Kathy Roethel and hundreds of others with courthouse business got their first taste of Du Page County`s new ”rocket docket” on Monday.
The Orland Park woman came to the newly relocated 18th Judicial Circuit Court for a hearing before Judge Edward Kowal on charges of possession of a controlled substance and had her case continued in a matter of minutes.
”I never even saw the judge,” said Roethel. ”We were in and out like that.”
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And so it went on this first day of operating the state`s second largest judicial system in the Du Page County administration building. While the year- old, $53-million, marble-and-glass courthouse stood idle 200 yards to the east, attorneys, judges and defendants scuttled from floor to floor in the north wing of the administration building in search of the right case or the right room.
The confusion was not limited to visitors.
Judge Ronald Mehling, one of the county`s criminal felony judges, walked into the center at 8:45 a.m., black robe over one hand and several legal volumes in the other, appearing as lost as anyone else.
”Just point me on the right direction,” he told one of the bailiffs.
Early on, courthouse employees with carts filled with records formed wagon trains that stretched from the new courthouse-abandoned after more than 400 of the building`s 700 employees reported they had been made ill by the air-to the administration building at 421 N. County Farm Rd.
However, the anticipated administrative mayhem was minimized Monday by use of the ”rocket docket” strategy.
Under the plan, court business was conducted at a lightning pace, with most cases simply being continued for two months. County officials believe that by then, the new courthouse`s ventilation system-thought to be the chief culprit that sent employees to doctors-will be repaired.
In the interim, the county`s administration building was partly transformed into an emergency courthouse for the several thousand persons who on a normal business day visit the court system as a plaintiff, defendant, or witness, or to seek documents from the clerk`s office.
On Monday, for example, the misdemeanor caseload, usually numbering more than 400, was thankfully down to only 360, with all of the cases being handled in one courtroom instead of six.
Computers have been set up in the auditorium, which will serve as the clerk`s office. Meeting rooms and offices on the second floor have been turned into courtrooms. And black curtains partition part of the cafeteria into an area for jurors. Folding tables that served as an information booth were busy early in the day, and by late morning, many of those involved in litigation had left.
”I believe it`s going pretty well,” observed Chief Judge Anthony Peccarelli. ”I don`t believe we`ve had any major problems.”
While total chaos never materialized, confusion was a constant companion for many ricocheting from one county building to another. Corey Collins said he came from his Bolingbrook home hoping for a hearing on a ”criminal matter.” He initially went to the new courthouse and was directed to the administration building.
”When I got there, they sent me back to 505 (the vacated courthouse),”
said an exasperated Collins. ”And they sent me back to the administration building again.”
The office Collins really needed, he later learned, was the Probation Department, which had moved into a county-owned building on Willow Street, which is miles away.
”Do you know how to get there?” he asked. ”They didn`t have the address.”
Burton Downing of Chicago was appearing for a hearing on a theft charge, and was directed without much hassle, he said, to the courtroom in the jail, located only about 100 yards from the courthouse where he was scheduled to have his first court date.
”They said I`d probably get the case disposed of today, but I got a continuance to Dec. 14,” said Downing, who was accompanied by a fellow worker from a South Side steel plant.
”He came along to help me stay awake,” Downing said of his companion.
”We got off work at 5 a.m., got a couple hours of sleep, and came on out here. Now we have to do the same thing again,” Downing said.
Many defendants in custody also got continuances, though shorter ones-to later in the week when the judges assigned to their particular cases are scheduled to be on hand in the jailhouse courtroom. County prosecutors were not exempt from the inconveniences and minor nuisances of an extraordinary day.
When Judge Mehling asked Brian Nigohosian, an assistant state`s attorney, about the status of several records in a case file, Nigohosian replied that that he was unable to immediately locate the documents because ”our office is still in disarray.”
Nigohosian later said he was unable to locate his files when he began his workday at the state`s attorney`s temporary offices. He said the confusion of the move combined with the fact that his secretary has been ill-possibly from the exposure to foul air the courthouse-had been making case preparation difficult.
But Nigohosian was quick to add that court proceedings themselves were going smoothly enough for now.
”I don`t think it`s affected our prosecution of cases,” Nigohosian said. ”Considering this is the first day in a new place, it`s not so bad.”
While crowded and relatively noisy-conversations reverberated throughout the four-story atrium-some county employees say its better than exposure to the air in the ailing courthouse.
Charlene Eggert, head of the courthouse law library, had missed a total of five weeks of work in the past year due to illness that she attributes to the poor air quality in the building. On Monday, she and her staff were relegated to a table top in the administration building lobby, where they opened their mail and tried to figure out where to store newly arrived books and journals until the library reopens.
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Eggert fretted over the mountains of mail to come and the work involved in getting it all sorted.
”Things will be worse when we`re able to go back to the library. That`s when we`ll have to file on the shelves everything we`re receiving now,” she said.
Eggert said the air quality in the libary was so bad that plants would die ”overnight.”
”The air is better here, though,” Eggert said.
Laurel Hinds and Pam Rodriguez, who both work in the court clerk`s office, say they experienced physical problems from working at the new courthouse and are glad to be working elsewhere.
Hinds, who is back at work for the first time in two weeks, opened her purse and displayed a small pharmacy of eight different prescriptions and two nasal sprays.
”That`s been constant for year,” she said of the medications. ”But so far so good.”
Rodriguez, who says she suffered from dizziness, nausea and chest pains while working in the new courthouse, has been working in the administration building for the past week and a half.
She, too, reported a slight improvement. ”I still feel really tired,”
she said. ”But my sinuses aren`t bothering me as much.”
To many observers, the initial shock of Monday`s altered circumstances was outweighed by concern about the consequence of granting so many continuances on Monday.
”There`s a vast number of new felony and misdemeanor cases filed on a daily basis,” said attorney Patrick Bond of Roselle. ”The system can handle them only when its disposing of old cases on a daily basis too. If that stops happening, then the system is going to get clogged.”