CHICAGO (AP) — An Illinois judge who sparked outrage by reversing a man’s rape conviction involving a 16-year-old girl has been removed from the bench after a judicial oversight body found he circumvented the law & engaged in misconduct.
The Illinois Courts Commission removed Adams County Judge Robert Adrian from the bench Friday after it held a 3-day hearing in Chicago in November on a compliant filed against Adrian.
Its decision says Adrian “engaged in multiple instances of misconduct” & “abused his position of power to indulge his own sense of justice while circumventing the law.”
In October 2021, Adrian had found then 18-year-old Drew Clinton of Taylor, Michigan, guilty of sexual assaulting a 16-year-old girl during a May 2021 graduation party.
The state Judicial Inquiry Board filed a complaint against Adrian after the judge threw out Clinton’s conviction in January 2022, with the judge saying that the 148 days Clinton had spent in jail was punishment enough.
Adrian had acknowledged he was supposed to impose the mandatory 4-year sentence against Clinton, but that he would not send him to prison. “That is not just. I will not do that.”
Clinton was accused of sexually assaulting Cameron Vaughan. The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they were sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly.
After Adrian threw out Clinton’s conviction, Vaughan said that the judge told the court “this is what happens whenever parents allow teenagers to drink alcohol, to swim in pools with their undergarments on."
When reached by phone Friday, Adrian said that the commission’s decision to remove him is “totally a miscarriage of justice. I did what was right. I’ve always told the truth about it.”
Clinton cannot be tried again for the same crime under the Fifth Amendment. A motion to expunge Clinton’s record was denied in February 2023.
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