Daniel Epstein
Daniel Epstein

Name: Daniel Epstein

Age (as of Election Day): 34

Residence: Evanston

Current position: Campaigning full-time

Past legal experience: Attorney, Jenner & Block, 2015-19; judicial extern, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, 2013

Campaign funds available, July 1 to Dec. 31: $412,757.77

Campaign funds spent, July 1 to Dec. 31: $210,545.70

Law school: University of Chicago Law School, 2015

Campaign website: epsteinforsupremecourt.com

Family: In a relationship

Hobbies/interests: Building things

Have you ever run for office before?

No.

Why should voters support your candidacy?

I’m the only candidate talking about how to change the system. I’m the only progressive in the race. I’m the only one with a platform — not the only candidate with a good platform, but the only one with a platform, period. I’m the only one talking specifically about what we can do to change our rules of procedures, rules of evidence, rules of ethics, in order to prevent bias in the courts, in order to prevent corruption in our courts.

If you’re someone who is concerned that our courts are entitled to extra funds if they convict, I’m the only one talking about how to fix that. If you’re concerned that we’re vulnerable to judicial corruption — and, by the way, we have a history of it — I’m the only one talking about how to fix it. If you’re concerned about mass incarceration and bias in jury selection — and I wish it weren’t the case that I’m the only one — but I’m the only one talking about it.

But, the good news is, there are ways that we can fix it. So, if you’re someone who wants to walk the walk of criminal justice reform, if you want to end wealth bias, if you want to improve access to justice, I have great ideas for how to do it, and I’m happy to talk about making that true.

Why do you want to be a judge?

I want to help our courts find truth. I want to help our courts restore. I think, right now, they are not designed to find truth. I think we are paying a massive human cost as a result. I think the Illinois Supreme Court is the only entity that can fix it; and unfortunately, I am the only one out here talking about it, and I want to change that.

What was the most interesting case you handled as a lawyer?

I had just finished this case in the Supreme Court of the United States, where we got a man released who was convicted of murder in Markham in 1999; and it was a bench trial, and the judge found him guilty based on no evidence. It took us 17 years to get him out.

That’s not the case. I had just come back from that to defend a guy accused of attempt[ed] murder in Cook County at 26th and California. DNA was an issue in the case. My job was to learn everything I could about DNA and mount his defense on that issue.

So, I just start reading textbooks, articles — we hire a forensic scientist to help me understand the issues and understand the analysis, and I interviewed the state’s DNA analyst.

What I find out is that he is using a faulty DNA machine. Big problem for my client. Big problem for who knows how many other people who were processed by the same machine. But, I thought: We’ll go to trial. I’ll put that DNA analyst on the witness stand. I’ll cross-examine him, and we’ll shine a light on it. It’ll become part of the public record. They’ll have to re-train the analysts. They’ll have to fix the machine.

I became a lawyer to make the world a better place one case at a time. That’s how it’s supposed to work, right?

Then, I find out that the forensic lab is entitled to extra funds if they produce an analysis in a case if it ends in conviction. I do a little bit more research, and I find out that, in Illinois, our courts are entitled to extra funds if they convict.

So, I have a man’s life in my hands; the state is trying to use a bad DNA analysis to help convict him, and the court that I’m about to go in front of is entitled to extra funds if they convict. And the forensic lab is entitled to extra funds if he’s convicted. Big problem.

But, we’re going to go to trial. I’ll expose that, too. The funding of the forensic lab bears on the credibility of the DNA analyst I’ll impeach. I’ll cross-examine. We’ll shine a light on it; it’ll get fixed. That’s how it’s supposed to work.

That’s not how it worked.

What actually happened was, we went back in the judge’s chambers under something called Illinois Supreme Court Rule 402. In a [Rule] 402 conference, it’s like a preview of the trial. The state says, “Judge, this is what we’re going to show at trial.” And we say, “Judge, this is what we’re going to show at trial.” And the judge thinks about it and says, “Based on what you told me, if I were to convict, I think an appropriate sentence would be 70-something years.”

Then, you back out into the hall, and the prosecutor pulls you to the side and says, “Alright, you’ve heard the man: 70-something years. But, if you plead guilty, I’ll ask for 20-something.”

So, my client has to decide: “Do I assert my constitutional right to a trial and risk losing and dying in prison, or do I take the plea?” He takes the plea, and that ends the case.

What that means is, I don’t get to put the DNA analyst on the witness stand. I don’t get to cross-examine him. I don’t get to expose the bad DNA machine. I don’t get to expose the systemic funding issues. All that information disappears.

I wondered, how common is that? In Illinois in 2017, 97.4 percent of all felony convictions were guilty pleas. That’s a ton of disappearing information.

But it solved the puzzle for me, which is this: How does [Jon Burge] do it for 20 years? I understand how somebody gets away with something once or twice. But, how does an officer of the law electrocute people and torture people and help falsely convict people and get away with it for 20 years? Just, functionally, how does that work?

This is how it works. You can’t expose patterns of misconduct if nothing makes the record. What I realized was that, while I was doing that case, I was doing these civil cases. I realized that, if this was a civil case, if money were on the line, all of it would have made the record because we have depositions in civil cases. We have interrogatories in civil cases. We have all these tools in civil cases for discovery when money is on the line. But, when a human life is on the line, none of it.

We’re waiting for a trial that is destined to never happen. The Illinois Supreme Court writes the rules that makes that so. They can rewrite the rules the way that other states have already done.

So, I want to protect us from bad forensics. I want to protect us from serial police misconduct. I want to protect us from not even understanding how criminality works in the first place. The Illinois Supreme Court is the only entity that can do it in a way that is actually really unique.

The Illinois Supreme Court writes the rules of procedure, the rules of ethics. They also write things like design standards of courthouses, like the physical layout, procurement policy, attorney discipline, who gets to be a lawyer — stuff that has a huge impact on our experience with the court, access to justice for undocumented people, trans people, people with disabilities, people with caretakers.

The Supreme Court of the United States also writes the rules for how our federal courts work, but there’s a difference. The Supreme Court of the United States’ rule-making authority comes from Congress through the Rules Enabling Act. Which means, if you want a rule to change in our federal courts, you can ask your congressman to pass a law. And, if that law is in conflict with Supreme Court rules, Congress’ law wins.

In Illinois, it’s flipped. Our Illinois Supreme Court has interpreted our own Constitution to give it rule-making authority directly from the Constitution. Which means, if you go to your legislator and you say, “Hey, I want more expansive criminal discovery,” and they pass a law and it’s in conflict with the Illinois Supreme Court’s rules, the rule wins.

So, there are only seven people in the state who can change these things. And, in fact, this has played out in real life.

In Illinois — unlike many places — judges, when they convict you and sentence you, they don’t have to explain the reason behind the sentence. They can say, “Guilty. 25 years. Next case.” They don’t have to explain how they got 25 years.

You know how every good teacher says, “Show your work”? They don’t have to show their work. It’s a big problem for a couple reasons. One, judges make mistakes in sentencing. It’s an error-prone process. And if you can’t point to the problem, if you can’t point to the mistake, if they didn’t show their work so that you can reveal the error, it’s effectively impossible to get it reversed on appeal.

So, the legislature, in its wisdom, passed a law saying, “Judges, if you’re going to sentence someone to a felony, you need to provide something called a ‘statement of reasons.’ You either need to speak on the record or write on the record the reasoning behind your sentence.” Good idea.

The Illinois Supreme Court said no, no, no, you don’t get to fix this. Breach of separation of powers. Only we get to fix this — and, then, they didn’t fix it.

Truly, with respect to rule changes, the Illinois Supreme Court is the only entity that can make a lot of these. That’s really the case that I think is most interesting to me, because it got me into this in the first place, but it also kind of explains why I’m running for this office.

They are the only ones who can change the things that were hurting my clients and others.

What would you consider your greatest career accomplishment?

Our Supreme Court case, Duncan v. Owens — the one that I was mentioning that we helped get a man released after 17 years in prison without having received a fair trial. That’s pretty good.

What qualities do you plan to bring to the bench should you be elected?

An outsider’s perspective, intellect, creativity, integrity and an unflinching focus on systems and functional rights — not just rights that are written down on a page but may not be accessible, but rights that people actually experience. I try and focus really hard on people’s experience with the courts, not just what it’s supposed to be, but what it actually is.

I think that’s so important because, in many ways, the rights that are written on the page are not people’s experience with the courts. So, we have to change that.

We have to make it so that people with legal rights have the ability to access those legal rights and be remedied. We have to make sure that we’re not paving the way for pseudo-scientists to qualify as experts in our courtrooms and push us further away from truth. We have to make sure that justices with alleged conflicts of interests are not the ones responsible for telling us they have a conflict of interest.