Retiring Chief Judge Casey Costigan says he has a “high degree of confidence” in his successor.
Circuit Judge Mark Fellheimer returns to the role of chief judge next week after sitting out for four years as Costigan served as the administrator overseeing the courts in the 11th Judicial Circuit.
Costigan said he and the other judges, who elect the position of chief judge, believe fully in Fellheimer’s abilities to move the courts forward “as a leader throughout the state."
“And I believe that’s what we are,” Costigan said. “I believe that if you were to ask anybody from the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts, they would put the 11th Circuit in a good position in terms of what we are trying to do and taking us there.”
Costigan retires this week after 20 years on the bench. Associate Judge Sarah Duffy has been appointed to fill his circuit court seat through December. She’s running unopposed to keep the seat in the Nov. 3 election.
In his previous term as chief judge, Fellheimer shepherded the courts through the pandemic.
“The courts basically shut down at that point in time,” Costigan said. “That process would wear on anybody.”
Fellheimer navigated how to implement virtual court appearances and maintained in-person operations for certain cases that aren’t possible to conduct on Zoom.
“I think he was ready for a break,” Costigan said. “I came in and took over for a period of time, and I think he wants another opportunity to run the court system at a time when it’s maybe a little bit more normal.”
The paperwork
The role of chief judge is largely administrative and attends to the needs of five counties, which may have different strengths, needs and challenges.
Costigan credits a team of individuals who help keep the courts in order but admits “it is a lot of paperwork.”
“To just make sure that the courts run smooth from day to day is a challenge in and of itself.”
Costigan said an ideal chief judge is an even keeled one. In his experience, the best way to address issues and conflicts was to address them immediately. He also credits the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council as a unique body facilitating communication between the courts, the jail and law enforcement.
Accomplishments
Costigan oversaw the implementation of cashless bail across the circuit’s five counties when the SAFE-T Act instituted sweeping criminal justice reform. Part of that legislation was the Pretrial Fairness Act, a law removing cash bail as a barrier to releasing defendants accused of nonviolent offenses while they await trial.
Instituting it was a “significant challenge,” Costigan said, and it came right at the beginning of his term as chief judge.
“It went very smooth,” he said. “Now, I understand that there’s a lot of people that disagree with the law.”
State Rep. Denis Tipsword is one of them. The presumptive new Woodford County sheriff opted to leave the statehouse for an unchallenged run to become the county’s top law enforcement officer. He along with McLean County Sheriff Matt Lane have been critical of the law, wishing it would give law enforcement and judges more agency to decide which defendants are a risk to society as they await trial.
“The courts take no position on that,” Costigan said. “It was a law that we needed to implement and a transition for a significant change in the court system.”
Judge Amy McFarland has borne the brunt of that change in McLean County. She presides over pretrial detention hearings each afternoon.
“It’s a very difficult docket,” Costigan said. “There are times to where the legislature has said the judge or the state will have no discretion in terms of detention. That might be a situation to where the public would look at a set of facts and circumstances and say, ‘This person needs to be detained.’ …They may not have the opportunity to detain or even consider it.”
Costigan said he misses presiding over major felony cases, which he stepped back from to accommodate the responsibilities that come with being chief judge. He was on the bench during some of McLean County’s high-profile cases over a decade of his career, including a 2018 triple homicide and a 2021 murder trial held without the defendant.
Costigan’s primary passion, however, has been in the juvenile court system. He presides over McLean County’s juvenile delinquency docket and serves as chair of the Juvenile Courts Committee. What excites him most about juvenile defendants is their capacity to change.
“The goal of the juvenile justice system is rehabilitation,” he said. “It’s not a punitive system.”
Costigan points to the strength of diversion programs offered through the county’s probation department.
“If we can get these individuals in the probation department and they engage with our probation officers, there is a good chance we’re not going to see them back in court,” he said.
It doesn’t always work, Costigan said, with teenagers who have “a mind of their own.”
Costigan said they keep trying, even with those who ultimately end up serving prison time.
“The Department of Juvenile Justice is even making change,” he said.
The year-old Monarch Youth Center in Lincoln, Costigan said, is leading the way by instituting a trauma-informed approach to juvenile corrections.
“They hold them accountable, and there’s also therapeutic aspects to it as well, which I think’s a good idea.”
WGLT recently toured Monarch and will have a report from inside the youth prison later this week.
