When Drew Clinton, 18, was found guilty of sexually assaulting an intoxicated 16-year-old girl, the normal outcome would be jail time. But the judge in the case, Robert Adrian, was so incensed that he reversed the "guilty" verdict to "not guilty" and treated the court to his opinion about why teen girls get raped: "this is what happens" when there are "parties for teenagers" allowing "female people to swim in their underwear in their swimming pools."
Adrian will no longer have the opportunity to help out the rapists he empathizes with.
The judge has been assigned to civil cases, the Herald-Whig newspaper said.
Judge Adrian's reversal during a January sentencing hearing drew immediate backlash from advocates for sexual assault survivors and the 16-year-old girl who reported the assault.
"He made me seem like I fought for nothing and that I put my word out there for no reason," the girl told local station WGEM-TV. "I immediately had to leave the courtroom and go to the bathroom. I was crying."
The teenager reported Mr Clinton sexually assaulted her after she became intoxicated at a party on 30 May, according to court documents. At trial, she testified she was unconscious and awoke to a pillow covering her face and Mr Clinton assaulting her.
It's not enough: this is a judge who not only thinks that fucking an unconscious child is not a crime worthy of conviction, but used his position to free a rapist convicted in his own courtroom. There must be more concrete consequences for him than temporary demotion.