By Celeste Bott

Law360 (April 20, 2021, 7:12 PM EDT) -- Cook County Circuit Court's chief judge issued a statement Tuesday defending its operations during the COVID-19 pandemic after Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot claimed it's held no criminal trials for 13 months, saying they're already underway and the Illinois court "has not been idle."

Criminal jury trials resumed last month, once the court had taken adequate safety measures to protect jurors and court employees, but hundreds of bench trials have also been held during the pandemic, according to the release from Cook County Circuit Court Chief Judge Timothy Evans.

"Recent suggestions that the criminal courts have not held trials, or have been otherwise inactive, during the past 13 months of the pandemic are based on misinformation," he said.

Those suggestions were made by Lightfoot at an unrelated press conference Monday, during which she criticized "the fact that we have gone now 13 months and we don't have criminal trials in Cook County" in the wake of a violent weekend in Chicago, as reported in the Chicago Sun-Times.

"We've got to actually hold people accountable who are wreaking havoc in our streets," the mayor said.

But Evans said the Cook County court has risen to the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic through "innovation and technology," with all divisions and districts preparing to resume jury trials as of May 3.

The vast majority of criminal cases are also resolved before trial, he said, noting that between March 2020 and March 2021, nearly 8,000 cases moved through the criminal courts that were authorized to conduct felony trials after a finding of probable cause by the court or a grand jury indictment were resolved through trial, a guilty plea or dismissal of charges.

And with most proceedings held remotely during the pandemic, the court has hosted nearly 1.5 million hours of Zoom court sessions in that same time period, according to the court's statement.

Lightfoot also suggested that the courts were putting too many defendants on electronic monitoring for pre-trial release, expressing concern that "really violent people" were being allowed back out on the street, according to the Sun-Times.

"We just charged somebody yesterday. Two brothers who murdered a person, 11 bullets into them, in front of witnesses," Lightfoot said. "And at least one of them was out on another gun charge, on electronic monitoring. This isn't working. We need to have trials and we need to put dangerous people behind bars so that the community is actually safe."

Evans said that "looking at individual tragic cases in isolation" may make it seem like releasing defendants before trial instead of putting them in jail leads to increased crime. But that's speculation and not "the same as a reality based on a complete picture," he said, pointing to a Loyola University study and the court's own reporting that say bail reforms in Cook County have kept hundreds out of jail without leading to more violent crime.

Judges release individuals charged with crimes to electronic monitoring after careful consideration, and only those "judged to pose a clear and present danger to society" are kept in jail before trial, Evans said.

"During the pandemic, judges have also had to balance the risks of incarceration to the health of jail detainees, corrections staff, and the greater community, with more traditional public safety considerations," he said.

A spokesperson for Mayor Lightfoot could not be immediately reached for comment on Tuesday.

Cook County's circuit court first announced a spring return for criminal jury trials in February. Still, Illinois' courts, and especially Cook County, are staring down a massive jury trial backlog of both civil and criminal cases as they begin to resume more normal operations.

--Editing by Ellen Johnson.

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