Jury majority
Why can the most experienced, the most intelligent jurists in the country, the Supreme Court, make a decision affecting millions of citizens by a simple majority 5-4 vote whereas a group of 12 laymen jurors, not experienced in the fine points of the law, must agree unanimously? Either the Supreme Court decisions should be unanimous or juries should be able to return a decision by, say, a 9-3 vote.
— David Thiessen, Woodstock
Fitzgerald’s frustration
Since the federal government is so flush with money right now, I suggest that the Miranda warning be amended to include the statement: “If a jury should find you not sufficiently guilty to satisfy Patrick Fitzgerald, and you cannot afford an attorney, the public will fund teams of both prosecutors and defenders to assure that your level of guilt satisfies community standards, as defined by (a) Patrick Fitzgerald; and (b) the entire trial lawyers’ lobby.”
— Betsy Ray, Chicago
Unnecessary retrial
With the crime on Chicago’s streets, should we pay additional legal fees to change the prosecution’s (Patrick Fitzgerald’s) badly tarnished reputation with an unnecessary retrial ?
— George A. Kennedy, Glencoe
Qualified jurors
Five years ago I was a jury foreman for a federal trial involving insider trading on the stock market. There were 11 jury members who voted guilty and one senior woman who held out because she “didn’t want to see that young male going to jail.”
To this day I feel as frustrated as the 11 jurors on the Blagojevich trial.
Our judicial system is a joke! Millions of dollars are spent by the taxpayers, and one little old lady doesn’t know what it is like to live in the real world. If these people can’t believe in circumstantial evidence, they have no business being a qualified juror.
We could work around these types of people if a majority vote decided the case of the defendant.
— Charles Anzalone, Romeoville
Waste of money
If Patrick Fitzgerald’s feelings are hurt because he wasn’t able to win convictions on all counts against Rod Blagojevich, he should get over it. Criminals get off easy every day in our society; just talk to the victims of crime or their families.
Blagojevich is now a convicted felon. The whole world listened to those tapes and knows him for the person he is.
I don’t want my tax dollars going to pay for Blago’s retrial; the money is better spent on something else.
— Tony LaMantia, Chicago
Worst presidents
People who are claiming that Barack Obama is the worst president ever have short memories. They’ve already forgotten Jimmy Carter.
— Tom Mahoney, Buffalo Grove
Pension promises
This is in response to “Teachers: Don’t blame us for mess” (Commentary, Aug. 19), by Ed Geppert, president of the Illinois Federation of Teachers, and Ken Swanson, president of the Illinois Education Association. These two reject any union responsibility for the state’s financial mess. They say, “The state’s pension debt was caused by politicians who habitually refused, over decades, to pay the state’s modest share of pension costs, using the money instead to stave off needed tax increases.”
I believe them.
Now I would like them to tell us just what political actions their unions took over those decades to make those politicians pay those pension costs.
Did I miss something?
I sure don’t remember any union publicity campaigns to warn us that the pensions weren’t being funded. Nor did I see any union electioneering to kick out the irresponsible legislators.
Did they think it was enough to win good contracts for their members, without any follow-through to see that the promised pension money was actually set aside?
Big mistake.
— George W. Price, Chicago
Go again
I say a retrial will be money well spent!
— Gordon Munden, Chicago
Cost of justice
I am more than willing to see the government pay whatever it costs to put Rod Blagojevich behind bars. If we in this society start placing a cost on justice, we are letting the crooks know that they can get away with the corruption like we have in Illinois!
— Jerome C. Malon, Chicago
Quinn’s actions
Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn is so concerned about puppy mills that he signed a breeder/medical history disclosure law (“New state law seeks to protect pet buyers; Sellers must disclose breeder, medical information on cages,” News, Aug. 23). In the same Tribune, I also learned that Quinn has not taken a firm position regarding legislation that would re-instate online profiles of physicians — made available by the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation since 2005 before eliminating them in February as a result of a court’s striking down medical malpractice caps (“Tribune watchdog: Now harder to check up on doctors; Profiles that gave info on convictions, malpractice have been taken offline,” Page 1, Aug. 23).
Quinn’s spokeswoman Ashley Green’s e-mailed statement was as non-committal as possible.
As I compare the gravity of the two issues’ relevance to Illinois families, Quinn’s action/inaction clearly are evidence of his priorities.
— Thomas A. Rykala, Chicago
How clean is the river?
I would like to comment on your excellent article “A dispute runs through it; State and federal officials want to clean up the Chicago River, but the sewer district calls new rules unnecessary and costly” (Page 1, Aug. 20). My husband and I took our kayaks to paddle the river from the input near Lane Tech while the study by the University of Illinois at Chicago was ongoing. I had been in Lake Michigan and was not eligible, but my husband participated.
While we paddled there were soccer matches at a nearby field and young children who were there to watch the matches were at the riverside playing in the mud and water.
The essential fallacy of the study is that my husband was eligible for the study, but those children were not. After paddling we thoroughly washed our kayaks, all our equipment and ourselves. Most recreational boaters who paddle in the river would do the same thing.
But if the decision-makers think that the children of Chicago do not play in the river, they should do a reality check. These are the people who are most at risk of becoming ill from the unsanitary condition of the river.
Perhaps such a study has been done. It should be given higher credence than the study my husband participated in.
— C. Harris, M.D., Evanston
Improving education
The federal government announced that Illinois was not awarded any additional education funding in the Race to the Top competition, a multibillion-dollar competitive grant program made available under President Barack Obama’s Recovery Act. Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Maryland, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island and Washington, D.C., will share in the latest awards. While Illinois has made progress in several areas, many other states moved with much more urgency to improve education. So what should Illinois do to ensure we are more competitive?
* Illinois should ensure that our educational policies are implemented in a way that focuses on student needs, not adult interests. Far too often promising education-reform initiatives are held hostage by the parochial interests of adults. This means, for example, that we should create rigorous college and career-ready standards and establish diploma standards that recognize that the job market demands higher-order skills.
* Illinois should intervene in those schools that are struggling to demonstrate sustained student improvement and should not be timid in demanding more of our students and the teachers who serve them.
* Illinois should implement a statewide student data system that is sophisticated enough to measure actual student growth and use this growth in making significant policy decisions, including decisions about teacher evaluation and tenure.
* Most important Illinois should focus squarely on effective teachers and school leadership, including making meaningful personnel decisions based on teacher quality and prioritizing the recruitment and retention of new school leaders.
Though Illinois did not win, there is still a silver lining. One very welcome result of the RTTT competition was the General Assembly’s creation of an ambitious new teacher and principal evaluation system. This system will base at least 50 percent of a teacher’s or principal’s review on student performance growth by 2013, paving the way for a new era of professional educator evaluation — one that depends on student outcomes. This is a step in the right direction, but to be fully competitive in future grant competitions, Illinois needs to establish a public education system that we can truly be proud of, one that provides access to a high-quality education to all Illinois students.
— Andrew Broy, president, Illinois Network of Charter Schools, Chicago
