About
CaseParity makes the public criminal-court record legible. We turn government data that is public by law into careful, version-aware transparency reports for attorneys in Cook County (IL) and Florida. We do not provide legal advice.
How it works
The law changes over time. Statutes are amended. A CaseParity report reflects the version of the law that was in effect for the time period a case involves — not just today’s text. That means the historical outcomes shown are compared to cases decided under the same statute version in effect for the case, not a different version that may have carried different penalties.
Every report shows two cohorts side by side. The first is the statute-matched cohort — only cases sentenced while the identical version of the law was in force. This group is smaller by design: it excludes cases decided under prior or subsequent amendments, so the comparison is law-for-law. The second is the full historical record — every public-record case for that charge in that county, across all versions of the statute. The larger count provides more statistical weight and shows how outcomes shifted as the law changed.
This version-awareness is not a technicality. When a legislature increases a mandatory minimum or reclassifies an offense, the sentencing landscape changes. A report that mixes cases from before and after that change obscures what the record actually shows.
Who uses CaseParity
Defense and civil-rights attorneys
Attorneys use our records to build sentencing arguments grounded in the public record — comparing outcomes across judges handling similar charges, identifying statistical outliers, and documenting patterns for proportionality or appellate arguments. Cook County data goes back to 2010. The record is public; we make it searchable and organized at a scale no one has done before.
Journalists and researchers
Reporters covering criminal-justice disparities, sentencing reform, or judicial accountability can use CaseParity to find patterns in data that would take months to compile by hand. We cite every source and track every change to the underlying statutes — so the data is reproducible.
Defendants and their families
Understanding what has happened in cases like yours — same charge, same courthouse, similar record — is something the public has always had a constitutional right to know. We make that information accessible without requiring hours in a clerk’s office. We describe what happened in past cases. We do not tell you what will happen in yours.
Victim advocates and families
Transparency goes in every direction. Understanding how courts have handled similar cases — including how consistently sentences were imposed — matters to victims and their families as much as it does to anyone else who interacts with the system.
What CaseParity does not do
This is not a technicality. It shapes every decision we make about what to build and what to leave out.
- —We do not predict any outcome. Historical patterns describe what happened. They do not determine what will happen in your case. Every case is argued by a person, heard by a different person, and resolved on its own facts.
- —We do not recommend a legal strategy. Nothing in our reports tells you how to argue a case, what motions to file, or what plea to consider. That is the practice of law.
- —We do not evaluate defenses. We do not assess whether a charge is valid, whether evidence was lawfully obtained, or whether any particular defense would succeed.
- —We do not replace a lawyer. If you are facing criminal charges, you need an attorney. CaseParity is a research tool, not a substitute for legal representation.
- —We do not take a position on guilt or innocence. We describe the public record of what happened in court. We do not characterize defendants, victims, or outcomes beyond what the record shows.
Our methodology is published in full — how we source data, how we handle statute versioning, what we include and what we exclude. Read the methodology ›