Also at stake, of course, are the millions of tax dollars spent annually in the budgets of both Cook County and the State of Illinois to pay for staff and expenses necessary to file criminal appeals for indigent defendants. The Cook County public defender's office has more than twice as many, with 54 lawyers assigned to its Appellate Division. Fry has pointed out several times that the state appellate defender's office handles all criminal appeals for indigent defendants in every other county in the state, and has said the state should take over this entire responsibility in Cook County. State Appellate Defender Theodore A. Gottfried said he understands Cook County's position. But he noted that the legislature has not yet acted, so the matter is up in the air.
Criminal appeals are in part a question of numbers.
First, Pelletier said, federal courts have held in U.S. ex rel. He said both he and Reddy agree that a lawyer in either office is able to prepare an average of 1.6 criminal appeal briefs per month. With a backlog of 950 cases, as Pelletier said the state appellate defender had in its Chicago office this week, the staff cannot complete the work in less than 21 months. And that is only to file the original appellate briefs. This would push Appellate Court decisions more than 7 months beyond the two-year time limit allowed for an acceptable appeals process.