Thomas F. Geraghty

Prisons and After Prison

I was in court the other day, waiting for my clients case to be called, when a middle-aged man was brought out from the lock-up to face the judge. I took notice because of the fact that he was older than the usual pretrial detainee in the Cook County Jail. His lawyer began to argue for a reduction in bail. During the course of the hearing before the judge, it was revealed that this man allegedly committed three armed robberies in 1990. After being released on bail in 1990, he failed to return to court, probably because he was facing a minimum six years in the penitentiary for his crimes (and probably longer because judges in Cook County do not always impose minimum sentences for crimes of violence). Instead, he lived in his