The courts have now had a little over a week to work out some of the procedural kinks in the wake of the new procedures for Cook County evictions with jury trials. I have heard from a number of sources about some of the interesting “features” of the new system for jury trials in Cook County evictions. Each of the sources I have spoken to has confirmed the rumor that the jury trial judges assigned to eviction cases are not allowing the litigants to conduct discovery as part of the jury trial process. (Discovery is the pre-trial gathering of evidence through legal procedures such as depositions, requests for the production of documents, requests to admit facts, and interrogatories.) Instead,
jury trial
New procedure for Cook County eviction jury trials
We became aware this week of a “pilot program” being initiated in the first municipal district (Daley Center) of the Circuit Court of Cook County to deal with jury demands in forcible entry and detainer (eviction) cases. On March 7, 2013, the Presiding Judge of the Circuit Court of Cook County’s First Municipal District entered General Order 2013-01 establishing the procedure. Positioned as a way to “improve the judicial process and efficiency, and, eliminate a backlog of current and future cases awaiting jury trials”, the order will radically modify the way cases are handled after a jury demand is filed in Cook County evictions.