Justice Alan Greiman has spent 16 years changing the culture of the Appellate Court, and feels that has been his greatest accomplishment on the bench.
Greiman, a Chicago native, is chief judge of the Appellate Court, a title he has held for the past 11 years. He is up for re-election for the Burke vacancy. Greiman has been a judge since 1987, and has served on the Appellate Court since 1991.
He also served in the Illinois General Assembly as a representative from 1974 to 1987, where he was Assistant Majority Leader. There, he co-sponsored the first gay rights bill, which would not be passed until 29 years later.
Windy City Times: What do you believe you have been bringing to the bench, and can continue bring, that your opponents can't?
Alan Greiman: I've spent the last 11 years of my 16 years on this bench as a chief judge. During that time, I changed the culture of the court. When I came here, it was, 'When are you going to get your decision out? Oh, whenever.' I said, no, that can't be. We have to have it in a timely way. We now conform with all of the rules that the organizations that monitor us accept. For example, when I came in, the average inventory was 40 cases, and now its 22 cases.
The next thing I did is when judges come here, nobody knows anything about the appellate court. They just don't. So, I set up an education program for new judges, a training program for new judges.
The next thing I did—I had to battle the Supreme Court, but I got to do it—is set up a settlement program to try to save people the litigation costs to settle the cases before they get too far along in the appeal. In the Circuit Court, when you try a case, there are discoveries, depositions, all of that junk. The lawyers see each other all the time and talk to each other, so eventually say, 'Hey, let's settle this.' In the appellate court, nobody ever sees each other, and it's all done by mail and filing, which is why I set up the settlement program.
Those are strong changes in the culture of this court that I have brought about. I'm not knocking my opponents—they are probably decent people—but that's what I've done, what has been my contribution.
I've done a lot in the court in terms of providing leadership, which I'd like to continue to do.
WCT: What are some other ways the culture of the court needs to continue to change that you'd like to work on?
AG: Well, we do a pretty good job now. We dispose of 5,000 cases a year. About 3,800 or so are by opinion, and we're doing them in a quick way. One thing I'd like to work on is we used to do a lot of oral arguments. Over the years, for reasons that I can't even figure out, we stopped having a lot of oral arguments. … As an example, in 2006 we had about 200 oral arguments and now we've had about 600 oral arguments. I've been pushing for more and more oral arguments. That's important because people have a good feeling about that when they do it. It doesn't necessarily make a big difference, but they are able to express themselves in a legal way.
WCT: What do you think you're biggest accomplishment has been so far? Has it been changing the culture of the court?
AG: Yes, I think so. I've had some serious, important cases, as well that I've ruled on. But changing the culture of the court is my greatest achievement here.
WCT: How would you describe your personal style?
AG: I always believe in the right that everybody should talk and be able to express themselves. … It's a matter of getting stuff out and listening. Also, I ask a lot of questions. That screws them up a little bit, but that sort of thing is critical to continue. Also, to have a demeanor where you are training each other about respect—that's very important. But the other thing, of course, is getting along with your colleagues. … We have three of us for every case. Every single cases has three of us [ judges ] , so it's getting along with your colleagues in a congenial way in order to get the work done in a proper way. And obviously, they've re-elected me 11 times, so I think I'm doing okay.
WCT: You've seen a lot over the years. What do you think are some legal issues that continue to impact the gay and lesbian community the most?
AG: Clearly, civil unions are, at this moment, the most critical. I have no problems with marriage, either, except I think the lobbyists of the gay community should probably work on civil unions because they could probably get that in. The other one [ marriage ] is harder to get in the legislature. I think civil unions are doable and will basically do the work for couples that want to have all the rights of married people. I think that's the most critical issue facing the gay and lesbian community.
Clearly, there are prejudices that still exist. There was a case we had where a man and woman got divorced, and she had custody of the child and she's living with another woman. The father wanted custody of the child because of that, and the most homophobic judge and person I've ever come across … was crazed, and he took the kid away. It comes to us on appeal, and we're hearing the case. Normally, when we hear a case, we say that the case we take is under advisement. You know, months later, maybe four months later an opinion comes out of it. I said, guys, what a second. We went back, made the lawyers stay, and I said to my guys, what we should do here is give an order that custody has changed immediately, and then we'll have opinion to follow. And we did that, right there, 1-2-3, in the appellate court. It was the first and only time we had an oral argument and immediately entered an order to give custody back to the mother.
I was in the General Assembly for 14 years, and I was the principal sponsor of the first gay-rights bill. When we filed it, we got through committee and now we were on the floor of the House, and the guys are saying, 'You have a conflict of interest in this bill, don't you?' That's what they said. It took 29 years to pass the bill, and I went to the signing of it last year.
WCT: I bet it was amazing to see.
AG: Well, what was amazing was there were some of the guys who would make fun of us, who were there now at the signing, going on about how this is God's work, and we're doing the right thing. Where were those guys when they made fun of us? I think that tells a story about how much of the views of people about the gay and lesbian community has changed. You have the vice president of the United States saying his daughter is gay, you know? Alderman [ Dick ] Mell stands by his daughter, who is gay. She's not ostracized; her family stands by her. That's now the way it is. I think there is more inner familial acceptance, as well as acceptance by society. We still have plenty of homophobia, though. … But the culture has changed to a good degree.
I'm proud to have been one of the sponsors of the original gay rights bill.
WCT: Speaking of being a state representative, why did you decide to leave, and did you like it more than being a judge?
AG: I liked what I was doing, which was majority leader of the Illinois House. I was Madigan's hammer [ laughs ] , sort of. I had done a lot of good stuff, pass a lot of bills, and. here was the opportunity to become a judge. Sometimes you want to change your life a little bit, so that's what I did. I still enjoy hearing about it. I'm chairman of the Legislation Committee of the Supreme Court, so I get involved a little bit with legislation now. What we do is look at all the legislation that is pending to see what bills may violate the separation of powers. So, I'm still involved a little bit. But it was just time to move on.
WCT: Do you think judges still have the ability to change things and change people's lives, just in a different kind of way?
AG: Yes, they, of course, change people lives, but the critical thing is that they follow the law. I'll tell you the story of a case that has plagued me mentally for a long time. People will ask me what has been my best case? My best case is my worst case. It was a 17-year-old kid, a Black, inner-city kid. He played on the basketball team, wants to go to college, survived a druggy mother. He's a good kid, okay? He's walking to school and some guy says, 'Hey, want to buy a firecracker?' It's a big one. He says okay and buys it. He and some other kids light it and put it in a locker in school. Bang, it goes off. It pulled the locker a little bit away from the wall, … put a mark on the wall, a little twist of metal—that's it. They charge him with aggravated arson. Aggravated arson has a mandatory sentence of seven years, and they find him guilty of it and convict him.
Now, the case comes to me on appeal. Did he do that? Is he technically guilty of aggravated arson? He exploded a material in a building where people were occupying. On the other hand, we have to do justice. I wrote the worst opinion of my life about whether he had intent, and he went free. I reversed it. That story is how bad mandatory sentencing without a judge's discretion is. If a judge had had discretion, a judge could say,'He's guilty, but let's put him on probation.' And the other thing that was in my mind was that if he lived in … Flossmoor or Oak Brook, Daddy would have come in the next day with a lawyer, written a check for $500 to fix the locker and the kid would have been put on probation for a month. I look at it this way: Maybe I didn't quite follow the law, but I did justice, and that's important.
WCT: What do you think your main advantage is?
AG: Just that legal experience counts. I have the experience, I know what I'm doing and I've done the job for 16 years—11 of those years as chief—and I'd like to continue both of those jobs.
