Thomas R. Fitzgerald
Encyclopedia
Thomas R. Fitzgerald is the former chief justice of the Illinois Supreme Court.

Biography

Born in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, Fitzgerald attended Loyola University Chicago
Loyola University Chicago
Loyola University Chicago is a private Jesuit research university located in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded by the Society of Jesus in 1870 under the title St...

 before enlisting in the United States Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

. Following his tour of duty in the Navy, he graduated with honors from The John Marshall Law School
John Marshall Law School (Chicago)
The John Marshall Law School is a law school in Chicago, Illinois, that was founded in 1899 and accredited by the American Bar Association in 1941. The school was named for the influential nineteenth century U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall....

, where he was a founder of the school's current law review
Law review
A law review is a scholarly journal focusing on legal issues, normally published by an organization of students at a law school or through a bar association...

 and served as its associate editor.

The son of a circuit court judge, Fitzgerald began his own career in the law
Law
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...

 as a prosecutor
Prosecutor
The prosecutor is the chief legal representative of the prosecution in countries with either the common law adversarial system, or the civil law inquisitorial system...

 in the Cook County
Cook County, Illinois
Cook County is a county in the U.S. state of Illinois, with its county seat in Chicago. It is the second most populous county in the United States after Los Angeles County. The county has 5,194,675 residents, which is 40.5 percent of all Illinois residents. Cook County's population is larger than...

 State's Attorney's Office. When first elected to the bench in 1976, he was the youngest Cook County judge. He served as a trial judge
Judge
A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as part of a panel of judges. The powers, functions, method of appointment, discipline, and training of judges vary widely across different jurisdictions. The judge is supposed to conduct the trial impartially and in an open...

 in the Criminal Court from 1976 to 1987 when he was assigned Supervising Judge of Traffic Court
Traffic court
Traffic court is a term that refers to a municipality's specialized judicial process for handling traffic ticket cases. In the United States, a person who is given a citation by a police officer can either plead guilty and pay the indicated fine directly to the court house, by mail, or in some...

. In 1989 he returned to the Criminal Division as Presiding judge. He was also appointed to serve as presiding judge of Illinois's first statewide Grand Jury
Grand jury
A grand jury is a type of jury that determines whether a criminal indictment will issue. Currently, only the United States retains grand juries, although some other common law jurisdictions formerly employed them, and most other jurisdictions employ some other type of preliminary hearing...

. He was elected to the Supreme Court of Illinois
Supreme Court of Illinois
The Supreme Court of Illinois is the state supreme court of Illinois. The court's authority is granted in Article VI of the current Illinois Constitution, which provides for seven justices elected from the five appellate judicial districts of the state: Three justices from the First District and...

 for the First District in 2000.

Fitzgerald has been awarded the Outstanding Judicial Performance Award by the Chicago Crime Commission
Chicago Crime Commission
The Chicago Crime Commission is an independent, non-partisan civic watchdog organization of business leaders dedicated to educating the public about the dangers of organized criminal activity, especially organized crime, street gangs and the tools of their trade: drugs, guns, public corruption,...

 and honored as Celtic Man of the Year by the Celtic Legal Society. He received the Herman Kogan
Herman Kogan
Herman Kogan spent fifty years covering Chicago, many with the Chicago Sun-Times. He is the author of Yesterday's Chicago Herman Kogan (November 6, 1914 - March 8, 1989) spent fifty years covering Chicago, many with the Chicago Sun-Times. He is the author of Yesterday's Chicago Herman Kogan...

 Media Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism
Broadcast journalism
Broadcast journalism is the field of news and journals which are "broadcast", that is, published by electrical methods, instead of the older methods, such as printed newspapers and posters. Broadcast methods include radio , television , and, especially recently, the Internet generally...

. The Lawyers' Assistance Program honored him in 2000 with the Hon. John Powers Crowley
John Powers Crowley
John Powers Crowley is a former United States federal judge.Born in Chicago, Illinois, Crowley received an LL.B. from De Paul University College of Law in 1960 and an LL.M. from New York University School of Law in 1961. He was an assistant U.S. Attorney of the Northern District of Illinois from...

 Award. He is the 2001 recipient of the John Marshall Law School Freedom Award. In 2003, Fitzgerald was awarded the Joel Flaum Award by the Chicago Inn of Court and the Chicago-Kent College of Law
Chicago-Kent College of Law
Chicago–Kent College of Law, the law school affiliated with Illinois Institute of Technology, is nationally recognized for the scholarship and accomplishments of its faculty and student body. It is the second oldest law school in the state of Illinois. Many of the applications of technology in the...

 Professional Achievement Award. In 2005, Fitzgerald was named Catholic Lawyer of the Year by the Catholic Lawyers Guild of Chicago. He is a member of the Leo High School Hall of Fame.

As a law professor, Fitzgerald has taught at The John Marshall Law School
John Marshall Law School (Chicago)
The John Marshall Law School is a law school in Chicago, Illinois, that was founded in 1899 and accredited by the American Bar Association in 1941. The school was named for the influential nineteenth century U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall....

 and Chicago-Kent College of Law
Chicago-Kent College of Law
Chicago–Kent College of Law, the law school affiliated with Illinois Institute of Technology, is nationally recognized for the scholarship and accomplishments of its faculty and student body. It is the second oldest law school in the state of Illinois. Many of the applications of technology in the...

, where he was assistant coordinator of the trial advocacy program from 1986 to 1996. He also has taught at the Einstein Institute for Science, Health and the Courts.

Fitzgerald has served as president of the Illinois Judges' Association, chair of the Illinois Supreme Court Special Committee on Capital Cases, member of the Governor's Task Force on Crime and Corrections, chairman of several committees of the Illinois Judicial Conference, member of the Chicago Bar Association
Chicago Bar Association
Founded in 1874, the Chicago Bar Association is a voluntary bar association with over 20,000 members. Like other bar associations, it concerns itself with professional ethics, networking among members, and continuing legal education. It is located adjacent to the John Marshall Law School in the...

's Board of Managers and past chairman of the Chicago Bar Association's committees on constitutional law and long-range planning.

He was elected Chief Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court on May 19, 2008.

On January 26, 2009, he became the first Illinois Chief Justice to preside over the impeachment trial of a sitting Governor, as he opened proceedings in the impeachment
Rod Blagojevich controversies
A number of controversies related to Rod Blagojevich, formerly the Governor of Illinois, were covered in the press during and after his administration. In addition to a reputation for secrecy that was noted by the Associated Press, Blagojevich was the subject of political, legal, and personal...

 trial of Governor Rod Blagojevich
Rod Blagojevich
Rod R. Blagojevich is an American politician who served as the 40th Governor of Illinois from 2003 to 2009. A Democrat, Blagojevich was a State Representative before being elected to the United States House of Representatives representing parts of Chicago...

.

Justice Fitzgerald will retire in October, 2010. He announced this on September 13, 2010, citing a recent diagnosis of Parkinson's Disease.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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