Between a Rock and a Hard Case

Courts for repeat offenders dispense tough, swift justice

The defendant, 33, stood accused of five rapes, with victims ranging from a teen-ager to a young mother walking with her children in Chicago's Lincoln Park to a 61-year-old woman. After a jury found him guilty of the one rape he was actually on trial for, Judge Robert Sklodowski pronounced him a "rape bomb, ready to explode at any time." Sklodowski handed down the maximum sentence: 60 years, 30 of which must be served before he can be paroled. Such stern penalties are rare from many judges, but they are standard procedure in three courtrooms on the fifth floor of a dingy gray stone building on Chicago's South Michigan Avenue. Its nickname: "the Rock."

With few exceptions, only the most hardened criminals end up at the Rock, which is more formally known as the Repeat Offender Team. To get there, a defendant generally must have been convicted of at least one felony and be charged either with a violent crime or with an offense, like armed robbery, where there is a threat of serious personal injury. There is never any shortage of candidates. Chief Criminal Judge Richard Fitzgerald, who oversees the program, estimates that 65% of the convicts in Illinois prisons are repeat offenders.

Robert Raymond, for example, is a convicted rapist who has spent most of the past 23 years behind bars. Last month he was at the Rock fighting rape and robbery charges and facing a possible sentence of as much as 74 years. Raymond, 45, knew the odds were against him: in 90% of the Rock's cases, the defendant either pleads guilty or is convicted, and prison sentences are dealt out 93% of the time. Says Judge Sylvester Close, one of Sklodowski's two colleagues at the Rock: "I'm no bleeding heart for any of these people who rob, rape or murder."

The Chicago program is one of a hundred or so set up across the U.S. in recent years in response to studies showing that a relatively few hard-core criminals are responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime. The first was New York City's major offense bureau (MOB) in The Bronx district attorney's office, which began in 1973. MOB'S success inspired the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA) to invest $30 million of federal money in 50 similar projects over a five-year period starting in 1975. Since then, 10,000 criminals who committed a total of 80,000 offenses have been sentenced under those projects to an average of 14 years in prison.

High conviction rates and long sentences are not the only features that set such programs apart; they are also swift. Cases in MOB move from arraignment to disposition in an average of 97 days, compared with around 400 days in the regular court system. One reason is the policy of assigning a prosecutor to each case for its duration instead of having it passed from one to another at various stages. Some programs, like Chicago's, act more quickly because the judges' case loads are lighter. Also important is their refusal to abide delays. Judge Thomas Fitzgerald, the third member of the Rock's troika, says he tries to limit continuances to 30 days, while judges elsewhere often allow 45 or 50 days.

Naturally, many defense attorneys have misgivings about this brand of judicial hardball. "I still think part of the presumption of innocence is taken away," says Chicago Lawyer Jack Rodgon. "Every time I get a case at the Rock, I say to myself, 'Oh God, here I go again.' " Nevertheless, Rodgon concedes that some of the defendants deserve their harsh sentences and says he can "live with" the court. Others are more critical. John Ackerman, dean of the National College of Criminal Defense Lawyers and Public Defenders in Houston, charges that repeat-offender programs are "just trying to hammer a whole lot harder; they're just storing [the prisoners]. That's just postponing the date they commit another offense." To the boosters of such programs, that is precisely the point. sb

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