An Illinois judge who illegally reversed the conviction of a man who raped a 16-year-old girl has lost his job. Adams County Judge Robert Adrian (previously at Boing Boing) circumvented the law and engaged in misconduct when he threw out the conviction of Drew S. Clinton, found guilty on one count after a three-day bench trial in October. Adrian decided the 148 days the man spent in jail "was punishment enough."
[The Illinois Courts Commission] decision says Adrian "engaged in multiple instances of misconduct" and "abused his position of power to indulge his own sense of justice while circumventing the law."
The commission could have issued a reprimand, censure or suspension without pay, but its decision said it had "ample grounds" for immediately removing Adrian from the bench in western Illinois' Adams County.
This man is a nasty piece of work—"this is what happens" when there are "parties for teenagers" allowing "female people to swim in their underwear in their swimming pools, he said. And the other guy was a rapist.
On Wednesday, Adrian, apparently angered by the criticism, told another prosecutor appearing before him in an unrelated case to leave his courtroom because the prosecutor had "liked" a comment on Facebook that was critical of the judge.
"I can't be fair with you," Adrian told the Adams County prosecutor, the Herald-Whig reported. "Get out."
The uproar stems from a case that started with the arrest of Drew Clinton after a May 30 graduation party.
During the trial, the judge heard evidence that the girl had told police she'd attended the party, where she drank alcohol and swam in a pool in her underwear before she eventually passed out. She said she woke up to a pillow pushed on her face and Clinton sexually assaulting her.
The transcript of the original hearing shows that the defendant's lawyer, Drew Schnack, argued that despite all the drinking, there was no way to prove she was drunk and therefore unable to provide consent. Considering the pillow over her face, the lack of consciousness, the puking and other factors, it's maybe best understood as a defense laser-guided to a particular judge's belief system and it worked.
while there was ample evidence, contradictory evidence, as to how much the alleged victim had to drink in this matter, the unrebutted evidence is the most she had was six little shooter things. There is no evidence as to when she stopped consuming alcohol. There is some evidence, contradictory, that it was at seven o'clock or eight o'clock or nine o'clock at night or maybe even later. But it's clear that, from at least the testimony that I heard, she'd stopped drinking alcohol, the six little shooter things, by midnight or early in the evening. And then it's clear and the evidence is that she vomited. She also, I believe, testified that she hadn't had anything to eat.. Backtracking and why I say that, while there was ample evidence, contradictory evidence, as to how much the alleged victim had to drink in this matter, the unrebutted evidence is the most she had was six little shooter things. There is no evidence as to when she stopped consuming alcohol. There is some evidence, contradictory, that it was at seven o'clock or eight o'clock or nine o'clock at night or maybe even later. But it's clear that, from at least the testimony that I heard, she'd stopped drinking alcohol, the six little shooter things, by midnight or early in the evening. And then it's clear and the evidence is that she vomited. She also, I believe, testified that she hadn't had anything to eat. So the question becomes was she intoxicated where she couldn't give consent, or was she simply sick from drinking vodka or drinking these drinks on an empty stomach? And there isn't any evidence to tell us that she was intoxicated. We have no BAC. We have no blood alcohol. … we simple have nothing to indicate that she was intoxicated to the point where she could not give consent or didn't know what was going on, my paraphrase of the statute … To let her make her own decisions wasn't necessarily, but that is what had happened. The young lady made her decision to go to the party and to furnish alcohol. The young lady made her decision to go swimming at the party. The young lady made her decision to take off her clothes
