'Tough chaotic day' at Chicago courthouse as cellphone ban, sans storage lockers, begins
Image from Shutterstock.
Updated: Originally, when a cellphone ban was imposed at Chicago’s main criminal courthouse three years ago, due to security concerns, defendants and others affected by the rule were allowed to put their electronic devices in storage lockers.
But then oversight of the storage lockers proved burdensome and those in charge said contraband was being put there along with cellphones. So, as of Monday, weeks after the plan made headlines, the rule against cellphones at the Leighton Criminal Court Building remained in place but the storage lockers didn’t.
Some, of course, didn’t get the memo about the new cellphone scenario. The result was “a tough, chaotic day,” a Cook County sheriff’s office spokesman told CBS Chicago.
While those who drove to the courthouse could return to their vehicles to store their electronic devices, many visitors take mass transit and “there are several people who’ve taken the train and two buses to get here,” said spokesman Ben Breit.
Among those not only inconvenienced but forced to choose between losing a cellphone and, in a worst-case scenario, potentially being jailed for failing to appear in court on time, was Keith Hickman.
After taking a train and two buses to get to the 26th and California facility from his home in the Chicago suburb of Calumet City, he paced outside the courthouse for 90 minutes hoping his lawyer could convince the judge in his burglary case that he wasn’t a no-show, the Chicago Tribune (reg. req.) reports.
“This is ridiculous,” Hickman told the newspaper. “When I leave here, I have to go to work, so I need my phone. I’ve got a family, I’ve got a life. … When I come here, I expect to be treated like a human being.”
The next week, the storage lockers were returned, but in a new location.
Related coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “What’s a court visitor to do with a banned cellphone? Storage lockers are being eliminated”
Updated on April 11 to include news that cellphone storage lockers are again available to court visitors.
