judge. About the only use a gavel gets at 26th Street is holding down papers in chambers. As for jury trials, judges here might doone a month. Locallo and his colleagues spend most of their days prodding defendants toward the finish line—toward pleas of guilty that spare the county the burden of trials. A judge could tire of this mundane work, could wonder what he was accomplishing as he hurried defendants out the back door while ever more streamed in the front. And many judges did tire of it, requesting transfers to the civil courts downtown. But eleven years on the bench, most of them at 26th Street, have yet to sour Locallo; he still awakens eager to get to the courthouse, even on mornings like this, with no trial scheduled. He prides himself on his management skills, especially in how nimbly he sheds thefat from his docket, how quickly he disposes of the “bullshit cases,” as he calls them, saving the court’s time for the cases that merit it. The Bridgeport case, for instance.
Douglas Boulevard bends into Sacramento Boulevard, Sacramento into California. He cruises by the 1-800-NOTGLTY billboard and the parking lot beyond it. Just past 26th and California, he swings onto the courthouse grounds at the “Shipping/Receiving” sign, waving to the deputy in the small brick outpost nearby. He parks his Lumina in the lot for judges behind the courthouse and enters a rear door.
His first stop today, as usual, is the office of the presiding judge at 26th Street, Thomas Fitzgerald. A half-dozen judges are drinking coffee and chatting in the first-floor suite already. Fitzgerald has let his judges know they can drop by any morning before they head upstairs. Locallo looks forward to these few minutes of fraternizing before taking the bench. He tends to gab about his golf game or his kids’ athletic achievements. Sometimes he’ll solicit a veteran judge’s advice on a thorny issue developing in a case in his courtroom. In recent years, judges more often have sought his counsel, aware of his grasp of case law. This morning, after coffee and twenty minutes of small talk, Locallo leaves Fitzgerald’s office and walks down a corridor toward the judges’ elevator. It’s nine forty-five, time to get the call going.
BATES IS HEMMED IN on the back pew between a skinny young man in a Dallas Cowboys jacket and an older woman in a Fila coat when Locallo materializes at the front of the courtroom, in the doorway to the left of the judicial bench, at 9:50. He’s still zipping on the black robe over his white shirt and tie as he heads to the bench.
When the judge appears in some courtrooms at 26th Street, the clerk or a deputy commands everyone to rise, declaring that the Circuit Court of Cook County is now in session, the Honorable So-and-So presiding, and informing the spectators that talking and newspaper reading are forbidden. Locallo finds such pomp embarrassing and the prohibitions silly, especially in a courtroom with a sealed-off gallery. Court starts without ceremony once he settles into his high-backed leather swivel chair, and he or his clerk calls the first case.
Locallo has brown eyes and a fair complexion that pinks up in the golf season. Well-developed jaw muscles broaden his face below the ears. His hair is wavy black and full but graying on the sides. He keeps it medium length and feathered back on top, but short on the sides and in back. He stays closely shaven. He often wears a bemused expression, as if he knows the joke but is above laughing at it.
He played baseball and football in high school and still has an athlete’s cocky carriage—shoulders back, chest out. But he’s forty-five now, and he doesn’t burn many calories swiveling and rocking behind the bench. As with many judges, the robe hides an expanding belly.
His long, curved bench is cluttered with law books, file folders in precarious heaps, and transcripts in black binders. More files and binders litter the floor beneath the bench. A desk
Douglas Boulevard bends into Sacramento Boulevard, Sacramento into California. He cruises by the 1-800-NOTGLTY billboard and the parking lot beyond it. Just past 26th and California, he swings onto the courthouse grounds at the “Shipping/Receiving” sign, waving to the deputy in the small brick outpost nearby. He parks his Lumina in the lot for judges behind the courthouse and enters a rear door.
His first stop today, as usual, is the office of the presiding judge at 26th Street, Thomas Fitzgerald. A half-dozen judges are drinking coffee and chatting in the first-floor suite already. Fitzgerald has let his judges know they can drop by any morning before they head upstairs. Locallo looks forward to these few minutes of fraternizing before taking the bench. He tends to gab about his golf game or his kids’ athletic achievements. Sometimes he’ll solicit a veteran judge’s advice on a thorny issue developing in a case in his courtroom. In recent years, judges more often have sought his counsel, aware of his grasp of case law. This morning, after coffee and twenty minutes of small talk, Locallo leaves Fitzgerald’s office and walks down a corridor toward the judges’ elevator. It’s nine forty-five, time to get the call going.
BATES IS HEMMED IN on the back pew between a skinny young man in a Dallas Cowboys jacket and an older woman in a Fila coat when Locallo materializes at the front of the courtroom, in the doorway to the left of the judicial bench, at 9:50. He’s still zipping on the black robe over his white shirt and tie as he heads to the bench.
When the judge appears in some courtrooms at 26th Street, the clerk or a deputy commands everyone to rise, declaring that the Circuit Court of Cook County is now in session, the Honorable So-and-So presiding, and informing the spectators that talking and newspaper reading are forbidden. Locallo finds such pomp embarrassing and the prohibitions silly, especially in a courtroom with a sealed-off gallery. Court starts without ceremony once he settles into his high-backed leather swivel chair, and he or his clerk calls the first case.
Locallo has brown eyes and a fair complexion that pinks up in the golf season. Well-developed jaw muscles broaden his face below the ears. His hair is wavy black and full but graying on the sides. He keeps it medium length and feathered back on top, but short on the sides and in back. He stays closely shaven. He often wears a bemused expression, as if he knows the joke but is above laughing at it.
He played baseball and football in high school and still has an athlete’s cocky carriage—shoulders back, chest out. But he’s forty-five now, and he doesn’t burn many calories swiveling and rocking behind the bench. As with many judges, the robe hides an expanding belly.
His long, curved bench is cluttered with law books, file folders in precarious heaps, and transcripts in black binders. More files and binders litter the floor beneath the bench. A desk
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