Pritzker Pavilion

I took this picture a few weeks back during the Death Cab for Cutie concert at the Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park. It was chilly, windy and foggy and I was wearing a T-Shirt, came directly from work and skipped dinner. So, I was cold, hungry and couldn’t see the band. But they sounded great! And I snapped this cool picture.

Musica Justicia

Alright, new feature.

I drive for my job. A lot. Frequently I wish I was a public defender, assigned to one courtroom, or at the least, one courthouse, and I had one commute a day. But it is not to be. In our practice, it is common to go to two courthouses in a morning, sometimes even more. And Cook County is not small. To drive from Skokie at the 2nd Municipal District (up the unbelievably clusterfucked Edens Expressway) to 111th and Ellis (felony preliminary courtroom) is 31.5 miles. Of Chicago city driving.

Or let’s say from Bridgeview, the 5th Municipal District, to Belmont and Western for misdemeanor or felony review. That’s a cool 29.7 miles.

Now, I live on the near northside of Chicago…Roscoe Village aka “Cougar Town.” This is a great location because I’m minutes from the interstate and pretty much in the middle of town. Still, I drive a good hour plus a day. When I’m not listening to NPR, ESPN Radio, an actual sporting event (i.e. Cubs or Sox) or conservative talk radio, I’m listening to music. Lots of it. I’ll break down my radio habits (don’t worry, I don’t listen to conservative talk radio because I agree with it, it’s so that I understand the enemy) in a later post, but this is the first in a weekly series on what will be in my CD player this week.

And yes, I use my car’s CD player, not an iPod hook up. My Maxima doesn’t have a neat jack that allows me to just plug one in and I think the radio links sound like crap. Besides, I’m anal about my music, 90% of which I get digitally these days, and I back up EVERYTHING I buy immediately onto CD. Needless to say, I have a lot of CD’s. Somewhere over 2000 and counting.

This week I am listening to:
Band: Why?
Album: Alopecia
Style: Rock
Picture They Might Be Giants meets King Missile. A combination of spoken word meets nasally tenor sung over post-rock beats, Why? had me at hello. It reminds of when I listened to the weirdest music I could find in high school just to see if I could take it. Except, they write pop songs you can actually sing along to.

Band: Jay-Z
Album: Reasonable Doubt
Style: Hip Hop

I don’t really need to introduce to you who Jay-Z is, right? This album is fascinating, not just because it’s his first, but you can hear the superstar he’s going to become right out the gates. Unbelievable flow, perfect delivery, great beats. This is a solid 5-star album. Besides, he frequently makes accurate legal statements in his songs (see “99 Problems” on his Black album, where the following exchange takes place between Jay-Z and a cop “License and registration and step out of the car / Are you carryin’ a weapon on you I know a lot of you are / I ain’t steppin out of shit all my paper’s legit / Well, do you mind if I look round the car a little bit? / Well my glove compartment is locked so are the trunk in the back / And I know my rights so you gon’ need a warrant for that / Aren’t you sharp as a tack, you some type of lawyer or something’? / Or somebody important or somethin’? / Nah, I ain’t pass the bar but i know a little bit / Enough that you won’t illegally search my shit).

Band: The Hold Steady
Album: Almost Killed Me
Style: Rock
I’m gearing up for the release of their new album “Stay Positive” in July by going back, week by week, and re-listening to each of their old albums to make sure I get the big picture. This band is a divisive one. My girlfriend thinks they’re nails on a chalkboard. I think they’re the best band of the last decade. Craig Finn, the lead singer, doesn’t really sing. He sort of sing/talks his way through tales of drugs, despair, homelessness, skaters, addicts, punks, drinking and more drugs. And the band rocks to the nth degree. Also, Finn is a huge baseball fan, and in fact, recorded the “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” song played at the Metrodome for the Twins (he’s from Minneapolis, and although lives in Brooklyn now, like all the hip kids, still sings almost exclusively about the Twin Cities). I can’t recommend this band more highly.

That’s enough for this week. Next week, three more!

Drug School

It’s not as fun as it sounds. In fact, it’s a sentencing alternative for first time street drug busts.

I have a client out in Bridgeview who was recently offered this opportunity. I say opportunity, because drug school is one of the saner alternatives offered in our criminal justice system.

Drug school is four classes, which if successfully attended and passed by the Defendant, the State will nolle prosequi (“do not pursue” in Latin) and drop the case. This alternative is frequently the best possible outcome for the Defendant. Since many drug cases are felonies even on simple possession, a first time “break” like this is a vital piece of the rehabilitation puzzle.

Drug school in Cook County is a similar system to the “drug courts” that have been established in many jurisdictions around the country. Where I attended college and law school, at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, it was a frequently used tool for first time offenders. Of course, a lot of those offenders were relatively well-off college students (mainly white, Wisconsin is the least diverse school in the Big Ten) who were being busted for pot, ecstasy, or other relatively not-hard drugs. Cook County offers drug school, which is more like a diversion program. In many jurisdictions, drug court is more like intensive probation where you are actually sentenced to a period of drug testing and classes, and upon completion, then the charges are dropped.

Here, you attend the classes before sentencing and if completed satisfactorily, the matter is then not prosecuted (with leave to re-instate later if you mess up again).

This all appears to be a part of the criminal justice system that is operating with the intent to rehabilitate (or at least, redirect) the criminal defendant. To that end, drug school is one of the few times that Cook County actually tries to help, rather than simply punish.

I have found that many of my clients are rarely offered it (of course, it’s limited to first time offenders and those with very small amounts of drugs anyway), and that it’s usually offered prior to a preliminary hearing.

I’m just interested to see what the numbers are for recidivists coming out of the program or even how many are in the program in a given year. I’d like to see the success rate (i.e. recidivism rates) of a program that makes you attend four classes telling you not to do drugs, and doesn’t even require drug screening. That sounds like high school health classes, not an effective drug deterrent program.

Still, it’s a great alternative for my clients, a good deal if you can get it. I just wonder about its efficacy compared to drug courts in other jurisdictions.

Read further at the Drug School Act online to see the legislative authorization. It notes that statistics should be tracked, I’ve just never seen them.