{"id":2828,"date":"2019-01-31T23:30:09","date_gmt":"2019-01-31T23:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chicagocouncil.org\/?p=2828"},"modified":"2019-01-31T23:30:09","modified_gmt":"2019-01-31T23:30:09","slug":"2828-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chicagocouncil.org\/staging\/1601\/2828-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Proposed Law Would Guarantee Prompt Access to a Phone – and a Lawyer- for Arrestees"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Sarah Staudt, Senior Policy Analyst at Chicago Appleseed and Staff Liaison to the Criminal Justice Advisory Committee of Chicago Appleseed and the Chicago Council of Lawyers.<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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One of the most timeworn media depictions of the criminal justice system is a character in a lock-up cell yelling \u201cI want my phone call!\u201d to a police officer. In Chicago, however, almost many arrestees wait up to 72 hours until police will give them access a phone to call a lawyer or let their family know where they are. Now, advocates are proposing statewide reform to force Police Departments to give arrestees timely access to a phone. On Monday, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and Cook County Public Defender Amy Campanelli announced that they were proposing statewide legislation to require the police to give every arrested person access to a phone and the right to make up to three phone calls within one hour of their arrest. An officer\u2019s failure to provide a phone call could be charged as felony official misconduct.<\/span><\/p>\n

The bill, sponsored by State Representatives Theresa Mah and Justin Slaughter, is the exact reform needed to make sure that arrestees have a meaningful ability to exercise their 6th\u00a0amendment right to meet with a lawyer at the stationhouse.<\/span><\/p>\n

Chicago, of course, has a long and sometimes violent history of denying the rights of arrestees surrounding interrogation, particularly vulnerable, young arrestees of color. Jon Burge tortured false confessions out of hundreds of suspects in the 1970s and 1980s, and Cook County leads the nation in exonerations based on findings that police coerced suspects into falsely confessing. These false confessions are always secured without a lawyer present, and usually after long periods of isolation that make suspects more susceptible to police coercion. This shameful history led to the formation of First Defense Legal Aid (FDLA), the first non-profit in the country devoted to providing free, accessible stationhouse attorneys. In 2017, the Chicago Public Defender\u2019s office joined FDLA\u2019s fight to ensure that every arrestee has access to a lawyer. Now, the PD\u2019s office has a 24\/7 Police Station Representation Unit that provides a lawyer to any arrestee who calls them in Cook County. FDLA and the PD\u2019s office also ensured that the Chicago Police posted the Public Defender\u2019s phone number in every police lockup. Yet, even with FDLA and the PD\u2019s combined efforts, only 1.4% of arrestees successfully called\u00a0either\u00a0<\/i>organization asking for a lawyer between April and October of this year.<\/span><\/p>\n

The reason for this is simple: the Chicago Police Department has been using a loophole in Illinois law to avoid giving arrestees a phone call until it is too late to do any good. Under current law, police only have to give a phone call as soon as is \u201creasonable\u201d. But the statute doesn\u2019t define \u201creasonable.\u201d The Chicago Police Department has interpreted it to mean within 72 hours \u2013 3 whole days \u2013 in lockup. They also often do not provide a phone call until after an interrogation has taken place. There is no practical or administrative reason why police officers cannot allow phone calls\u00a0earlier after arrest; indeed, Rhode Island, Nevada and California all have laws requiring access to a phone within three hours of arrest.<\/span><\/p>\n

This proposed Illinois legislation would go a long way towards allowing every arrestee who wants one access to a lawyer as well as giving them the basic human kindness of allowing them to tell their family and friends where they are. We hope that the State\u2019s Attorney of\u00a0Cook County and other officials support this legislation and see it as a vital step towards erasing Chicago\u2019s reputation as the false confession capital of the country.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Sarah Staudt, Senior Policy Analyst at Chicago Appleseed and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nProposed Law Would Guarantee Prompt Access to a Phone - and a Lawyer- for Arrestees - Chicago Council of Lawyers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/chicagocouncil.org\/staging\/1601\/2828-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Proposed Law Would Guarantee Prompt Access to a Phone - and a Lawyer- for Arrestees - Chicago Council of Lawyers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Sarah Staudt, Senior Policy Analyst at Chicago Appleseed and [...]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/chicagocouncil.org\/staging\/1601\/2828-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Chicago Council of Lawyers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-01-31T23:30:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"chicagocouncil\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"chicagocouncil\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/chicagocouncil.org\\\/staging\\\/1601\\\/2828-2\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/chicagocouncil.org\\\/staging\\\/1601\\\/2828-2\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"chicagocouncil\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/chicagocouncil.org\\\/staging\\\/1601\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/765edf6da8a399a85328c112cd1db2ff\"},\"headline\":\"Proposed Law Would Guarantee Prompt Access to a Phone – and a Lawyer- for Arrestees\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-01-31T23:30:09+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/chicagocouncil.org\\\/staging\\\/1601\\\/2828-2\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":632,\"commentCount\":0,\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/chicagocouncil.org\\\/staging\\\/1601\\\/2828-2\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/chicagocouncil.org\\\/staging\\\/1601\\\/2828-2\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/chicagocouncil.org\\\/staging\\\/1601\\\/2828-2\\\/\",\"name\":\"Proposed Law Would Guarantee Prompt Access to a Phone - 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