. On the criminal side, the war on drugs and record-high violent crime had created an unprecedented caseload at the main courthouse at 26th and California, exacerbating its reputation for\u00a0dehumanizing conditions<\/a>\u00a0and wrongful convictions. The juvenile courts had been\u00a0declared<\/a>\u00a0an \u201cunworkable failure\u201d by a task force of lawyers. The court was still reeling from two massive corruption scandals uncovered by the FBI, which had led to the convictions of 17 judges and dozens of other officials. Chief Judge Harry Comerford, only the second person to hold the position since the circuit court was created, was not implicated in the corruption but was under pressure to bring order to the courts.<\/p>\n

\"\"Evans with his clerk, Deborah Gilley, in the chambers of his first courtroom at 13th Street and Michigan Avenue, in 1992. Photograph: Courtesy of Thelma Evans<\/p>\n

The people who worked under the chief judge \u2014 whether judges themselves or the thousands of employees who administered everything from the county\u2019s probation programs to psychiatric evaluations of criminal defendants to the guardianship of minors and older adults \u2014 were part of the Cook County Democratic Party\u2019s patronage network. Although a lawsuit brought by good-government advocate Michael Shakman beginning in the late 1960s had delivered substantial blows to political hiring practices in much of city and county government, the Office of the Chief Judge was never subject to the Shakman decrees. No federal judge or court-appointed monitor kept watch over how jobs were doled out there. Evans\u2019 twin daughters began working for the courts soon after he was sworn in and remain in administrative posts to this day.<\/p>\n

Just like the rank-and-file staff, chief judges weren\u2019t nobodies nobody sent \u2014 they were a \u201cvital link in the patronage chain,\u201d as a political editor at the Tribune once described them. Judge Patrick Murphy, who spent 26 years as Cook County\u2019s public guardian before joining the bench in 2004, described the courts as \u201cbasically a medieval institution, where you have the king and vassal lords and the serfs. The king picks his lords and they run things. That\u2019s a system that was set up by Richard J.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t long before Evans was picked to run things. His first assignment was in the domestic relations division, which handles divorce, child custody, and other family law issues. Case management had been a mess there for years. Instead of having trials on consecutive days, they were scheduled weeks or months apart. There was also discrimination against litigants tied up in child-support disputes. The court maintained separate and unequal facilities for married and unmarried parents, leading to a 1993 federal class-action lawsuit against the chief judge\u2019s office for violations of the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution.<\/p>\n

Soon after taking office in 1994, Chief Judge Donald O\u2019Connell appointed Evans to chair a committee tasked with making the division more efficient. The following year, O\u2019Connell named Evans as the division\u2019s presiding judge, praising his \u201coutstanding\u201d performance as a supervisor, his ability to work with attorneys and other judges, and the administrative experience he brought from his days on the City Council. The Chicago Bar Association applauded Evans\u2019 elevation.<\/p>\n

\"\"Evans with Judge Judith Cohen, his predecessor as presiding judge of the law division, at Chief Judge Donald O\u2019Connell\u2019s lake house in the summer of 2000. Photographs: Courtesy of Thelma Evans<\/p>\n

As presiding judge for the next five years, Evans oversaw major reforms: restructuring court calendars to fight judicial burnout, reorganizing the division to promote continuity in case handling, and expanding the division into the county\u2019s five suburban courthouses so litigants and lawyers didn\u2019t have to schlep to the Daley Center. He also led a panel to study racial and ethnic bias in the courts and extended job opportunities to people without political connections.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a young lawyer, I found the Cook County system to be a difficult one to navigate, rife with political and personal hierarchies and rivalries,\u201d recalled Loyola University law school professor Lisa Jacobs, whose first job after law school was clerking for Evans. \u201cJudge Evans assured me that if I did my work well and to the best of my ability, I did not need to have political patronage to keep my job or to be successful under his supervision. He was true to his word.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Chicago Sun-Times reported that the city\u2019s divorce lawyers, who had initially been skeptical about Evans\u2019 lack of judicial experience, described him as \u201cthe best presiding judge that Cook County\u2019s Divorce Court has seen in years.\u201d<\/p>\n

In November 1998, Evans faced his first retention election with ringing approval from the city\u2019s legal community. It seemed that he excelled as a court bureaucrat even more than he had as a ward boss. Far from calling him a has-been, the Tribune was advocating for him to become an Illinois Supreme Court justice. In the summer of 2000, O\u2019Connell made Evans the head of the prestigious law division, citing his \u201csignificant experience\u201d and \u201csuperior administrative skills.\u201d Some suspected that Evans, now the highest-profile Black judge in the county, was being groomed for chief. O\u2019Connell announced his resignation a year later.<\/p>\n

On Sept.12, 2001, 251 circuit judges gathered on the 17th floor of the Daley Center \u2014 nervous to be in a skyscraper the day after the terrorist attacks \u2014 for the most contested chief judge\u2019s election in the court\u2019s history. The candidate lineup was reminiscent of a dad joke about Chicago\u2019s ethnic makeup: It was Evans against three other candidates, one Italian, one Irish, and one Jewish. (A woman had initially joined the mix but ultimately withdrew.) After a record three rounds of voting, Evans emerged victorious.<\/p>\n

\"\"Evans moments after he was elected chief judge for the first time on Sept. 12, 2001. Photograph: Courtesy of Thelma Evans<\/p>\n

If there were any lingering questions about whether the Daleys played a role in Evans\u2019 ascent to chief judge, Cook County Commissioner John Daley \u2014 Richard M.\u2019s brother \u2014 recently put them to rest at Evans\u2019 last county budget hearing.<\/p>\n

Reflecting warmly on their years of friendship and collaboration, Daley reminisced: \u201cWhen you were elected as chief judge, I was part of that and tried to help you.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Evans took over the court\u2019s vast bureaucracy, several of the court\u2019s present-day divisions and locations did not exist. Still, he was in charge of the system\u2019s then-$187 million budget, 400 circuit and associate judges in a dozen courthouses, and an army of nonjudicial employees overseeing functions including child support, mediation, jury administration, court reporting, probation, and parenting education. The system handled 1.7 million newly filed cases every year \u2014 over a million more annually than it does today. \u201cIt was a steep learning curve in terms of the full panoramic view of what a chief judge does,\u201d he recalled. As chief judge, Evans also had the power to appoint and chair the committee that reviewed applications for associate judges and created a short list of finalists for circuit judges to vote on. This gave him the ability to directly influence the makeup of the judiciary, which was then 70% male and 77% white.<\/p>\n

[ART: 9-ORG CHART.\u00a0Caption:<\/strong>\u00a0The Cook County chief judge oversees the assignments of nearly 400 judges across 17 divisions, as well as a vast administrative bureaucracy with 2,500 employees.\u00a0Credit: Illustration by Ver\u00f3nica Martinez \/ Injustice Watch<\/strong>]<\/p>\n

His experience as a presiding judge helped him get a running start in the new role, but so did his background in ward politics. Although he had not previously worked with court employees from unfamiliar departments such as probation or social services, \u201cI knew plenty of them,\u201d he said. As alderman, he \u201ccould ask that certain people be appointed to be probation officers, or people be appointed to be clerks,\u201d Evans said. \u201cSo I had personal relationships.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

O\u2019Connell, his predecessor, had a dictatorial reputation; as Murphy described it, \u201cIf someone disagreed with him, they were transferred to cleaning washrooms.\u201d (O\u2019Connell did not respond to numerous requests for an interview.) Evans\u2019 leadership style in this new role was lauded by some as thoughtful and considered, and criticized by others as hands-off and reactive. If as a presiding judge he had been seen as a decisive reformer, as chief he became famous for slow-moving government by consensus. He was always surrounded by people in \u201cacting\u201d positions. He avoided firing anyone if he could. He formed committees to examine problems, and sometimes committees to examine the recommendations of other committees. Unlike previous chief judges, he seemed willing to hear out critics and reformers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cComerford had no interest at all in meeting with us,\u201d said Malcolm Rich, the former longtime executive director of the Chicago Council of Lawyers and founder of the Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts. \u201cO\u2019Connell would meet with us anytime, but it\u2019s not like he was listening to anything we had to say.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hardly anyone who agreed to speak about Evans has seen the inner sanctum of his office on the 26th floor of the Daley Center. (A pandemic-era Zoom interview with Fox 32 once revealed a glimpse of a light-filled room cluttered with files, knickknacks, framed pictures, and a few winding houseplants.) Instead, meetings took place around a shiny, almond-shaped table in an adjacent conference room, under the watchful gaze of Evans\u2019 three white predecessors in their official portraits, and more than a dozen photographs of his diverse array of presiding judges.<\/p>\n

\"\"Portraits of Evans\u2019 three predecessors as chief judge \u2014 John Boyle, Harry Comerford, and Donald O\u2019Connell \u2014 hang in the conference room where he took his meetings on the 26th floor of the Daley Center. Photograph: Taylor Glascock\/Injustice Watch<\/p>\n

Attendees could expect to find Evans affable and demonstrating a remarkable recall of small details about their lives. He would then appear to listen attentively, taking copious handwritten notes on yellow legal pads. Meetings, however, would not usually result in any immediate action, several people said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll talk to a lot of people who\u2019ll say, \u2018I thought I had a great meeting with Judge Evans, and then I walked out and thought about what transpired and realized he hasn\u2019t committed to anything,\u2019\u201d Rich said. \u201cHe is the quintessential politician.\u201d<\/p>\n

I spent months talking to dozens of people about Evans \u2014 current and former judges, employees, personal acquaintances and political associates. Evans agreed to an interview just a few weeks before he was scheduled to leave office, after I made many direct requests, back-channeled with people close to him, and wrote him a long, pleading letter.<\/p>\n

He invited me to his storied conference room, bringing along his top spokeswoman and, instead of a yellow legal pad, a seemingly empty brown accordion folder from which he eventually produced, for my consideration, an undated essay he had written for an Illinois Supreme Court newsletter. Although the interview was scheduled for two hours, we ended up talking for almost twice as long. During that time, Evans, dressed in a well-tailored gray suit and striped tie, sat relaxed in a soft leather chair at the head of the table. He took just one break and never opened his water bottle.<\/p>\n

As he reflected on his tenure as chief judge, Evans was emphatic that he has never taken action because of pressure. He has always felt himself to be on the right side of history, and to hear him tell it, no one\u2019s ever had to push him to do anything.<\/p>\n

\"\"Photograph: Taylor Glascock\/Injustice Watch<\/p>\n

\u201cLiberty, justice, fairness \u2014 all of that is uppermost in my mind,\u201d Evans said. Maybe it was his gravitas or the fact that he\u2019d grown up under Jim Crow and was inspired to become a lawyer by Thurgood Marshall, but he didn\u2019t sound like a hack when he said it.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

His first big opportunity to act on these ideals was in the battle for a new domestic violence courthouse. When Evans became a judge, he was initially assigned to the same 1920s-era furniture-warehouse-turned-courthouse at 13th Street and Michigan Avenue where some 55,000 domestic violence cases were heard every year. The Tribune described the quarters as \u201cabysmal,\u201d the very layout of which created a \u201chostile and unsafe\u201d environment for litigants, often forcing abusers and survivors to share very tight spaces.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s say it\u2019s a wife,\u201d Evans recalled. \u201cShe would arrive at 13th and Michigan and get on that elevator, and the perpetrator, her husband, would get on that same small elevator with her, punch her right in the elevator, torment her right in that elevator.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

If prosecutors declined to press charges, meaning no criminal restraining order would be issued, Evans would watch from the window of his chambers as women waited for the bus to the Daley Center, to ask for civil restraining orders from an entirely different set of judges.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd guess what the perpetrators did? When [the women] were standing on the street waiting to get a bus, they got attacked right there. And I could see that,\u201d Evans said. \u201cI saw them crying as they went into that building. I saw them crying as they came out of that building.\u201d<\/p>\n

Advocates had been calling for a better space for domestic violence cases since the 1980s. But closing the facility and opening a new one became a focus of Evans\u2019 early years as chief judge. He favored a proposed site next to the Merchandise Mart, but it faced resistance from city business leaders and Mayor Richard M. Daley. \u201cThat\u2019s a premier office building. It\u2019s a great site along the river,\u201d Daley said, calling the idea of turning a tax-generating property into a government building \u201csilly.\u201d Daley got his way when Cook County Board President John Stroger caved to pressure and a West Loop location was picked instead.<\/p>\n

\"\"Evans, two years into his first term as chief judge, with Cook County Board Finance Committee Chair John Daley during a hearing regarding the construction of a new domestic violence courthouse on Nov. 7, 2003. Photograph: Chris Berman\/Chicago Tribune<\/p>\n

Evans stayed out of the fray as the conflict played out between Daley and the County Board; he said his priority was making sure the building was safe and convenient, wherever it was located. He got what he wanted in 2005, when the county finally opened a state-of-the-art, $62 million courthouse at 555 W. Harrison St. The airy building was designed with separate entrances and elevators for survivors and alleged abusers, on-site child care, and office space for advocates, legal aid, and social service providers.<\/p>\n

The swanky new courthouse, however, did not address another persistent problem: domestic violence cases were still being heard by judges assigned to both civil and criminal divisions with no administrative communication between them, just as they had been when Evans first became a judge. Within three years of the ribbon-cutting, several high-profile murders of domestic violence victims and a sprawling Tribune\u00a0investigation<\/a>\u00a0about low conviction rates in domestic violence cases elevated the issue in the public eye.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Evans tackled the problem, per usual, by pulling together a committee. \u201cWe worked really hard and gave a lot of suggestions, and he accepted almost all of them,\u201d recalled retired judge Grace Dickler, who chaired it. \u201cThe most important one was that domestic violence should be its own division.\u201d She became its first presiding judge in 2010.<\/p>\n

Cook County\u2019s current approach to domestic violence cases is unique in the country. \u201cI couldn\u2019t find another state that puts all domestic violence [issues] in the same division in the same courthouse,\u201d said Elizabeth Monkus, a senior attorney at the Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts.<\/p>\n

It hasn\u2019t all been smooth sailing. At one point, Evans\u00a0installed a presiding judge<\/a>\u00a0who was accused of creating an abusive atmosphere and limited access to court services. Periodically\u00a0there\u2019s news<\/a>\u00a0of abusers killing people who had been seeking help from the court. The court has also since expanded access to emergency petitions for restraining orders to nearly 24 hours a day. Though challenges in the division persist \u2014 it\u2019s impossible to get basic data on how many restraining orders are requested and granted every year, and the courthouse is clogged with requests for no-contact orders arising from petty neighbor and family disputes \u2014 on balance, advocates have praised Evans for his efforts to improve court services for domestic violence survivors.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a sign of progress that we have a living, breathing courthouse that can respond to emerging needs of its client population,\u201d said Amanda Pyron, CEO of The Network, a nonprofit that works with survivors of domestic violence. \u201cThe court has evolved to have a domestic violence division that is accountable to the community it serves.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Evans was not just interested in making the courts more responsive to the needs of victims: His commitment to fairness was also reflected in his much more politically risky actions on behalf of people accused of crimes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2017 he took a crucial first step toward the abolition of cash bail in Illinois. Many of the people I spoke to tell the story of how he got there as one about Evans deftly responding to pressure. But to Evans, it\u2019s a story of destiny. In his version of the story, he\u2019s not a leader who went through a profound transformation at a pivotal moment, but a righteous champion, slowly and methodically bending the arc of history toward justice.<\/p>\n

\"\"Evans with Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle at a news conference on Oct. 4, 2017, to announce a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation aimed at reducing the population of the Cook County Jail. Photograph: Zbigniew Bzdak\/Chicago Tribune<\/p>\n

Evans said bond court reforms became a priority as soon as he became chief judge in 2001. He had no experience in the criminal courts, so it came as a shock when he paid a visit to the area at 26th and California where recently arrested people waited for their bond hearings. Defendants, mostly people of color, were forced to sit on the floor, huddled together, and wait to appear in front of a video feed broadcast to an upstairs courtroom, where the judge, prosecutor, and defense attorney discussed their case.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019ve ever seen the slave ships that came from Africa over to the Americas, to get everybody in the slave ships they didn\u2019t put them in chairs. They put them on the floor,\u201d Evans said. \u201cThat\u2019s exactly the way it was when I became chief judge.\u201d<\/p>\n

During our recent conversation, Evans enumerated the actions he then took \u2014 the ones he saw as steppingstones to bond court reform \u2014 collapsing the years that passed between them into little more than commas. Outside forces did not factor into this story.<\/p>\n

He described how he ended those problematic video bond hearings, but didn\u2019t mention that it took him seven years to do so, or\u00a0the civil rights lawsuit<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0damning university study<\/a>\u00a0that preceded his action. He talked about the pretrial services he implemented for defendants and the battles he fought with the county board to get them funded, but he made no mention of the\u00a0Illinois Supreme Court investigation<\/a>\u00a0that gave him a playbook for those improvements. He touted how he\u2019d set up the court with\u00a0a philanthropically funded risk-assessment algorithm<\/a>, but didn\u2019t say anything about\u00a0how little it ultimately changed<\/a>. Even after these efforts and his order providing public defenders to people\u00a0immediately upon arrest<\/a>, bond court was fundamentally the same: a place where prosecutors had the upper hand while defendants were sped through hearings, sometimes humiliated, and often ordered to jail on bond amounts they could not afford to pay.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, societal attitudes toward incarceration were changing amid the Black Lives Matter movement and nationwide calls for reform set off by high-profile police killings of Black people.\u00a0Conditions at the Cook County Jail<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0the time it took for cases to get to trial<\/a>\u00a0created immense pressure on people to plead guilty. Many incarcerated people also had mental illness or substance abuse disorders, leading Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart to launch a media blitz framing the jail as the largest mental health treatment site in America.<\/p>\n

\"\"Members of the Coalition to End Money Bond hold a press conference in front of the George Leighton Criminal Courthouse on Sept. 18, 2017, the day Evans\u2019 order directing judges to consider defendants\u2019 ability to pay when setting bond went into effect. Photograph: Maya Dukmasova<\/p>\n

The progress Evans\u2019 office was making wasn\u2019t fast enough for advocates of money bond abolition, who viewed tweaks to bond court as inadequate. The problem, as they saw it, were the judges, who failed to consider \u201cthe financial ability of the accused\u201d when setting bond amounts, as required by\u00a0state law<\/a>. In the fall of 2016, a group of civil rights lawyers filed a\u00a0class-action lawsuit<\/a>\u00a0on behalf of jailed defendants against Evans\u2019 bond court judges. They claimed the way judges set money bail was unconstitutional. As the case proceeded, the pressure increased,\u00a0boosted by demands for broader systemic reforms<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the summer of 2017, Evans issued\u00a0General Order 18.8A<\/a>, which directed judges to consider defendants\u2019 ability to pay when setting bond. Evans also created a new pretrial division, removing the judges who\u2019d been assigned to bond court and bringing in a fresh crop.<\/p>\n

\u201cWas it all in response to pressure and organizing? Of course. But there were different ways someone in that role could have responded,\u201d said Sharlyn Grace, who was then the senior policy analyst at the Appleseed Fund and a campaign coordinator for the Coalition to End Money Bond. \u201cHe did put in place a structure where better decisions were going to be made, and the law was going to be followed more.\u201d<\/p>\n

In our interview, Evans chuckled at the idea that any external factor pressured him to do anything. Yet for months before issuing the order, he had worked to identify the right judges to pilot its implementation, anticipating a politicized backlash and intense public scrutiny, according to Brendan Shiller, a criminal defense attorney who was active with the coalition and became a close adviser to Evans during this time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was looking for a reset and folks he was confident would be logical and rational and not emotional under the heat that he knew would come,\u201d Shiller said.<\/p>\n

\"\"Evans defended his bail reform efforts in a May 2019 op-ed in the Tribune. <\/p>\n

The heat came from the left and the right. Some new judges continued to set bond amounts with apparent disregard for people\u2019s ability to pay, though advocates didn\u2019t blame Evans for those decisions. On the other hand, there was\u00a0intense media coverage<\/a>\u00a0of instances when people released on their own recognizance were rearrested on new violent criminal charges. Police and politicians, victim advocates, and even judges were critical of the policy changes and blamed Evans for endangering the community.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But Evans told me he was such a big believer in the reform that he was prepared to get voted out of office over it. He was ultimately vindicated by the data.\u00a0A 2020 study<\/a>\u00a0published by Loyola University found the order successfully reduced the cost of bail and increased the number of people released pretrial. Meanwhile, the rate of people who were then rearrested on new violent criminal charges did not change, staying at 3%.<\/p>\n

Most of the people I spoke with said Evans\u2019 stance during this time paved the way for the 2023 Pretrial Fairness Act,\u00a0which abolished money bail in Illinois<\/a>. His order set the stage for the work that got done in Springfield, Preckwinkle said, because \u201cwe basically tried out the idea of not having cash bond in Cook County as a way of sort of piloting for the rest of the state [and] \u2026 there wasn\u2019t a dramatic increase in crime.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the years since, Evans has become one of the law\u2019s most vocal defenders, always returning the conversation to the data, and to the constitutional principle that every person is innocent unless proven guilty.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hours after our interview, Evans spoke to a group of about 30 Loyola University law students at the request of his former law clerk, Lisa Jacobs, who now teaches there. Speaking extemporaneously (as he seems to do at every public appearance), Evans reviewed his proudest moments as chief judge, repeating some of what he\u2019d just told me almost to a word. For comic relief, he occasionally acknowledged that I\u2019d heard it all before.<\/p>\n

During the Q&A, a student asked Evans to comment on arguments she\u2019d heard against bond reform as a summer intern at the domestic violence courthouse. Some judges, she said, had told her that moving away from the old bail system meant abusers were no longer forced to have a \u201ccooling-off time\u201d in jail after being arrested.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose are all legitimate arguments,\u201d Evans said. But he was emphatic: \u201cTalk to a person who is innocent. You ask them if they need cooling-off time \u2014 if they need the kind of cooling-off time that caused them to lose their job, that would cause their whole family, while they\u2019re locked up, to get evicted because nobody is paying the rent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Evans at Chief Judge Donald O\u2019Connell\u2019s lake house in the summer of 2000; there with Judith Cohen (right), his predecessor as presiding judge of the law division. Photographs: Courtesy of Thelma Evans<\/p>\n

The presumption of innocence was a concept that animated Evans throughout our conversation. He didn\u2019t just bring it up in relation to bail reform. He said it was also core to how he dealt with employees and judges under fire.<\/p>\n

For example: Last year, domestic violence division Judge Thomas Nowinski came\u00a0under intense public scrutiny<\/a>\u00a0after a woman was killed by her husband. The man had been charged in prior domestic violence incidents in Nowinski\u2019s court. Instead of detaining the man pretrial, the judge had ordered him to stay away from his wife and wear a GPS monitor. It was the\u00a0second time in less than a year<\/a>\u00a0that an accused abuser with a case before Nowinski had killed a victim.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The calls for Evans to respond were deafening. Members of the public demanded Nowinski be removed. Members of the judiciary demanded Nowinski be defended. But in our interview, Evans said he handled the matter like a judge. The only thing that had mattered to him, he said, was the evidence.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI read the newspapers every day,\u201d Evans said. \u201cBut I can\u2019t take any of that into consideration in the decision that I make.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

After reviewing the information available to Nowinski, Evans concluded the judge had made the best decisions he could, based on the law, with the information provided to him by prosecutors and other officials. Evans ultimately moved Nowinski out of the division\u00a0at the judge\u2019s request<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 Nowinski had received death threats, according to Evans \u2014 and reminded the public that he never made transfers because of a judge\u2019s legal decisions. Evans suspended the GPS technician who had missed the husband violating his allowed boundaries without pay; the technician subsequently resigned.<\/p>\n

\"\"Evans administers the oath of office to 24 newly elected Cook County Circuit Court judges during a ceremony in the James R. Thompson Center on Dec. 2, 2002. Photograph: James F. Quinn\/Chicago Tribune<\/p>\n

Judith Rice, the presiding judge of the domestic violence division, said Evans\u2019 way of doing things is better for the courts. \u201cYou make fewer mistakes when you do that,\u201d she said, though she wasn\u2019t commenting specifically on Nowinski. \u201cYes, at times, many of us wish that he would be faster to pull the trigger. But you know what? When he did pull the trigger, we didn\u2019t have to have a do-over, because everything was considered.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet Evans\u2019 accounts of managing the courts with the unwavering impartiality of a judge belie plentiful evidence that he also managed them with the calculations of a politician. At times he rebuffed calls to interfere with judges\u2019\u00a0controversial legal practices<\/a>\u00a0by pointing out that wasn\u2019t his role. \u201cI\u2019m not the appellate court,\u201d as he put it. In situations when judges were\u00a0in the hot seat for ethical violations<\/a>, he noted that the job of meting out discipline belonged to the state\u2019s Judicial Inquiry Board. And when it came to scandals in the administrative arms of the court system, he leveraged time, deliberative processes, and his exemption from open-records laws, allowing news cycles to run their course.<\/p>\n

Beginning in 2013, the Tribune\u00a0uncovered problems in the Adult Probation Department, which oversees people sentenced to community-based supervision. The paper revealed the department had\u00a0lost track of hundreds of probationers<\/a>. The next year, the same reporters\u00a0exposed a group of rogue probation officers<\/a>\u00a0who had for years worked secretly with the Chicago Police Department and the FBI to pressure probationers to become informants, and planted drugs on people who resisted. The unit also used curfew checks as a means to conduct warrantless searches of people who were not on probation but lived with someone who was.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"In March 2014, Evans removed acting probation chief Jesus Reyes amid a scandal involving his department losing track of probationers. Several months later, the Tribune exposed a rogue unit of probation officers who had been pressuring probationers to become police informants and conducting warrantless searches. <\/p>\n

It took Evans\u00a0three months to demote<\/a>\u00a0the probation chief, whom he moved into an administrative job in his own office, and\u00a0three years to fire the boss of the rogue unit<\/a>. (Evans said the decision to fire the latter \u201crequired extensive investigation and analysis, as well as a degree of due process for the employee.\u201d) In the meantime, he\u00a0commissioned an outside law firm<\/a>\u00a0to investigate the department, and said he\u2019d make the results of the inquiry public within 60 days. He never did, despite repeated shaming by the Tribune for breaking his promise. Some probation officers\u00a0told the Tribune<\/a>\u00a0they believed \u201cthe investigation actually was aimed more at trying to uncover the newspaper\u2019s sources than exposing wrongdoing.\u201d<\/p>\n

But even more than the probation department scandals, it\u2019s Evans\u2019 handling of the Juvenile Temporary Detention Center that has cast a shadow on his legacy. The center holds far fewer kids than it did when Evans took it over in 2008, yet allegations of children being\u00a0abused and neglected<\/a>\u00a0by staff there\u00a0have continued to surface<\/a>. In 2018\u00a0The Chicago Reporter revealed<\/a>\u00a0a troubling overreliance on \u201croom confinement\u201d \u2014 the youth jail lingo for solitary confinement. In 2022, Evans\u2019 \u201cblue ribbon\u201d committee on the detention center (the third such committee he had convened) called the facility \u201cisolating and deprivational.\u201d Its chair encouraged Evans to fire Superintendent Leonard Dixon. A class-action lawsuit recently filed by more than 300 plaintiffs details allegations of physical and sexual assault dating back to the early 1990s, with at least a fifth of the complaints alleging abuse since the chief judge\u2019s office took over.<\/p>\n

Evans has received no shortage of advice on how to improve conditions at the juvenile jail, much of it coming from committees he himself appointed. Yet he has implemented few of the recommended changes. He only released the 2022 blue ribbon committee\u2019s report after it\u00a0was leaked<\/a>\u00a0to Injustice Watch,\u00a0and continuously resisted calls to replace Dixon. In September, Injustice Watch\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0evidence suggesting Dixon might not live in Cook County, as he is required to; Evans hired outside lawyers to look into it and said they found that he did. (Evans declined to release the firm\u2019s findings, citing his office\u2019s attorney-client privilege.) He has proudly cited positive notes from recent outside reviews of the facility and brushed over the negative ones.<\/p>\n

\u201cEnough with the committees,\u201d Eugene Griffin, the chair of the blue ribbon committee, wrote in a\u00a02022 Sun-Times op-ed<\/a>\u00a0after learning Evans planned to create another committee to review his panel\u2019s recommendations. \u201cNeeded changes to the care of detained youth can only be initiated by the chief judge. For years now, Evans has been saying that he wanted the JTDC to focus on the rehabilitation and healthy development of adolescents. Yet for years the JTDC has failed to do that.\u201d Evans did not publicly respond, but the head of the union representing JTDC staff did. In\u00a0a letter to the editor<\/a>, she described the committee\u2019s recommendations as \u201cill-informed and irresponsible policy prescriptions\u201d that \u201cbesmirched the valuable work that the JTDC\u2019s diligent and compassionate staff do every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

The union \u2014 one of 10 locals that represent Evans\u2019 2,500 employees across the court system \u2014 is crucial to understanding Evans\u2019 inaction here. For years, county government has been moving\u00a0slowly toward dismantling the detention center<\/a>\u00a0and transitioning most of the young people to smaller, community-based settings. Evans has publicly supported this idea. But sources involved in the decision-making said the fate of unionized detention center employees \u2014 a fifth of the court system\u2019s workforce \u2014 has been a sticking point for Evans. Organizations that have the experience and willingness to take charge of the children may not be willing to take on Evans\u2019 staff, they said. Yet the chief judge has told the unions that the transition away from the detention center \u201cis not geared toward the elimination of their positions.\u201d<\/p>\n

In our conversation, Evans shared that his deliberative way of working is actually rooted in an experience with unions during the Harold Washington era. As Evans told it, after his election, Washington was eager to tackle the persistent problem of broken elevators in high-rise public housing buildings. Residents had to walk up and down many flights of stairs, and were sometimes assaulted on the way; a woman had died descending the stairs to get medical help. Washington wanted to fire all the old operators, whom he viewed as failing to maintain the elevators, and hire new people.<\/p>\n

\u201cProblem was, they were all in the same union,\u201d Evans said. The people Washington wanted to hire wouldn\u2019t cross the picket line. \u201cSo it was well-intentioned, but he didn\u2019t check to see who would be affected by him firing the people whose job it was to repair the elevators.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never will forget it,\u201d Evans said of what happened next. \u201cThe same people [who had to] walk those 10 flights of stairs still had to walk the 10 flights of stairs.\u201d He said it taught him about the perils of quick decisions, even when they seem like the right ones. \u201cI hope I never act too soon.\u201d<\/p>\n

The instinct not to act too quickly was also a political one, and he appeared to suffer his own consequences for breaking with it. The first challenge to his leadership of the court came in 2010, after a local TV news expose accused several judges of playing hookey. Evans reassigned them less than a week later. William Maddux, then the presiding judge of the law division and a onetime ally, mounted a campaign in which he criticized Evans for \u201cthrowing people under the bus.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo immediately declare a person guilty without even speaking with them is the kind of thing that is harmful to the morale of the judges,\u201d Maddux told the press.<\/p>\n

\"\"Weeks before leaving office, Evans received an award at a graduation ceremony for participants of the mental health and drug treatment courts at the George Leighton Criminal Courthouse. Photographs: Taylor Glascock\/Injustice Watch<\/p>\n

Even though Evans won the election decisively, and publicly chalked up Maddux\u2019s run to an unrelated scuffle he\u2019d had with law division judges, it seemed to be a cautionary tale. Over time, his approach to disciplining judges became so careful that he is now more often criticized for his inaction and leniency. While the chief judge does not have the authority to remove judges from the bench, he can reassign them to administrative duties \u2014 aka \u201cjudge jail\u201d \u2014 and refer them to the state\u2019s Judicial Inquiry Board. Evans leans on a committee of presiding judges to make such decisions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are judges that don\u2019t even live in the state, don\u2019t come to work, abuse the sick time, never do a trial, and they\u2019re never held accountable,\u201d said Anna Demacopoulos, a recently retired judge.<\/p>\n

Stephen Brandt, who retired last year after heading the court\u2019s legal research division and was in Evans\u2019 administrative inner circle, framed it differently.\u00a0<\/p>\n

People mistakenly assume Evans \u201chas a lot more authority than he actually has,\u201d Brandt said. But Evans is also keenly aware that he serves at the pleasure of his fellow judges.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s gotta tread lightly sometimes in what he does, because if the judges who elect him don\u2019t like it, they\u2019ll vote for somebody else,\u201d Brandt said. \u201cYou don\u2019t have the kind of authority to make the kinds of improvements he wants to make unless he can get elected.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The 2016 election was the only one in which Evans appeared to campaign as if he was truly threatened. His main challenger was Tom Allen, a white former alderman who had served on the City Council from 1993 until he was elected judge in 2010. He was assigned to the chancery division and was well-liked \u2014 \u201cequally as nice\u201d as Evans, as one election observer put it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Evans speaks to the media after surviving a tough election challenge in his run for a sixth term for chief judge in 2016. Fellow former alderman Tom Allen was only the second person to challenge Evans since 2001. Photograph: Phil Velasquez\/Chicago Tribune<\/p>\n

The summer before, Evans had faced rare public criticism from other judges. Patrick Murphy had\u00a0sent out letters<\/a>\u00a0criticizing Evans for inadequately staffing courtrooms that serve primarily poor people and calling on him to relinquish control of the selection of associate judge finalists. In her\u00a0retirement announcement,<\/a>\u00a0Judge Sherry Pethers asserted that Evans had politicized appointments, depriving her of an assignment in the law division where she\u2019d spent her early career as a trial lawyer. She lamented seeing people she believed to be less qualified than her get the assignments she wanted, and how people always told her to go talk to Evans.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHe never once returned my calls,\u201d she said in the letter. \u201cI wrote. Never heard a word. Called to set up a meeting. Never got a call back. Being \u2018nobody who nobody sent\u2019 doesn\u2019t cut it. And because of that, qualifications and experience don\u2019t either.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Both judges said their gripes weren\u2019t meant as personal attacks on Evans, whom Murphy described as a \u201cdecent, caring and intelligent leader\u201d and Pethers commended for his support of LGBTQ judges. But the issues they surfaced were flash points in the campaign and suggested a growing discontent among judges with Evans\u2019 hands-off leadership and perceived culture of favoritism.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Then, weeks before the election, news broke that an attorney clerking under Evans, who had won a judicial primary, had been allowed by a judge in Markham to wear a robe and rule on a few traffic cases. Though Evans fired the lawyer and put the judge on administrative duties, Allen accused him of not acting fast enough and allowing the courts to become a \u201claughingstock.\u201d<\/p>\n

Days before the vote, influential power brokers in the Black political establishment, including a number of Black ministers and the not-yet-disgraced Ald. Carrie Austin, said publicly that the challenge to Evans was racially motivated. Evans won, 129-103.<\/p>\n

His next challenger, Lorna Propes in 2019, ran on a platform of outrage about the growing scrutiny of judges by Injustice Watch and \u201cspecial interest groups\u201d like the Judicial Accountability PAC. But according to court insiders, she wasn\u2019t strong in retail politics. She lost 143-102. No one bothered campaigning against Evans again until 2025.<\/p>\n

When the court\u2019s circuit judges gathered on the 17th floor of the Daley Center in September to vote for chief judge, only four had been on the bench as long as or longer than Evans. Just 15 were there when Evans was first elected chief. More than half had been judges for less than a decade. In other words, Evans\u2019 electorate had changed; he could have been a grandfather to some.<\/p>\n

Even if being an octogenarian didn\u2019t bias people against him \u2014 there was no indication he was in poor health or suffered any mental deterioration \u2014 he still needed to work the voters, many of whom didn\u2019t really know him. But to some, he seemed to abandon the basics of retail politics right as he needed them most, becoming vulnerable to the maneuvers of a better politician.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the past, when someone was running against him, he campaigned \u2014 went around and shook everyone\u2019s hand,\u201d said Murphy. \u201cThis time he didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Photograph: Taylor Glascock\/Injustice Watch<\/p>\n

Charles Beach was focused on his ground game. He\u2019d only been a judge for eight years, most of that time as an associate \u2014 he\u2019d never even participated in an election for chief judge before. And though he was well-regarded in the legal community, he had no background in politics or government administration. Throughout the summer, Beach, 55, went to every courthouse in the county and met with almost every judge for a one-on-one conversation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis campaign is one in which people want to have a dialogue and have a conversation,\u201d Beach said. \u201cTalking to people directly is useful.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

People who know Beach spoke about his warm personality in the same glowing terms as they did about Evans\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody loves Charlie,\u201d said Julie Koehler, the head of the public defender\u2019s homicide task force, who has known Beach since law school at DePaul University. \u201cIt never occurred to me that anyone could beat Evans, but if\u00a0anyone\u00a0could beat Evans, it would be Charlie.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the judges who didn\u2019t have an established relationship with Evans, or political clout, or couldn\u2019t get on his radar because they weren\u2019t taking initiative in ways that aligned with his priorities, Beach\u2019s promise of responsiveness and an open-door policy must have been alluring.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had dinner with a younger African American judge about a month before the election, and he said he was going to vote for Charlie Beach, and I thought, geez, Tim is in trouble,\u201d said Murphy, 86. \u201cHe said, \u2018Does Tim return your phone calls?\u2019 I said, \u2018Sometimes yes, sometimes no.\u2019 I think there was a lot of ill feeling toward him among younger judges that he was out of touch with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Evans denied that. \u201cPeople who didn\u2019t think I was working as hard as I had didn\u2019t see how hard I was working,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As in his 1991 aldermanic race, Evans dismissed the possibility of losing reelection. \u201cI don\u2019t think that you\u2019ll have to worry about that,\u201d he told me days before the vote. \u201cI don\u2019t spend much time trying to figure out what will happen if I lose.\u201d And why would he? He\u2019d been running for office for 52 years, 27 times in all, and he\u2019d only ever lost twice.<\/p>\n

He lost to Beach 144-109. Evans admitted he hadn\u2019t seen it coming.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI had done what I thought needed to be done, to show how effective we were, to show that my experience was superior,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"\"Case manager Jillian Hoffman hands Evans a portrait she drew of him (left) and Evans hugs director of problem-solving courts Kelly Gallivan-Ilarraza at one of his last public appearances as chief judge on Nov. 13, 2025. Photographs: Taylor Glascock\/Injustice Watch<\/p>\n

With his usual politesse, Evans hinted that Beach might have no idea what the job will take. It surprised him, he said, that Beach and his other challenger, Nichole Patton, had even decided to run. Neither had yet served a full six-year term as circuit judge. The faintest note of bitterness broke through his genteel demeanor as he reflected on his relationship with the two judges: \u201cI helped them to get where they were. Both of them were in the law division. That\u2019s a coveted position, and I had helped both of them to get to the law division.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

That attachment to the transactional ways of old Chicago politics may also help explain Evans\u2019 loss. The election results suggest the courts are no longer full of judges who have a habit of trading electoral loyalty for career advancement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Since his win, Beach has spent the last 2\u00bd months forming transition teams and committees and trying to understand the complexity of the court bureaucracy he is inheriting. It is a larger court than the one Evans took over, with a larger budget, more divisions, more courthouses, and an entire new arm of administrative duties. It is also a far more diverse court: Since 2001, the number of women judges increased by 71% and the number of nonwhite judges by 76%. Evans was also praised for improving LGBTQ representation in the judiciary.<\/p>\n

Beach also inherits a court that is better in its customer service operations than the one Evans took over \u2014 more efficient in some divisions, more responsive to the needs of unrepresented litigants, and with well-established remote offerings. But plenty of challenges remain, chief among them the county\u2019s\u00a0beleaguered electronic monitoring program<\/a>\u00a0and the juvenile detention center.\u00a0Dixon submitted his resignation<\/a>\u00a0the day I interviewed Evans, following a series of stories by Injustice Watch\u00a0about alleged abuses<\/a>\u00a0at the youth jail. In response, Beach said he \u201cwelcomed the opportunity\u201d to appoint a new administrator to run it.<\/p>\n

\"\"Charles Beach begins his first term as chief judge on Dec. 1, 2025. He has no background in politics but has experience as a judge on both the criminal and civil sides of the Cook County court system. Photograph: Taylor Glascock\/Injustice Watch<\/p>\n

There are also many bureaucratic mysteries for Beach to address: Why does every division of the court have a different approach to electronic recordkeeping? Why does the head of forensic clinical services make $430,000, more than anyone else in the court system? Why is the Daley Center mostly a ghost town in the afternoons? Why has the regular publication of many court program statistics not resumed since the pandemic?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Beach will be in a position to provide answers, if he so chooses, but the chief judge\u2019s powers are still exercised with virtually no public accountability, at the pleasure of hundreds of independently elected officials. The judicial branch still\u00a0isn\u2019t subject to Illinois\u2019 Freedom of Information Act<\/a>. There is no inspector general\u2019s office with authority to investigate the courts. The state\u2019s Judicial Inquiry Board is woefully understaffed and almost never disciplines judges. The Cook County court system remains a sprawling, feudalistic empire where change can happen at a geological pace \u2014 or at warp speed, depending on the political calculations of its leader.<\/p>\n

As for Evans, he has no plans to retire. With three years left in his sixth term as a circuit judge, he is entitled to return to the courtroom. He\u2019s secured one for himself on the top floor of the Daley Center, where he plans to continue to work with the\u00a0Restorative Justice Community Court program<\/a>, the creation of which is among his proudest accomplishments. The program serves people ages 18 to 26 who have been charged with certain nonviolent crimes. Their charges are dropped if they admit to the crimes and work to repair the harm with their communities. According to Evans\u2019 office, graduates had a 13% recidivism rate one year after completing the program, compared with 65% in a control group. These courts have admitted fewer than 700 people in eight years \u2014 a rounding error compared with the tens of thousands who become criminal defendants in Cook County every year \u2014 and have been\u00a0criticized<\/a>\u00a0for falling short of ideal restorative justice practices. But Evans is a true believer in the program. When he talks about it, he sounds like he\u2019s on the stump.<\/p>\n

Evans was one of the last of his generation and brand of politicians still in power. And unlike so many of his peers \u2014 Ed Burke and Michael Madigan, most recently \u2014 the end of his reign is not coming in a fall from grace. The biblical reference he made in 1991 comes from Ecclesiastes, a book that says we are always at the mercy of time and chance. It also reminds us of the wisdom of accepting things as they are, not being quick to anger, and valuing relationships. Evans\u2019 public life, by all accounts, has mostly been a manifestation of its lessons.<\/p>\n

\"\"Photograph: Taylor Glascock\/Injustice Watch<\/p>\n

Tim Evans doesn\u2019t seem to have any enemies, and even some of his critics concede he did a pretty good job as chief judge. Evans probably could not have achieved what he did in a term or two; as a former presiding judge put it, changing things in Cook County\u2019s courts is like \u201cturning around an ocean liner.\u201d His proudest accomplishments were possible because he kept getting reelected, and for 24 years, he kept enough judges happy.<\/p>\n

What Evans lost in respect from those who have found him too slow to act, too permissive, too superficial, he gained in the admiration and friendship of many others. And more importantly he gained in time, which gave him the chances he needed to make some things happen.<\/p>\n

In our conversation, Evans sounded as if he would be content to spend the remainder of his public life leveraging his political skills to advance ideas he believes in. He said it\u2019s a part of his destiny. But he may be biding his time, planning, once again, to endure. After all, the next election for chief judge is only three years away.<\/p>\n

Injustice Watch reporter Kelly Garcia contributed reporting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story was reported by Injustice Watch, a nonprofit newsroom in Chicago that investigates issues of equity and…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":417238,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[195436,101101,195437,195438,960,195469,195468,24970,195467,83057,195439,195470,195471,195440,195474,195441,195442,195443,195444,195445,195446,195448,195447,5386,1818,195473,195449,195450,173490,195451,195452,195453,195454,195455,195472,195456,195457,195458,195459,80,195460,195461,195462,100871,195463,195464,195465,195466,27821],"class_list":{"0":"post-417237","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-amanda-pyron","9":"tag-bail-reform","10":"tag-brendan-shiller","11":"tag-charles-beach","12":"tag-chicago","13":"tag-chicago-appleseed-center-for-fair-courts","14":"tag-chicago-bar-association","15":"tag-chicago-city-council","16":"tag-chicago-council-of-lawyers","17":"tag-chris-berman","18":"tag-claude-holman","19":"tag-cook-county-circuit-court","20":"tag-cook-county-jail","21":"tag-david-orr","22":"tag-democratic-machine","23":"tag-donald-oconnell","24":"tag-elizabeth-monkus","25":"tag-eugene-griffin","26":"tag-eugene-sawyer","27":"tag-glenn-t-johnson","28":"tag-grace-dickler","29":"tag-harold-washington","30":"tag-harry-comerford","31":"tag-il","32":"tag-illinois","33":"tag-illinois-judicial-inquiry-board","34":"tag-james-f-quinn","35":"tag-jesus-reyes","36":"tag-john-boyle","37":"tag-john-daley","38":"tag-john-stroger","39":"tag-jose-more","40":"tag-judith-cohen","41":"tag-judith-rice","42":"tag-juvenile-temporary-detention-center","43":"tag-leonard-dixon","44":"tag-lisa-jacobs","45":"tag-michael-shakman","46":"tag-patrick-murphy","47":"tag-politics","48":"tag-richard-j-daley","49":"tag-richard-m-daley","50":"tag-sharlyn-grace","51":"tag-taylor-glascock","52":"tag-thelma-evans","53":"tag-thomas-nowinski","54":"tag-timothy-c-evans","55":"tag-tom-dart","56":"tag-toni-preckwinkle"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}