Sneed scoop
Another good scoop by Michael Sneed:
Our Sunday tip the Illinois Judicial Inquiry Board is looking into the case of a Cook County judge who now lives in a house he built one block outside the 14th subcircuit that elected him . . . is growing into an iceberg.
"There are anywhere from 30 to 50 judges who now live outside their subcircuit," said a top legal source. [...]
Word is the judges get elected and then move on to greener pastures outside their subcircuits. [...]
The judges who flee reportedly feel they are entitled to move anyplace within Cook County because they are county judges.
The attorney general's office has been asked to look into the situation, according to Sneed.
posted by Rich Miller @ 5/25/2005 08:11:00 AM
6 comments
6 Comments...
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Whether it was done by accident or design, the wording in the legislation that created the judicial subcircuits is somewhat unclear as to whether judges have to remain a resident of the Subcircuit that they were elected from after taking office.
Morally, they probably should, but when you are dealing with the judiciary, it is important to spell things out clearly. I just hope that some sort of ruling on this matter comes out as quickly as possible.
Its time everyone revisited the concept of "judicial subcircuits." I know the legislature has now expanded that concept into several collar counties of Cook, but the dissatisfaction level coming out of this system remains high.
Louis G. Atsaves
Judicial subcircuits are a good way to achieve balance and to ensure that the judiciary represents a good cross-section of the community which elected them. Many people don't like voting for judges because they don't know the candidates or anything about them. Subcircuit elections avoid this problem as well, giving candidates a better opportunity to get their message out to voters. The problem with the residency issue is that the statute creating cook county subcircuits is vague. The statute which expands the subcircuit concept to the collar counties expressly requires that judges remain in their subcircuit after they are elected.
--Scott Potter
Nice argument until you appear in court in front of a few of them. It seems a whole bunch of white faces move into the outer fringe area of the district, get themselves elected, and if Sneed is correct, then move out. The dissatisfaction level is real, not imagined.
If that is anyone's definition of achieving balance and ensuring a good cross-section of the community, then the problems will continue. In Lake County the new districts were drawn up in such a manner as to guarantee not the election of qualified minorities, but the election of more white faces.
Trying to fix the unfixable isn't really a solution.
I suspect this is the first step in a planned attack on the whole concept of elected judges. The media seems fixated on the idea of "merit selection." Only problem is that merit selection just brings in a new set of good old boys - likely of the silver spoon set. I've met far too many attorneys who have blue chip credentials but very little real world sense. Conversely, I've met brilliant lawyers from hardscrabble backgrounds and correspondingly less stellar law schools or law firms. Electing judges is the lesser of two evils. Just fix the current system if it's actually broken.
Sounds like Louis has an agenda. The problem with your statement (i.e., people moving in to get elected, then moving out) is that the new subcircuits remove that possibility, as I pointed out in my initial post. Under the new legislation, the law is crystal clear that you have to remain in your subcircuit.
Of course there are a few bad judges that got elected because they only had to run in a subcircuit (take Cook County's Judge Siebel, for example). But, the opposite also rings true: there are some bad judges who ran county-wide, and if voters had a real opportunity to get to know the candidates (as a subcircuit race would allow) they likely would have never been elected.
--Scott Potter
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