Chief Judge Came Close To Shutting Chicago's Federal Court During Government Shutdown Last Fall
From the Chicago Tribune
U.S. District Chief Judge Ruben Castillo was less than three months into his tenure overseeing Chicago’s federal courts last year when the budget crisis in Washington forced him to draft a doomsday email that would have halted all trials at the busy downtown courthouse.
The federal government had been shut down for 17 days and Castillo had no more money to pay jurors, court-appointed attorneys or other costs of a trial. Officials in Washington had told him to give jurors IOUs for their service if necessary – something he refused to do.
“If the shutdown hadn’t ended exactly when it did, we were out of money,” Castillo recounted Wednesday in an interview with the Tribune about his first year in office. “If we had gotten to Day 18, I would have sent the email. I really thought at that point that they did not pay me enough to be the chief judge of this district.”
Speaking in his chambers on the 25th floor of the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse, Castillo said morale sank last summer as layoffs mounted – at one point the court staff was down 20 percent -- and those who remained had to take on increased workloads.
Read more in our daily News Update...
From the Chicago Tribune
U.S. District Chief Judge Ruben Castillo was less than three months into his tenure overseeing Chicago’s federal courts last year when the budget crisis in Washington forced him to draft a doomsday email that would have halted all trials at the busy downtown courthouse.
The federal government had been shut down for 17 days and Castillo had no more money to pay jurors, court-appointed attorneys or other costs of a trial. Officials in Washington had told him to give jurors IOUs for their service if necessary – something he refused to do.
“If the shutdown hadn’t ended exactly when it did, we were out of money,” Castillo recounted Wednesday in an interview with the Tribune about his first year in office. “If we had gotten to Day 18, I would have sent the email. I really thought at that point that they did not pay me enough to be the chief judge of this district.”
Speaking in his chambers on the 25th floor of the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse, Castillo said morale sank last summer as layoffs mounted – at one point the court staff was down 20 percent -- and those who remained had to take on increased workloads.
Read more in our daily News Update...