Advocates’ Letter to Cook County Circuit Court: Seal Eviction Court Filings to Promote Fair and Accessible Justice
The Chicago Council of Lawyers and Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts have joined Access Living, Beyond Legal Aid, Chicago Area Fair Housing Alliance, Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, the Chicago Urban League, Chicago Volunteer Legal Services, the Lawyers’ Committee for Better Housing, Legal Aid Chicago, Legal Aid Society of Metropolitan Family Services, Shriver Center for Poverty Law, Uptown People’s Law Center, the Westside Justice Center, and several other legal and social advocacy organizations (“coalition”) to encourage Cook County Circuit Court to proactively seal eviction court filings to promote efficient and accessible justice.
The Federal Emergency Rental Assistance Program Act (IL Public Act 102-005) requires, among other things, that records of evictions between March 2020 and March 2022 are sealed upon filing and also includes a retroactive sealing provision. Specifically, Section 9-121.5(b) of the law gives the court power to seal any file in a residential eviction if “the interests of justice in sealing the court file outweigh the public interest in maintaining a public record,” or if the parties to the eviction agree to seal the file, no material violation of the terms of the tenancy occurred, or the eviction case was dismissed.
In June 25 letter to Cook County Circuit Court Clerk Martinez and Chief Judge Evans, coalition explained:
“As we began to prepare materials and trainings for self-represented litigants to file motions to seal eviction records pursuant to this new law, we realized the judicial economy of the Chief Judge entering a general administrative order sealing the court file of any eviction that the Office of the Clerk can identify, through its Information Technology department, as having concluded with a disposition other than an eviction order, such as a dismissal or DWP order.
Sealing these files administratively could save much effort by judges and courtroom clerks, who otherwise will need to handle possibly thousands of individual motions.”
Today in Illinois, experts estimate that possibly up to 600,000 households may be at risk of eviction. In 2017, 23 of the 25 community areas in Chicago with the highest eviction filing rates were majority Black; nationally, 35% of all renters in eviction cases filed during the pandemic were Black. According to the Lawyers’ Committee for Better Housing, only about 60% of filings actually result in an eviction. For a variety of reasons, people are not evicted in 40% of all cases; still, even when an eviction case is dropped or dismissed it remains part of the public record, which can negatively affect a person’s credit, prospects for stable housing, or ability to maintain gainful employment. In short, the new law gives the court the ability to order the sealing of almost any eviction case in order to reduce some of the collateral harms caused by housing instability.
The coalition urges Chief Judge Evans and Clerk Martinez to proactively take the steps allowed through PA 102-005 to alleviate some of the ongoing harms of the COVID-19 pandemic and the continued consequences of economic instability. Click here to access the June 25 letter.