There was an objection of sorts voiced last week when defense lawyer Ralph Meczyk asked U.S. District Judge Ann C. Williams to sentence his client, a minor-league hoodlum, to a period of home confinement instead of sending him to prison.
The objection, though, came from an unusual source. It came not from a prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Atty. David Buvinger, but rather from a federal probation officer assigned to the case.
Williams hadn’t shown any inclination to place James Coniglio, a foot soldier in the family of mob strongman Ernest Rocco Infelice, on electronic monitoring. But if she had the notion, she would not have had the option.
The program has run out of money, probation officer Richard Tracy told the court.
The loss of the electronic monitoring program is part of the pinch felt by the federal courts as a result of an appropriation for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30 that was $130 million less than what the judiciary sought. The courts are seeking an emergency appropriation of about $98 million to see them through the rest of the fiscal year.
Though only half of all district courts in the country avail themselves of home confinement as a sentencing option, money for the program’s crucial electronic monitoring is gone for this year, according to the administrative office of the nation’s federal courts.
Support employees, including probation officers and court clerks, also lost their cost-of-living increases for January and February when wages were frozen. And unless there is new funding, officials say that by Thursday there won’t be enough money to pay lawyers who take cases as court-appointed attorneys for indigent defendants. Funds to pay jurors in civil trials are likely to run out this summer.
Gone, too, are funds for an in-patient drug treatment center. That program will be sorely missed because it is successful, said William Foster, chief U.S. probation officer in Chicago.
A call for action
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It’s all well and good for law firms and corporate legal departments to talk about the need for diversity.
But the fact remains that the faces in the partner ranks at Chicago’s major law firms are overwhelmingly white.
To its credit, there are many in the legal profession who see a need to address the obvious, and the Chicago Bar Association is encouraging the effort. Last week, the governing board of Chicago’s largest lawyers’ group unanimously adopted a policy statement calling on law firms and legal departments to increase the number of minority lawyers in their ranks.
“In a profession that has prided itself in leading the fight for equal opportunity under the law, it is essential that we make further progress in achieving greater representation of minority lawyers at all levels in our own firms and legal departments,” the policy statement says.
The policy was chiefly the result of work by the bar association’s Coordinating Council for Minority Affairs Committee, chaired by Linzey D. Jones Jr., a partner at Sidley & Austin.
“This puts in written form a strong statement of our belief that this is important,” said Thomas Demetrio, Chicago Bar Association president.
– NEW JOBS, NEW TITLES. James M. Reilly, who helped draft and implement Chicago’s current liquor ordinance as attorney for the city License and Liquor Commission, has been named an administrative aide to Mayor Richard M. Daley.
“I got to know a lot of lawyers” for license-holders, says Reilly, who was an assistant state’s attorney for nine years. Not all were friendly encounters. Liquor license revocations last year totaled 73, up from fewer than 10 when Reilly took the post in 1989.
Reilly’s successor as the commission’s legal counsel is Michael D. Boyce, a former assistant corporation counsel.
– LEGAL BRIEFS. Barry D. Weiss, who has handled complex litigation involving trade secrets, licensing and other matters for computer businesses, is a new partner at Gordon & Glickson. He had been at Neal Gerber & Eisenberg. . . . Hopkins & Sutter’s Paul Vickrey is stepping down as chairman of the AIDS Legal Council of Chicago. The new chairman is John R. Myers, of Bell, Boyd & Lloyd, who says his goal is “to increase the legal community’s awareness of and financial support for the council.” . . . With the impending retirement of Mercer Cook, a 22-year veteran of the Cook County state’s attorney’s office and chief of its public-interest bureau, there’s talk that the unit may be retooled a bit. Look for State’s Atty. Jack O’Malley to revamp the bureau to better focus on women’s and family issues.