Justice Delayed is Justice Denied

I became a judge in December 1974. A few days later, all the newly minted judges throughout the state were summoned to attend a new judge’s seminar run by the Hon. Roy O. Gulley.

We were there to learn how to be judges. Gulley had been elected as a circuit judge in 1957, and appointed by the Illinois Supreme Court in 1968 as the court’s administrative director.

Judge Gulley told us in no uncertain terms that a judge had administrative as well as judicial duties. He cited Illinois appellate and Supreme Court cases which told us being a judge meant more than “sitting on the bench and looking like a wise old owl.”

We were not to “sit in our black robes” looking like “alabaster busts of our grandsires.” A judge was not a “mere referee,” he was the “governor of the trial.” In unequivocal words, he told us that we had an non-delegable duty to see that cases moved in a timely fashion to completion.

Cases should be continued only for reasons unforeseeable at the time they were set. “Justice delayed, is justice denied.”

Judge Gulley’s remarks made sense, I had no doubts that what he told us was right. My earlier experiences in the state’s attorney’s office confirmed that he was.


When I came into the prosecutor’s office in September of 1966, none of the judges were doing what Gulley said we needed to do. When a defendant was arrested pursuant to a grand jury indictment, at his arraignment the judge entered of plea of “Not Guilty” for him and ordered, motions to be filed within 10 days. There, judicial administration ended.

Once the judge said, “Motions to be filed within 10 days,” the judge seemingly divested himself of his administrative duty to see that the case moved forward in a timely fashion. That was left to the state’s attorney.

The big problem was that with no judge pushing the case for trial, once the defendant made bond, in most instances the defendant didn’t care if the case ever got tried! Without the court setting a trial date, that was left to the state’s attorney.

But as prosecutors, we had a tendency to want to try the good cases, and to let the “dogs” lie. But once the state’s attorney set the case for trial, defense counsel, whose client was on bond, would then begin filing a blizzard of motions.

A week before the trial date set by the state’s attorney, the defendant would finally file his motion for discovery, and a motion for a bill of particulars. The trial would be continued until the motions were heard, allowed and complied with.

The state’s attorney would then set a new trial date. Then just before the second trial date, defense counsel would file a motion to suppress the defendant’s confession. The trial would again be continued, the motion heard, and, if denied, the state’s attorney would eventually get around to setting another new trial date.

Then, just before the third trial date, defense counsel would file a motion to suppress the evidence as illegally seized. The trial would again be continued, the motion heard, and if denied, the state’s attorney would eventually get around to setting a third trial date.

To get additional continuances, the defense attorney could trot out motions to suppress the eye-witness identification, and motions to continue — because his Aunt Matilda died, or his dog had been run over by a car.

The result was a case that should have been disposed of in 60 to 90 days, took six months or a year.


When I set up our criminal division, I took over the scheduling for my court. I kept my own scheduling book. When the attorneys wanted to set a hearing, they came to me, told me why they wanted time, and how much time they thought they’d need.

They would often suggest a short date when they were both available. Once we set a case, it was continued only for something that came up that couldn’t have been foreseen at the time the matter was set.

Over the years, we got very good at estimating how long a hearing would take. The most common reason for a motion hearing going off was because the defendant decided to plead guilty instead. Firm settings move cases.


Judge Gulley nailed it.


Posted: QCOline.com   January 10, 2019
Copyright 2019, John Donald O'Shea