How a Pro Se Won Justice
Joyce Hutchens
Author Bio
Joyce Hutchens has served in education for over 20 years. She is a National Board Certified Teacher in secondary English/language Arts and holds multiple Illinois high school and middle school teaching certifications. She has received numerous awards for her excellence in teaching.
Hutchens also has enjoyed a successful career in the private sector where she worked in various administrative and management capacities.
Between 1999 and 2002, Hutchens owned her own training and consulting firm, JDH Training & Communications Group. Because of the “perseverance, commitment, creativity and unequaled strength she demonstrated in expanding her business and helping others succeed,” Hutchens received the Entrepreneurial Woman of the Year Award from the Women’s Business Development Center of Chicago and was inducted into the organization’s Hall of Fame in 2000.
A native Chicagoan, Hutchens holds master’s degrees in education and journalism from Roosevelt University and a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Columbia College Chicago.
Description
How a Pro Se Won Justice is the remarkable story of one woman’s disturbing but valiant eight-year legal fight against a clout-heavy school district. It is corroborated by court records and other legal instruments. It also contains a link to the parties’ oral argument, the names of all key players, and includes excerpts from court hearings, deposition transcripts, district and appellate court briefs, letters, memos, emails and the Seventh Circuit’s entire opinion, which was written by Judge Richard Posner.
This memoir is a must-read for every pro se litigant, educator, legal professional, law school student, indeed, every American taxpayer, as it addresses significant issues related to ethics and the professional practice, conduct and behavior of public servants and those who serve in the legal arena. What occurs during the entire eight-year period shocks the conscience.
Joyce Hutchens, a veteran and highly accomplished English, journalism, and business teacher at one of Chicago’s leading public high schools, leaves the classroom to become president of a training and consulting firm before returning to education three years later—this time at Consuella B. York Alternative High School, located in the Cook County Jail.
After the principal retires and is replaced by the assistant principal, Hutchens is unjustly targeted and disciplined. She transfers to the school district’s Professional Development Unit, and one year later, she and every other black employee in her department are laid off. Within one week, a white staff person assumes her former position.
Alleging race discrimination and hoping for justice, Hutchens files a federal lawsuit against the Chicago Board of Education. But after several long years of court delays, and despite Hutchens’ evidence which supports her claims of discrimination and proves the testimonies of the defendants and their witnesses are fabricated, the judge assigned to her case excludes her evidence in his court opinion and rules against her—twice.
With no money, no legal training, and abandoned by two attorneys, Hutchens proceeds pro seand appeals the judge’s ruling, writing her own appellate briefs and engaging in an oral argument against the Chicago Board of Education’s attorney.
Hutchens describes step-by-step how she wrote her two appellant briefs, prepared for and presented her oral argument, and won the appeals court’s unanimous decision reversal of the district court’s decision in her federal lawsuit without a lawyer.
Book excerpt
It’s inconceivable that lies can sully the names, character, and reputations
of people, destroy the careers they spent a lifetime planning and building, and
ultimately ruin their lives. But that’s precisely what happened, and resulted in
eight consecutive years of legal proceedings between my former employer, the
Chicago Board of Education, (“the Board”) and me. What began as lies from
the mouth of a mentally disturbed Cook County Jail inmate, snowballed into
multiple legal proceedings, including a union grievance and state and federal
complaints against my former principal, a lawsuit against a correctional officer
after more lies were told, and two lawsuits against the Chicago Board of
Education during which deposition testimony was fabricated almost in its
entirety.
Although Hutchens v. Chicago Board of Education did not include a last-minute
stay of execution for a death row inmate, the impact and outcome of my federal
appeal were the same: With God, US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
Judges Richard Allen Posner, John Daniel Tinder, and Michael Stephen Kanne
saved me from my own death row. They literally saved my life. I thank each of
them for carefully examining the evidence I presented to the court, allowing
my voice to be heard, shunning Chicago’s infamous politics, fairly applying the
law when reversing US Northern District of Illinois Court Judge Edmond E.
Chang’s July 3, 2012 decision, and rendering their opinion expeditiously.
Although the entire litigation process was the most stressful and excruciatingly
painful period of my life, it showed me how strong, how determined,
how resourceful, how resilient, and how fearless I am.
My friends, family, and other supporters repeatedly asked me during
those eight horrific years, “Tell the world what happened to you;
tell the world what they did to you.” Initially, I refused to consider their
requests—never thinking I ever would want to put pen to paper and relive
this unbelievable and unimaginable nightmare. However, the pain and
trauma those eight years caused me was so real, so raw, and so unfathomable,
I had to tell this story because I do not want a another person to endure
the injustices I did—ever!
Taxpayers deserve to know the entire story behind my eight years of legal proceedings
against those whose salaries they pay, and not just what was published in
the March 24, 2015 opinion of the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
Author Website
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