What the Record Establishes

  • Two written communications from the clerk’s office on the evening of June 8, 2026 closed the email route and directed him to counsel.
  • The Public Defender stated in writing on June 15 that it did not represent him and that the clerk was incorrect.
  • On June 17 the circuit court discharged the Public Defender nunc pro tunc to October 6, 2025 — eight months before the June 8 exchange.

What They Have Not Produced

  • The written policy or administrative order behind “we don’t accept filings via email.”
  • The system record the office relied on when it stated he was represented.
  • Whether any administrative mechanism existed to be heard on the June 9 call. The question was asked at 9:32 p.m. and never answered.

The State’s federal brief tells a United States District Judge that this man had three ways to reach an Illinois court: email was never one of them, in-person filing was available, and mail worked fine. Here is what the State’s own exhibits show happened on the night he tried.

6:48 p.m. — the first door

Court services replied that the matter could not be added to the June 9 call because the office did not have the original motion and because “the motion must be filed by your attorney.” The message directed him to contact the Public Defender.

7:08 p.m. — he says he has no attorney

He answered within twenty minutes, asserted he was proceeding without counsel, and copied the prosecuting assistant state’s attorney and the public defender so that nobody could later say the assertion was made in a corner.

8:48 p.m. — the second door

A department chief responded that “We here in the 19th Judicial Circuit don’t accept filings via email,” and stated that he was currently represented by the Public Defender’s Office. Two sentences: one closes a route, the other reasserts the premise he had just denied.

9:32 p.m. — the question nobody answered

He replied attaching a federal court order and asked whether any administrative mechanism existed by which he could be heard on the call the next morning. Nothing came back before the call. That is not a characterization. That is an interval with two timestamps around it.

June 15 — the premise collapses in writing

An Assistant Public Defender wrote that the office had not been reappointed, did not represent him, and — in the office’s own words — that “the clerk is incorrect in believing that we are the attorney of record.” One institution of Lake County told another institution of Lake County that its premise was wrong, in writing, and copied the man it was about.

June 17 — the court makes it retroactive

The circuit court entered an order discharging the Public Defender as attorney of record nunc pro tunc to October 6, 2025. That is eight months before the June 8 email. The State filed that order in federal court as its own Exhibit O, at PageID 746 — as an image, with no text layer, so it cannot be found by searching.

And the third route, which produced nothing at all

He also used certified mail. A shipping label transaction was created June 7 for certified article 9402611898765528934061, containing the paper copy of the omnibus, addressed to the Clerk of the Circuit Court at 18 N. County Street in Waukegan. He deposited it June 8. USPS shows possession in Harwood Heights at 10:00 a.m. that day, departure that evening, Carol Stream at 12:08 a.m. on June 9, and the Palatine distribution center at 7:55 a.m. on June 9. That is the last scan. Through August 8 — two months later — no delivery was recorded.

What the federal brief says about mail

That filing by mail “is not ineffective … for it allows a filer to both ‘meet statutory deadlines’ and obtain ‘confirmation by receipt.’” The archive publishes that sentence in full, and publishes the tracking record next to it, and says nothing further. It does not need to.

The federal record: Dkt. 51 through Dkt. 54, published whole.