Rob Warden papers, 1972-1989

Processed with funding provided by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.

Box 8, which contains judicial information with social security numbers, is closed until 2025.

All rights owned by the donor, including copyright, were deeded to Chicago Historical Society. Copyright may be retained by the creators of items, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law, unless otherwise noted.

Materials were a gift of Northwestern University (accession #: 2010.0035).

Rob Warden papers (Chicago History Museum) plus a detailed description, date, and box/folder number of a specific item.

Court documents, crime reports, judicial surveys, correspondence, newspaper clippings; statistics on judges, race, and the death penalty; research files, and other papers of Rob Warden, a legal affairs journalist who served as the editor and publisher of the Chicago Lawyer monthly magazine during 1978-1989. Most of the collection relates to Warden's research on injustice in murder investigations and trials that resulted in death sentences, as well as research on judges and on prosecutorial misconduct in the state of Illinois. Also present are personal correspondence and other materials relating to death row inmates such as John Wayne Gacy, Cornelius Lewis, Charles Washington; and materials on Cook County State's Attorney Bernard Carey.

This collection relates to Warden's research prior to co-founding the Center on Wrongful Convictions, part of the Bluhm Legal Clinic at Northwestern University School of Law.

Rob Warden (b. 1940), a Chicago legal affairs journalist and author, served as the editor and publisher of the Chicago Lawyer magazine during 1978-1989. Dedicated to exposing the injustices of the legal system, Warden co-founded the Center on Wrongful Convictions in 1999, part of the Bluhm Legal Clinic at Northwestern University School of Law. Throughout his journalism career, Warden has been a strong critic of the death penalty.

• Names
  • Warden, Rob--Archives
  • Bernard Carey
  • Gacy, John Wayne--Trials, litigation, etc.
  • Lewis, Cornelius--Trials, litigation, etc.
  • Washington, Charles--Trials, litigation, etc.
  • American Civil Liberties Union
  • Chicago Bar Association
  • Chicago Council of Lawyers
  • Cook County (Ill.)--State's Attorney's Office
  • Illinois Coalition Against the Death Penalty
• Subject
  • Actions and defenses--Illinois--20th century
  • Capital punishment--Illinois--20th century
  • Capital punishment--United States--20th century
  • Capital punishment--United States--History--Statistics
  • Criminals--United States--20th century
  • Death row inmates--Illinois--20th century
  • Death row inmates--United States--20th century
  • Defense (Criminal procedure)--Illinois--Chicago--20th century
  • Investigative reporting--Illinois--Chicago--20th century
  • Judges--Illinois--Chicago--20th century
  • Journalists--Illinois--Chicago--20th century
  • Judicial error--Illinois--Chicago--20th century
  • Lawyers--Illinois--Chicago--20th century
  • Prosecution--United States--20th century
  • Prosecutorial misconduct--Illinois--20th century
  • Race and crime--United States--History--Statistics
• Geographic CoverageChicago (Ill.)--Social conditions--20th century

The collection is arranged in four series.

Series 1. Death row hearings files, 1979-1989 (box 1-3)

Series 1 consists of court documents, crime reports, criminal codes, correspondence, newspaper clippings, and other papers relating to specific death row hearings including the hearings of John Wayne Gacy, Cornelius Lewis, and Charles Washington; and materials re. prosecutor Bernard Carey. The materials are arranged alphabetically by last name of the defendant.

Series 2. Prosecutorial misconduct files, 1979-1987 (box 3-4)

Series 2 contains documentation of prosecutorial misconduct in trials throughout Illinois including trial summaries from various Illinois counties with handwritten notes, Lexis-Nexis files with handwritten notes, and a chart summarizing types of prosecutorial misconduct in specific hearings. Also present are materials published by the American Civil Liberties Union.

Series 3. Judicial files 1972-1989 (box 4-7, 8)

Series 3 consists of information on Illinois judges including biographies, resumes, biographical summaries and data, including headshot photographs, as well as judicial questionnaires from Chicago Lawyer magazine where Warden was the editor and publisher from 1978-1989. Also included are the Chicago Council of Lawyers questionnaires for judge candidates, newspaper clippings, correspondence, Chicago Bar Association committees' judicial candidate evaluations, and surveys for sitting judges. The materials are arranged alphabetically by last name of the judge.

Box 8, which contains judicial information with social security numbers, is closed until 2025.

Series 4. General materials 1972-1989 (box 7)

Series 4 contains correspondence between Rob Warden and various attorneys requesting information regarding murder cases on the basis of the Freedom of Information Act, reports from the Chicago Council of Lawyers on judicial elections, and bulletins from the Illinois Coalition Against the Death Penalty. Also present is documentation on the relationship between race and the probability of a death sentence, statistics on the racial make-up and sentencing of death row inmates from 1977-1987, and publications advocating opposition to the death penalty.