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Judge Who Thought 5 Months In Jail For Rape Was ‘Plenty Of Punishment’ Kicked Off Bench

Judicial accountability is a beautiful thing.

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GavelSexual assault and rape are crimes that are dramatically underreported. So much can go wrong — the police might not take you seriously, prosectors can have a hard time proving the case, not to mention you risk getting some judge who slaps the wrist of your attacker. After finding Drew Clinton guilty of rape, Judge Robert Adrian decided to reverse his own verdict 148 days later. Doing so cost him his job. From Huff Post:

A veteran Illinois judge has been removed from the bench after an oversight panel ruled that he engaged in misconduct and tried to circumvent the law when he reversed an 18-year-old’s rape conviction.

The Judicial Inquiry Board filed a three-count amended complaint with the Illinois Courts Commission in January 2023, accusing Adams County Judge Robert Adrian of “willful misconduct, conduct that was prejudicial to the administration of justice and that brought the judicial office into disrepute.”

That is an understatement. The judiciary and the people who depend on justice do not need another Brock Turner situation that undermines the severity of rape, nor does it need another judge who will act as an apologist for it. Adrian’s extended reasoning on the assault treated Clinton’s decision to assault someone as a cost of kids having unsupervised fun rather than the violation of bodily autonomy that it was:

“This is what’s happened when parents do not exercise their parental responsibilities, when we have people, adults, having parties for teenagers, and they allow coeds and female people to swim in their underwear in their swimming pool,” Adrian said at the sentencing hearing.

“It’s just ― they allow 16-year-olds to bring liquor to a party. They provide liquor to underage people, and you wonder how these things happen,” he said. “Well, that’s how these things happen.”

Rapes don’t happen because of what people wear in pools. Rapes happen because of rapists — and it is good practice to be suspicious of any judge who doesn’t understand that obvious difference. Illinois is better off without him on the bench.

Illinois Judge Removed From Bench After Tossing Teen’s Rape Conviction [Huff Post]

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Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

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