Federal Court — IL
Northern District of Illinois
Federal Court Sentencing Patterns
Aggregate docket intelligence for the Northern District of Illinois compiled from verified federal court records. Judge caseload counts, criminal docket fractions, and sentencing departure rates — never a prediction about a specific defendant.
Generated June 19, 2026
District Aggregate
Total Dockets
344,389
indexed in corpus
Judges Indexed
79
with docket data
Avg Criminal Fraction
7.3%
across district judges
Booker Inflection
—
mean downward departure
Criminal fraction = criminal dockets ÷ total dockets per judge, averaged across the district. Booker inflection = mean downward-departure rate for judges in this district per USSC FY14-23. Aggregate frequencies only — not a prediction about any specific case.
Top Judges by Docket Volume
Judges ranked by total indexed docket count. Criminal fraction reflects the share of their docket classified as criminal (vs. civil).
| Judge | Total Dockets | Criminal Dockets | Criminal Fraction |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mary Rowland | 18,915 | 137 | 0.7% |
| Matthew Kennelly | 18,170 | 803 | 4.4% |
| Rebecca Pallmeyer | 11,857 | 769 | 6.5% |
| Charles Norgle | 10,646 | 1,167 | 11.0% |
| Harry Leinenweber | 9,490 | 741 | 7.8% |
| James Zagel | 9,287 | 918 | 9.9% |
| Elaine Bucklo | 9,194 | 718 | 7.8% |
| Robert Gettleman | 9,111 | 819 | 9.0% |
| Charles Kocoras | 8,782 | 678 | 7.7% |
| Milton Shadur | 8,577 | 577 | 6.7% |
Counts reflect dockets indexed as of corpus build date.
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This is legal information, not legal advice. Aggregate data from verified public court records. Nothing here predicts a specific outcome.