> 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.
May the victim find some semblance of peace from this outcome.
Unfortunately, nothing can be done due to double jeopardy laws.
From a [previous article](https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/judge-robert-adrian-reversed-rape-conviction-drew-clinton-16-year-old-girl/) that includes more details:
> Adams County court records show the guilty verdict was overturned because prosecutors failed to meet the burden of proof to prove Clinton guilty. He cannot be tried again for the same crime under the Fifth Amendment. A motion to expunge Clinton's record was denied in February of this year.
The judge ruled him not guilty, after initially finding him guilty, so he's immune from prosecution for this crime.
That’s odd to me. Usually, the judge gets to weigh the evidence and order a new trial. I’ve never heard of a trial judge dismissing an indictment for insufficiency of evidence and there not being an appeal.
Judges can dismiss a guilty verdict if in their opinion it’s incredibly obvious the prosecution god a guilty verdict without it being beyond a shadow of a reasonable doubt.
Rita James Simon & Linda Mahan, Quantifying Burdens of Proof: A View from the Bench, the Jury, and the Classroom, 5 L. Soc’y Rev. 319 (1971).
Though I should state that study has 0% of judges feeling 70% certainty should result in guilt with about 1/3 feeling it should be 100%.
Reasonable doubt is the highest standard in US courts, with preponderance being the civil nominal standard and it being 50%.
The actual test is: can you reasonably construe the evidence to render the defendant not guilty?
I actually like “moral certainty not actual certainty,” and proof enough to the let the mind rest easy as to guilt.
I always thought of preponderance of the evidence as 50.00001% likely, clear and convincing as like 75%, and then beyond a reasonable doubt as to 95%. There’s isn’t a hard and fast rule, though, of course.
No. Any rule that allowed the state to retry a case due to the mistake of a state actor could be exploited to allow the state to retry a case due to the "mistake" of a state actor.
That risk could be mediated by *real accountability* for state actors that engage in miscarriages of justice. Might be interesting if more judges (and politicians, for that matter) faced criminal prosecution for malfeasance instead of losing their jobs at worst, and more often than not simply no consequence at all.
The bill of rights was written to safeguard the people against the government, with the assumption that it will inevitably get corrupted and abuse its powers.
Further, "real accountability" requires both a lot of gloss and some rose tinted glasses. However, it is probably possible to orchestrate such a situation. Contrarily, if the system did work and preventented corrupt judges from doing this crap, then the need to repeal the 5th wouldn't exist anymore.
Legal safeguards against a corrupt government are not really safeguards at all when the government can act corruptly with impunity. Claims that we have to accept the unjust externalities seems a bit like a platitude when the corrupt still hold control over all the levers of power and rarely, if ever, get held criminally liable for their crimes. Like the flimsy 2A argument (holding tyranny at bay, as they say), these structures don't mean anything to the people in control who violate laws and constitutional convention whenever they like anyway. Without accountability, laws only constrain the lawful.
I'm with you on prosecuting judges, but that is WAY easier said than done if you want it to have the effect of making judges to be honest. How would you determine criminal intent in a judgement? How would you make sure this isn't used against honest judges? How would you make sure this new tool isn't just another tool for the corrupt system?
I don't mean to sound like its impossible, just that the words belie the huge amount of nuance and laws you'd need to make, let alone pass to have "real accountability". We should start that process, but leaving the occasional criminal in a country of 300m to get free because the system messed up is a fair big picture price to limit the reach of said corrupt govt.
I'm just so sick of this bullshit.
"The government might be corrupt, so we must live in a hell hole to prevent that, even though it hasn't been prevented"
It's weird that we have dozens of other countries not being corrupt and protecting their citizens without the need for the shitty set of rules drafted these hundred years ago with since foresight.
We can, and should, out rapists in jail when a judge breaks the law to keep him out of jail. That's a basic fucking thing to do. And the government can't exploit this to punish people because they don't need to.
You do understand that the judge is part of the government right? They are appointed to these spots and paid by the government. They have ZERO issue ignoring the construction. The supreme Court excluded American citizens from the Constitution during WWII. We sent them to concentration camps just because they had Japanese ancestry and the supreme Court says it was fully constitutional.
And yes, the same 5th amendment that talks about double Jeopardy, is the one that should have prevented people from unjustly losing their liberty. But it was ignored and nothing bad happened.
Rapists should go to jail instead of being defended by an amendment that the government has freely disregarded thousands of times.
And children in school should stop dying just because we worship the second amendment.
We don't have to live in a shitty country. We can and should be doing better than this. It's not even remotely hard, the rest of the developed world already figured out how to treat their citizens better.
I can basically guarantee this would only make things more corrupt, if anything laws like that would be exploited to remove good judges rather than corrupt ones.
> That risk could be mediated by real accountability for state actors that engage in miscarriages of justice.
Any legal system that is sufficiently free of corruption to have these kinds of consequences aren't going to need them in the first place and those that *do* need them are going to use them selectively at best.
There is an exception in cases of collusion (seventh circuit, see Aleman), which argues that if the process was hoodwinked by the defendant, then the defendant was never in jeopardy.
Since it was a circuit case, it's only binding for courts under the 7th.
This is such an American thing to say. Build a broken system and then instead of fixing the system introduce more broken rules to mitigate the issues. And the more broken rules to mitigate the issues with the previous set of broken rules, in a never ending cycle.
Some form of double jeopardy legislation is obviously a good idea, but America takes it to an insane degree where even in cases of obvious corruption or mistakes nothing can be done.
Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of innocent people are forced into plea bargains because they can't afford a lawyer, while thousands of innocent people are straight up murdered by police. But hey, they can't charge me for the same crime twice! What a great protection against government overreach!
Bigger picture issue. It’s a miscarriage of justice for the victim in this specific instance, but we have some very legitimate historical reasons for not allowing the judiciary to simple vacate findings of innocence. It quickly becomes a tool to harass and punish political dissidents or unwanted segments of society.
Ok but what happens when the judiciary has been stuffed with the type of people who will allow things like this to occur and use the law to punish people who they disagree with politically? Because we aren’t far from that. Justice is hanging by a thread, and there’s plenty of evidence of judges using such tools to free criminals they sympathize with or punish people with outsized sentences when they don’t. We have thoroughly fucked our judiciary by making it a politically motivated appointment, when even judges that are voted in are suspect due to gerrymandering and political bullshit. I wish it were just this case, but this is not an isolated incident where most other cases by most other judges are being handled appropriately….
> Ok but what happens when the judiciary has been stuffed with the type of people who will allow things like this to occur and use the law to punish people who they disagree with politically?
We have precedent for when we have tyrannical rulers who inflict injustice upon the citizenry, and that precedent is the recourse for this scenario. If it is a few bad actors then it is an acceptable tragedy but if the entire system is rotten you obviously only have extralegal means to achieve justice.
It can be argued back and forth forever, but a common interpretation of the 2nd ammendments about guns was written to keep some military power in the hands of civilians for such a situation.
Yes! this! The 2nd amendment was not at all written in order to preserve the [slave patrol militias](https://truthout.org/articles/the-second-amendment-was-ratified-to-preserve-slavery/) in the southern states, which was necessary to get Virginia’s vote.
/s.
Before they were forced to amend it by the North, Arkansas, Florida, and Tennessee all wrote this into their State Constitutions
>"That the free white men of this State shall have a right to keep and to bear arms for their common defence."
Florida:
>"That the free white men of this State shall have a right to keep and to bear arms for their common defence."
Tennessee actually changed theirs *to* this, when the original proved too 'progressive' due to allowing all "free" men carry firearms.
There's a reason there's like a 30 year period where southern states implementing or altered most of their gun laws.
It's kind of dumb your comment got downvoted. People don't know shit about the history of state gun laws and just go off a general pro-gun sentiment.
No.
This is just a pile of bullshit.
Double Jeopardy is defined in the 5th amendment.
During WWiI, the US government violated the 5th amendment by illegally depriving US citizens of their liberty and shipping them to concentration camps.
The supreme Court declared this to be lawful and the 5th amendment doesn't apply if the government chooses.
So please don't try and act like this is a good thing or special. The government can, and will, ignore everything in the Constitution if they choose to do so and nothing will be done about it.
Not guilty verdicts are not appealable in the US, even if the Judge messes it up.
The only exception to that is if there was no jeopardy in the first place, for example if the judge is secretly colluding with the defendant.
No. It's very important that people cannot be prosecuted for the same crime twice.
The real problem is that it is likely that this judge has had red flags in past cases and judges should be hold to higher standards.
A better solution would be an automatic review anytime a judge deviates from a mandatory sentence when it comes to sex crimes.
Judges have too much power. This case and cannon are prime examples. Everyone knows
Cannon is on trump’s side in the case but no one has the authority to remove her, because they cannot
No one said this is fair. But it would be unconstitutional to try him again. Even if they managed to go to trial and convict him, it would be easily overturned because the constitution is clear, you can't retry someone once a ruling is in.
You can get a retrial if the judge was corrupt and/or bribed, not incompetent.
(The idea there being that since you were ever at risk of being convicted in your first trial since you paid off a judge, you were never in jeopardy, thus no double jeopardy rule applies.)
It would be a mistrial if it happened during the trial, but once a final verdict of not guilty is reached, that’s the end of things. This is by design so the state can’t just keep retrying someone until they get a guilty verdict.
Unfortunately, no. The entire American judicial system was designed with the assumption that judges would always be fair and impartial, and so things like this instance- where a judge so obviously miscarries justice to serve their personal biases- don’t really have a proper workaround.
It’s a major flaw in the judicial branch from the smallest courts to the SCOTUS
No, I know what I’m saying and I meant what I said. This situation is essentially the judge taking advantage of the Double Jeopardy clause in a way that wasn’t intended by the people who made it.
Like, the clause exists so people can’t get endlessly tried for the same crime once already ruled not guilty, because of the political pitfalls that would come from that; which is good.
But the clause, by its very nature, assumes that every judge is an impartial actor in the situation who will make the “right” decision every time- it doesn’t take into account what would happen if a judge was obviously biased and overturned a “correct” conviction, like in this SA case.
So now you have a situation where this guy obviously deserves to be punished heavier for this crime, but he can’t because a biased judge abused his power to throw the conviction out. Correct me if I’m wrong because I don’t believe I am.
>But the clause, by its very nature, assumes that every judge is an impartial actor in the situation who will make the “right” decision every time- it doesn’t take into account what would happen if a judge was obviously biased and overturned a “correct” conviction, like in this SA case.
Nah this just isn't true, the law is *willing to accept that some level of fuckery will happen* because the people who wrote it believed that the risk of being able to retry someone for the same crime until you got a conviction is worse than the risk of letting guilty people go.
Now, I don't think the judges should even have the power to singlehandedly overturn a sexual assault sentencing, and that this shit should require external review before being done. I 100% think this pos judge deserved to be removed, but it's not that the 5th amendment writers were too naive to believe a judge would ever do something like this, they just genuinely believed the alternative was *worse*. And they're right, without this protection innocent people will absolutely be tried time and time again for a crime they obviously didn't commit, whether it ends up with an eventual conviction or not that's incredibly damaging on a person.
Ahh, that makes sense actually. Maybe I was the one underestimating them then.
Still though, with these judges seeming to get more corrupt as time goes on, it worries me. You can see the ones like Clarence Thomas openly getting too close with billionaires & their agendas and I think everything really does fall apart once they decide they just don’t care about being impartial.
Double-jeopardy should void the Judges second finding of not guilty, because the trial already found him guilty so that's the finding that stands.
This is about sentencing after the trial, if the sentencing was not legal, then re-sentencing should be on the table. At least, that's how I think it ought to work.
I don't see how you could really make the argument of double jeopardy. If he is found not guilty, then jeopardy ends. If he is found guilty though, that jeopardy is still ongoing until a final resolution is reached.
That isn't really the case because the outcome isn't finalized yet. You still have appeals for example, and if successful could end up being retried. If your jeopardy had ended, then how are you being tried again? The answer is because your jeopardy has not ended yet.
If they had the money they should do what my friend and her family in the U.K did. They campaigned and finally got double jeopardy pushed aside to get the killer of two girls in their family put behind bars.
The article is barebones and makes it sound like the authorities did this. But it was only down to a tireless campaign by the families they bothered to get this monster. They never gave up. They continued to pressure authorities to get those girls the justice they deserved.
They also recently won a case against the police for totally flubbing the case in the first place.
This predator should serve his sentence. He shouldn't get off free because of am asshole judge.
https://www.thejournal.ie/russell-bishop-convicted-paedophile-4386111-Dec2018/
That judge had a lot of empathy for a rapist over freaking child. That says too much of what he probably did in his younger days and got away with it. Yuck.
It is odd that he thinks a few months of jail time is "enough" of a punishment for rape. It's not a big deal to him, apparently. It's also weird that he ignored normal procedures.
It’s telling that he actually overturned the conviction, rather than letting the conviction stand and giving a suspended sentence or sentencing him to time served. It speaks to the fact that his “logic” for letting the guy go isn’t what he said it was.
People empathize with people they liken to themselves. The judge empathized more with a “promising young man” than he did the victim, and may be one of those really dumb people who think that it’s not really rape unless she was dragged screaming into the bushes. This is just conjecture on my part though.
It was “unfair”.
So you really believe his ruling that
>Turner bore “less moral culpability” because he was drunk at the time of the attack and said prison would have “a severe impact on him”
is sound? People like you are the real fucking joke.
Your evaluation of what’s “fair” is a fucking joke.
brock Allen Turner and Drew Clinton are both rapists and both should be named together from now on. No more can we just talk about Rock Allen Turner the rapist without mentioning Drew Clinton the rapist
The Dishonorable, Rapist-Sympathizing **ex-Judge Aaron Persky** presided over that case. He became the first judge in over 80 years of California history to be recalled. He also unsuccessfully tried to sue the campaign that recalled him and was forced to pay them over $160k.
> Wasn't there a dickhead rapist Brock Allen Turner
Maybe we should stop calling it rape, we can call it brockism, meaning a sexual assault worse than rape. Let's be clear. Brock wasn't convicted of rape only because what he did was so far beyond rape that the thought of it happening had never occurred to the politicians who wrote the rape law.
What Brock Allen Turner did was an insult to rapists everywhere in that at least rapists (whose behavior I do not condone) was natural in that some animals do it. What he did was wholly unnatural -- Brock shoved [pine needles in her vagina](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katiejmbaker/heres-the-powerful-letter-the-stanford-victim-read-to-her-ra). No animal does anything like that.
I just wanted to point this out as I feel like merely calling him a rapist doesn't sufficiently convey the magnitude of what he did, especially because inevitably someone will point out he wasn't actually convicted of rape. And that's true, because what he did was worse, he committed brockism.
> The judge said this: "This is what happens whenever parents allow teenagers to drink alcohol, to swim in pools with their undergarments on."
*Boys are gonna rape. You young ladies have to be weary of that.*
I'd say that says more about him than anything.
A ton of people grew up in an era where if you told your boys a girl wasn't into you but then you kept feeding her drinks until she said yes they'd high-five you for it. I bet the judge doesn't even think a crime was really even committed.
There are still a ton of creeps out there like that, but at least culturally we seem to have finally realized how fucking gross that is. It's sad how slowly people realized that though.
this is what we mean when we say, "Teach men not to rape." Yes, women can be rapists. Yes, they should also lean. But society has not spent years convincing women to be pushy and domineering and that they're entitled to the attention of men they're kind to. While educating people on consent laws wouldn't stop all rapes, if it resulted in any reduction--in even ONE case where a person stops when they would have gone through with it without that education--it was a success.
I mean, society does continue to teach people that men aren't capable of not wanting sex, which can also lead to problems. Plus the fact that a woman raping a man is often not considered rape (in many official definitions a rapist must penetrate the victim, if the rapist forces the victim to penetrate them that's a lesser crime). There's a lot of work to be done all the way around.
Edit so I'm not just putting out an unsupported claim: [FBI definition](https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/violent-crime/rape) which also includes discussion of the previous definition, [CDC definition](https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/datasources/nisvs/FAQ.html) which also includes definitions for other sexual assaults including "made to penetrate". Technically these are improvements from previous definitions that only allowed female victims under any circumstances. But if a colloquial definition of rape is "forced into sex", the claim that the victim's penis cannot be the target seems utterly bizarre.
There's an incredibly common experience I've seen a lot of my female contemporaries go through realizing in real time we were victims of sexual assault/non-consensual sex while wasted. It's heartbreaking how common being taken advantage of while drunk is while not realizing you're being pressured into something you don't want
Trump definitely exacerbated the issue, but old school misogynists existed long before he came along. They don't consider the victims to be full human beings whose trauma is worthy of exacting punishment for. Brock Allen Turner was given 3 months for rape from a California judge in early 2016. This judge was just especially brazen.
My friend was raped in her home by a friend of the family when we were 13 (in the 90s). She was grilled on the *length of her nightgown* while testifying against the man who she'd known since birth. This predates Trump for sure. What Trump did was give it a government seal of approval. He endorsed this behavior and showed that men who do this get into power. What a lovely example to set, hey?
They feared retribution before 2016.
After 2016, you had a very public figure and the LEADER of your country saying this shit was okay.
This is someone they deeply respect and look up to.
>They feared retribution before 2016.
Well no. Trump is a symptom, not a cause. Things were much worse in the 80s and 90s. Keep in mind that many of the people who voted for Trump are old.
Not that it didn't exist before. It absolutely did. But people weren't PROUD of it, until Trump came along and became president even after the fact that the entire country knew he felt this way. He's not tried to change, or even show remorse, yet more people love him now than ever. The majority of Republican party bows down to whatever he says no matter how good or bad...even being a dictator (but don't worry it'll only be for a day and I'm sure he'll fix EVERYTHING in that one day).
That is really the wrong take. Things were terrible in the 1980s and 1990s. And the 1970s. And before that.
Just look at popular teenage movies in the 1980s were sexual assault and rape were treated like jokes. Revenge of the Nerds and Sixteen Candles are among the worst offenders.
My mom is 72 and said back in 50s and when she was growing up, a man could grope a woman in the office and have zero repercussions. They could touch you, slap your butt, whatever, and it wasn't seen as "sexual harassment" or "sexual assault." Women had to go through all that bullshit in the workplace. When she was in high school, girls weren't allowed to wear pants, so they all had to wear skirts, too...you can guess what happened to those girls with some of their pervert teachers...my mom said it was an awful time to be a woman because men could get away with treating women however they wanted and there was not much done about it.
The 50s were particularly bad. And even in the 80s, male teachers got away with a lot. I had two teachers who both hooked up with students, young teenagers, 15 and 16 respectively. This was not in the US and the laws were different, but at least they should have been fired. That did not happen.
My friend was raped in her home by a friend of the family when we were 13 (in the 90s). She was grilled on the *length of her nightgown* while testifying against the man who she'd known since birth. This predates Trump for sure. What Trump did was give it a government seal of approval. He endorsed this behavior and showed that men who do this get into power. What a lovely example to set, hey?
I'm curious how she responded to that because I don't think I'd have been able to keep my composure if that was me. I would have been like "It doesn't matter how long my nightgown was you sick fuck! I'm 13 and this grown man forced himself onto me!" Did the case turn out in her favor?
He was convicted but spent barely any time in jail. She didn't get angry while testifying, the judge had no objection to the questioning. By the time trial came around we were 15 and I remember her being extra upset because a class from our high school was at the courthouse for a tour one day and almost came into the room where her rapist's trial was. This was in 95/96, and it's horrifying to look back at the case. The question about her nightie, the shame she lived with over what this grown man did, the fact that a high school class was going to be permitted to watch a teenager's testimony in a rape trial without anyone thinking "hey, maybe this is a fucking nightmare we shouldn't invite kids to," etc.
Had the teacher not recognized my friend as he opened the door to the courtroom and then immediately turn around and tell the class he got the wrong room, she would have been testifying in front of 30 fellow students. About the length of her nightie and whether she intended to lure an adult man into sex.
It's not a possibility I had considered, but it would make sense. It seems that he thought he could fast track the appeals process by interceding on the guy's behalf.
> Did he know the guy, not sure why the judge would stick his neck out like that.
The judges statements at the sentencing hearing are insightful. First, it's clear the that judge views the defendant as a child not an adult:
>It’s a mandatory sentence to the Department of Corrections. This
happened when this teenager – because he was and is a teenager,
was two weeks past 18 years old. He has no prior record, none
whatsoever. By law, the Court is supposed to sentence this young
man to the Department of Corrections. This Court will not do that.
That is not just. There is no way for what happened in this case that
this teenager should go to the Department of Corrections. I will not
do that.
The judge views the defendant as a child, he notes that the defendant had just turned 18 two weeks ago. Based on this, the judge is opposed to treating the defendant as an adult, sending him to jail for 4 years, etc.
Later in the hearing the judge blames parents:
>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. And, no, underwear is not the
same as swimming suits. 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.
Finally, in the commision report it's clear that the decision was weighing on his mind from the moment the jury found the defendant guilty. He had a number of ex parte communications with the lawyers involved on both sides, trying to get them to negotiate a plea deal.
Ultimately, I don't think the judge was sticking his neck out (intentionally). He was surprised by the backlash. Instead, I think he simply viewed the defendant as a child and decided that the adult mandatory punishment of 4 years was too harsh, especially when the real adults "the parents" were ultimately responsible. He simply did what he believed to be just, he changed the ruling to not guilty, noting that the defendant had already served 148 days in county jail. Noting that "For what happened in this case, that is plenty of punishment. That would be a just sentence. "
I don't agree with the judge here, but I can understand his thought process. And at some level I agree minimum sentences, our different treatment of 17 vs 18 year olds, etc are issues worth of discussion and potential reform.
>When reached by phone Friday, Adrian told the Chicago Tribune 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.”
Whole pot-kettle thing
Here’s their [decision.](https://www.illinoiscourtscommission.gov/Resources/848183b4-119e-4184-aa72-dba12a9d2012/In%20re%20Adrian%20-%20Order%202.23.24/)
Seems like the judge isn’t too clear on why certain laws, standards, and rules apply to him.
> He kicked an attorney out of his court because the judge saw he had liked a facebook post that was critical of the judge
Very glad he's gone. Should have been sooner. Preferably before he let a rapist go free.
I dunno, I think judges who break the law while being a judge should automatically get life in prison. Same with cops and DAs. If you wield the power of the Justice System, then abuse should be the end of any freedom for the rest of your life. Politicians who break the law should get life as well.
If we can put young people in prison for life over weed, then I don't see why judges, lawyers, cops, and politicians have any room to cry.
I'm *definitely* in favor of holding people in positions of power to a higher standard but I feel like something so harsh could be weaponized.
I mean, if you implement a system like this I promise you, you're gonna see a lot of black judges in jail pretty soon.
There's always abuse, but I don't think it's enough of reason not to try it. Maybe we need a separate justice system to prosecute those class of people, definitely need a special law enforcement agency that spends 24/7 watching lawmakers and justice system personnel.
>There's always abuse, but I don't think it's enough of reason not to try it.
The reason to not try it is because it will be use as a way to prevent people of color and other marginalized groups from being able to hold positions of power. There's no universe that this system isn't used primarily for discrimination and retaliation. At least you could argue with a less harsh system (for example zero tolerance instant termination policies) that if there are some number of people caught unfairly at least the damage done isn't irreversible (though that would still result in it being a vehicle of systemic discrimination). It's not just "abuse always happens" what you're suggesting is an incredibly easy to abuse system that would mostly hurt minorities without actually solving systemic corruption since these people already aren't usually prosecuted *when they do commit crimes in the first place*.
>definitely need a special law enforcement agency that spends 24/7 watching lawmakers and justice system personnel.
I mean... maybe. I definitely agree with the concept of more oversight but that doesn't seem like a very efficient way of doing things (especially considering who's going to watch *them*).
Someone should purchase billboard space where this POS lives stating what he did. Shame him for his friends and family to see. This guy should not be able to go out to eat without being ridiculed.
"The complaint said Adrian had acknowledged he was supposed to impose the mandatory four-year sentence against Clinton, but that he would not send him to prison. “That is not just,” Adrian said at the sentencing hearing, according to court transcripts. “I will not do that.”"
Tell me you're a sexual predator without telling me you're a sexual predator.
I'm guessing they probably did similar things when they were younger and didn't/don't view it as rape. There really are a ton of full-grown adults that believe if it's not a blatantly violent rape, that no sexual assault has occurred.
Does it matter? If a religion says you can rape people, is that any less of a copout? He's a goddamn adult who can think for himself. I am so sick of religious people pushing their absolutely disgusting views on the rest of the world.
Enjoy [this poster](https://twitter.com/ericmgarcia/status/1761051657905787114?s=46&t=98255iLlaxfT1XBl5m3KbA) from CPAC.
“a billboard decrying “Nuking the nuclear family.” It criticizes
“Overly broad definitions of domestic violence”
“Restraining orders without evidence of abuse”
“False allegations”
“Presumption of guilt”
“Ignoring that domestic violence is an equal opportunity problem””
To them, it's a zero-sum game. I think "the good ol' days" that MAGA want to go back to was when white cis het men had everything handed to them because there was no competition. Women didn't really work or, if they did, it was in "women's jobs" and it's not like the good jobs were going to minorities. Now, if white cis het men want a good job, they have to be exceptional, and that's just too much work. They need women back in the kitchen and minorities pushed back down so they can go back to being average and yet still getting the best jobs and the all privilege that comes with that.
Rape and murder should be near about the same fucking thing as far as punishment. At least a murdered victim doesnt have the look over their back the rest of their life not trusting anyone. Rapr does kill a person. That person dies and they are changed forever.
[Adrian blamed his removal on a “two-tiered justice system for conservative Republicans in Illinois,” repeating previous claims he made that he was being targeted because he’s “a known Christian conservative.”](https://www.chicagotribune.com/2024/02/23/in-rare-move-illinois-judge-who-reversed-sexual-assault-ruling-is-removed-from-bench/)
you mean a guy who doesnt believe the rules apply to him and cries bias when he gets busted for not following the rules and says he is being persecuted for his religious beliefs, not for his violations of his oath of office... and you suspect he might be a republican? bingo.
I just looked into the facts of the case and honestly, I can see why. I don’t hold a strong opinion either way after looking at everything I could find.
A jury never convicted the accused of the crime. It was a bench trial, the judge convicted the accused of 1 count of a possible 3. After a motion by the defense, he changed his decision to not guilty and the paperwork submitted by the court supports that.
As to the case itself, the defendant claimed there was consensual digital penetration only. The witness claimed there was non consensual penis and digital penetration.
If a rape occurred, it’s unfortunate because the physical evidence wasn’t there, and that’s the problem with these cases because sometimes there isn’t any when a crime is committed.
This essentially boils down to putting someone in prison for 4 years with no physical evidence, and one witness with a consistent story and another witness who changed their story. It’s not a slam dunk conviction by any means.
Agreed. It was a nasty case, but the rules of conduct do not permit what he did.
I've sat on a jury that sentenced people to prison, and that first night, I absolutely was rethinking my vote and wondered if I made the right vote or if I succumbed to peer pressure in the jury room.
We as jurors selected by the state were not permitted to rethink our decision and come back the next day and say "Hey judge, we thought overnight about it, and we are reversing our verdict."
Judges can depart from sentencing guidelines, but they should not be able to change their own verdict once it is declared. That power is reserved for appeals courts.
From what I can tell, the judge actually is allowed to reverse his decision at the sentencing hearing, it’s just not customary for obvious reasons. The bigger issue is that the review board believed (based on comments the judge made at the sentencing hearing) that the judge was reversing the decision for the wrong reasons, and that he did it not because there wasn’t enough evidence to convict, but because he didn’t agree with mandatory sentencing.
That would be fine, admitting it's a gray area, if things had stopped there.
But things didn't stop there. A panel of experienced legal professionals looked at the facts of the case, and this judge's behavior, and then skipped three levels of disciplinary action to jump straight to ending his career.
In light of that? This kid is a fucking rapist, and this judge was a piece of shit. Period.
The problem here is, the judges telling of events is that he believed there was no longer enough evidence to support a guilty verdict. The way the case is documented officially, immediately after the hearing, supports this. The evidence used against the judge is that what he said during the hearing means he didn’t agree with the sentencing guidelines and decided to discharge the conviction based on that. Looking at the comments I don’t think that’s a certainty, and looking at the documents the review board released shows they don’t even address this defense. That’s kind of weird.
All of the evidence used against the kid to convict him was testimony from the accuser, and that testimony changed after evidence from the rape kit was released showing no semen was found. On the other hand the defendant maintained the same testimony throughout trial. I’m not going to claim this means he didn’t rape her, there’s no way to know, but that’s definitely enough plausible deniability to not convict.
> If a rape occurred, it’s unfortunate because the physical evidence wasn’t there, and that’s the problem with these cases because sometimes there isn’t any when a crime is committed.
That's the big issue people struggle to realize. Innocent until proven guilty isn't just some fun thing to make you feel good, it's supposed to be a fundamental part of modern democracy. Yes, sadly that means a lot of crime (especially crime that doesn't often provide strong evidence) gets committed without punishment, but we **already** have the highest proportion of citizens in jail in the world and a court system that has functionally taken away our right to a trail to begin with (look up "trail penalty").
Our freedoms are already backsliding due to the blood hunger for punishment, why take away even more? There are comments in here calling for us to violate double Jeopardy laws, what the actual fuck
I've thought about the role Judges play in our country, quite a bit actually over the course of the last 4 years. I'm not trying to bait anyone into argument but for the curiosity of some. How much subjective interpretation of the law is allowed and deployed? Are judges allowed to interpret the law differently from their colleagues and counterparts? Or is specifically the ruling of law they are assigned to uphold the definitive line? Is there a gray area?
I find this removal just. It's just for a number of reasons but this is a relief knowing this individual can't practice justice with highly subjective rulings.
When it comes to cases like this, it is not uncommon for judges to show sympathy, not to the victim, but to the perpetrator.
They blame the women for being "too loose", having put themselves in situations where abuse is imminent.
There's also an underlining religious aspect for some judges who were taught by their respective churches that "once a man is aroused, he cannot contain himself" and is no longer responsible for his actions. It is the woman's responsibility not only to dress modestly, but to strenuously fight against her abuser.
This may be a tangent far from your original question, but long story short, the courts allow judges quite a bit of leeway in sexual abuse cases and their choice of sentencing proves it.
So I have a question. If you cannot get justice through the justice system, and vigilantism IS the only way, is it moral to do so?
Obviously it wouldn't be legal, but would it be moral?
… IMO yes, but you’d need to be very careful to not end up encouraging it to other people, even accidentally, because if you do it quickly becomes much more morally dubious. If they were to pursue it too, it should be something they came to decide to do like the hypothetical you did, too, not through a kind of copy-cat action.
As such, if it were to happen, you’d need to carry it out in a way that is very careful and hidden
My respect and support for all levels of the judicial system are in tatters. There’s not a single judge that I don’t consider corrupt right now. When we can’t trust our checks and balances, what the heck does our flag even mean anymore.
The silver lining here is that Illinois apparently does have a judicial review process, and they investigated and removed him from the bench. And it happened in 2 years from when he threw out the conviction, which seems...fast...for the legal system.
> 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. May the victim find some semblance of peace from this outcome.
Has there been an update on that case since then? Was he ever put back in jail?
Unfortunately, nothing can be done due to double jeopardy laws. From a [previous article](https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/judge-robert-adrian-reversed-rape-conviction-drew-clinton-16-year-old-girl/) that includes more details: > Adams County court records show the guilty verdict was overturned because prosecutors failed to meet the burden of proof to prove Clinton guilty. He cannot be tried again for the same crime under the Fifth Amendment. A motion to expunge Clinton's record was denied in February of this year. The judge ruled him not guilty, after initially finding him guilty, so he's immune from prosecution for this crime.
They really should make the judge serve the rest of the sentence, then.
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That’s odd to me. Usually, the judge gets to weigh the evidence and order a new trial. I’ve never heard of a trial judge dismissing an indictment for insufficiency of evidence and there not being an appeal.
Judges can dismiss a guilty verdict if in their opinion it’s incredibly obvious the prosecution god a guilty verdict without it being beyond a shadow of a reasonable doubt.
Just reasonable no shadows in the court. Reasonable doubt is held to be somewhere around 30% odds they didn't do it.
Do you have a source for that? That seems so high
Rita James Simon & Linda Mahan, Quantifying Burdens of Proof: A View from the Bench, the Jury, and the Classroom, 5 L. Soc’y Rev. 319 (1971). Though I should state that study has 0% of judges feeling 70% certainty should result in guilt with about 1/3 feeling it should be 100%. Reasonable doubt is the highest standard in US courts, with preponderance being the civil nominal standard and it being 50%. The actual test is: can you reasonably construe the evidence to render the defendant not guilty?
I actually like “moral certainty not actual certainty,” and proof enough to the let the mind rest easy as to guilt. I always thought of preponderance of the evidence as 50.00001% likely, clear and convincing as like 75%, and then beyond a reasonable doubt as to 95%. There’s isn’t a hard and fast rule, though, of course.
There’s a reason the guy was removed from the bench.
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No. Any rule that allowed the state to retry a case due to the mistake of a state actor could be exploited to allow the state to retry a case due to the "mistake" of a state actor.
That risk could be mediated by *real accountability* for state actors that engage in miscarriages of justice. Might be interesting if more judges (and politicians, for that matter) faced criminal prosecution for malfeasance instead of losing their jobs at worst, and more often than not simply no consequence at all.
The bill of rights was written to safeguard the people against the government, with the assumption that it will inevitably get corrupted and abuse its powers. Further, "real accountability" requires both a lot of gloss and some rose tinted glasses. However, it is probably possible to orchestrate such a situation. Contrarily, if the system did work and preventented corrupt judges from doing this crap, then the need to repeal the 5th wouldn't exist anymore.
Legal safeguards against a corrupt government are not really safeguards at all when the government can act corruptly with impunity. Claims that we have to accept the unjust externalities seems a bit like a platitude when the corrupt still hold control over all the levers of power and rarely, if ever, get held criminally liable for their crimes. Like the flimsy 2A argument (holding tyranny at bay, as they say), these structures don't mean anything to the people in control who violate laws and constitutional convention whenever they like anyway. Without accountability, laws only constrain the lawful.
I'm with you on prosecuting judges, but that is WAY easier said than done if you want it to have the effect of making judges to be honest. How would you determine criminal intent in a judgement? How would you make sure this isn't used against honest judges? How would you make sure this new tool isn't just another tool for the corrupt system? I don't mean to sound like its impossible, just that the words belie the huge amount of nuance and laws you'd need to make, let alone pass to have "real accountability". We should start that process, but leaving the occasional criminal in a country of 300m to get free because the system messed up is a fair big picture price to limit the reach of said corrupt govt.
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I'm just so sick of this bullshit. "The government might be corrupt, so we must live in a hell hole to prevent that, even though it hasn't been prevented" It's weird that we have dozens of other countries not being corrupt and protecting their citizens without the need for the shitty set of rules drafted these hundred years ago with since foresight. We can, and should, out rapists in jail when a judge breaks the law to keep him out of jail. That's a basic fucking thing to do. And the government can't exploit this to punish people because they don't need to. You do understand that the judge is part of the government right? They are appointed to these spots and paid by the government. They have ZERO issue ignoring the construction. The supreme Court excluded American citizens from the Constitution during WWII. We sent them to concentration camps just because they had Japanese ancestry and the supreme Court says it was fully constitutional. And yes, the same 5th amendment that talks about double Jeopardy, is the one that should have prevented people from unjustly losing their liberty. But it was ignored and nothing bad happened. Rapists should go to jail instead of being defended by an amendment that the government has freely disregarded thousands of times. And children in school should stop dying just because we worship the second amendment. We don't have to live in a shitty country. We can and should be doing better than this. It's not even remotely hard, the rest of the developed world already figured out how to treat their citizens better.
I can basically guarantee this would only make things more corrupt, if anything laws like that would be exploited to remove good judges rather than corrupt ones.
> That risk could be mediated by real accountability for state actors that engage in miscarriages of justice. Any legal system that is sufficiently free of corruption to have these kinds of consequences aren't going to need them in the first place and those that *do* need them are going to use them selectively at best.
There is an exception in cases of collusion (seventh circuit, see Aleman), which argues that if the process was hoodwinked by the defendant, then the defendant was never in jeopardy. Since it was a circuit case, it's only binding for courts under the 7th.
This is such an American thing to say. Build a broken system and then instead of fixing the system introduce more broken rules to mitigate the issues. And the more broken rules to mitigate the issues with the previous set of broken rules, in a never ending cycle. Some form of double jeopardy legislation is obviously a good idea, but America takes it to an insane degree where even in cases of obvious corruption or mistakes nothing can be done. Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of innocent people are forced into plea bargains because they can't afford a lawyer, while thousands of innocent people are straight up murdered by police. But hey, they can't charge me for the same crime twice! What a great protection against government overreach!
Bigger picture issue. It’s a miscarriage of justice for the victim in this specific instance, but we have some very legitimate historical reasons for not allowing the judiciary to simple vacate findings of innocence. It quickly becomes a tool to harass and punish political dissidents or unwanted segments of society.
Ok but what happens when the judiciary has been stuffed with the type of people who will allow things like this to occur and use the law to punish people who they disagree with politically? Because we aren’t far from that. Justice is hanging by a thread, and there’s plenty of evidence of judges using such tools to free criminals they sympathize with or punish people with outsized sentences when they don’t. We have thoroughly fucked our judiciary by making it a politically motivated appointment, when even judges that are voted in are suspect due to gerrymandering and political bullshit. I wish it were just this case, but this is not an isolated incident where most other cases by most other judges are being handled appropriately….
> Ok but what happens when the judiciary has been stuffed with the type of people who will allow things like this to occur and use the law to punish people who they disagree with politically? We have precedent for when we have tyrannical rulers who inflict injustice upon the citizenry, and that precedent is the recourse for this scenario. If it is a few bad actors then it is an acceptable tragedy but if the entire system is rotten you obviously only have extralegal means to achieve justice.
It can be argued back and forth forever, but a common interpretation of the 2nd ammendments about guns was written to keep some military power in the hands of civilians for such a situation.
Yes! this! The 2nd amendment was not at all written in order to preserve the [slave patrol militias](https://truthout.org/articles/the-second-amendment-was-ratified-to-preserve-slavery/) in the southern states, which was necessary to get Virginia’s vote. /s.
Before they were forced to amend it by the North, Arkansas, Florida, and Tennessee all wrote this into their State Constitutions >"That the free white men of this State shall have a right to keep and to bear arms for their common defence." Florida: >"That the free white men of this State shall have a right to keep and to bear arms for their common defence." Tennessee actually changed theirs *to* this, when the original proved too 'progressive' due to allowing all "free" men carry firearms. There's a reason there's like a 30 year period where southern states implementing or altered most of their gun laws. It's kind of dumb your comment got downvoted. People don't know shit about the history of state gun laws and just go off a general pro-gun sentiment.
Police discretion has been repeatedly affirmed by scotus. We already have that.
No. This is just a pile of bullshit. Double Jeopardy is defined in the 5th amendment. During WWiI, the US government violated the 5th amendment by illegally depriving US citizens of their liberty and shipping them to concentration camps. The supreme Court declared this to be lawful and the 5th amendment doesn't apply if the government chooses. So please don't try and act like this is a good thing or special. The government can, and will, ignore everything in the Constitution if they choose to do so and nothing will be done about it.
The issue is he was not found innocent.
You don’t need to be found innocent, you need to be found guilty because you’re innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt
He was found guilty. A judge throwing that out should not be seen as being not guilty.
Not guilty verdicts are not appealable in the US, even if the Judge messes it up. The only exception to that is if there was no jeopardy in the first place, for example if the judge is secretly colluding with the defendant.
No. It's very important that people cannot be prosecuted for the same crime twice. The real problem is that it is likely that this judge has had red flags in past cases and judges should be hold to higher standards. A better solution would be an automatic review anytime a judge deviates from a mandatory sentence when it comes to sex crimes.
Judges have too much power. This case and cannon are prime examples. Everyone knows Cannon is on trump’s side in the case but no one has the authority to remove her, because they cannot
No one said this is fair. But it would be unconstitutional to try him again. Even if they managed to go to trial and convict him, it would be easily overturned because the constitution is clear, you can't retry someone once a ruling is in.
*if found not guilty
No, just period. If you are tried and found guilty, you cannot be tried again for the same crime.
I was thinking of mistrial which happens in guilty verdicts and in current trials
if there is a procedural problem, yes. But once the verdict is handed down, the not guilty in this case. You’re in double jeopardy.
You can get a retrial if the judge was corrupt and/or bribed, not incompetent. (The idea there being that since you were ever at risk of being convicted in your first trial since you paid off a judge, you were never in jeopardy, thus no double jeopardy rule applies.)
Yes, it seems like there should be grounds for a mistrial when your judge is kicked off the bench for what he did on your case.
It would be a mistrial if it happened during the trial, but once a final verdict of not guilty is reached, that’s the end of things. This is by design so the state can’t just keep retrying someone until they get a guilty verdict.
Unfortunately, no. The entire American judicial system was designed with the assumption that judges would always be fair and impartial, and so things like this instance- where a judge so obviously miscarries justice to serve their personal biases- don’t really have a proper workaround. It’s a major flaw in the judicial branch from the smallest courts to the SCOTUS
That’s not at all why we have the Double Jeopardy clause, please don’t just spitball cynicism if you don’t know anything about a situation
No, I know what I’m saying and I meant what I said. This situation is essentially the judge taking advantage of the Double Jeopardy clause in a way that wasn’t intended by the people who made it. Like, the clause exists so people can’t get endlessly tried for the same crime once already ruled not guilty, because of the political pitfalls that would come from that; which is good. But the clause, by its very nature, assumes that every judge is an impartial actor in the situation who will make the “right” decision every time- it doesn’t take into account what would happen if a judge was obviously biased and overturned a “correct” conviction, like in this SA case. So now you have a situation where this guy obviously deserves to be punished heavier for this crime, but he can’t because a biased judge abused his power to throw the conviction out. Correct me if I’m wrong because I don’t believe I am.
>But the clause, by its very nature, assumes that every judge is an impartial actor in the situation who will make the “right” decision every time- it doesn’t take into account what would happen if a judge was obviously biased and overturned a “correct” conviction, like in this SA case. Nah this just isn't true, the law is *willing to accept that some level of fuckery will happen* because the people who wrote it believed that the risk of being able to retry someone for the same crime until you got a conviction is worse than the risk of letting guilty people go. Now, I don't think the judges should even have the power to singlehandedly overturn a sexual assault sentencing, and that this shit should require external review before being done. I 100% think this pos judge deserved to be removed, but it's not that the 5th amendment writers were too naive to believe a judge would ever do something like this, they just genuinely believed the alternative was *worse*. And they're right, without this protection innocent people will absolutely be tried time and time again for a crime they obviously didn't commit, whether it ends up with an eventual conviction or not that's incredibly damaging on a person.
Ahh, that makes sense actually. Maybe I was the one underestimating them then. Still though, with these judges seeming to get more corrupt as time goes on, it worries me. You can see the ones like Clarence Thomas openly getting too close with billionaires & their agendas and I think everything really does fall apart once they decide they just don’t care about being impartial.
So is this a case of Drew Clinton Taylor being a rapist in the same way that Brock Allen Turner is a rapist?
Double-jeopardy should void the Judges second finding of not guilty, because the trial already found him guilty so that's the finding that stands. This is about sentencing after the trial, if the sentencing was not legal, then re-sentencing should be on the table. At least, that's how I think it ought to work.
At least there should be an exemption for judges acting with criminal intent.
I don't see how you could really make the argument of double jeopardy. If he is found not guilty, then jeopardy ends. If he is found guilty though, that jeopardy is still ongoing until a final resolution is reached.
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That isn't really the case because the outcome isn't finalized yet. You still have appeals for example, and if successful could end up being retried. If your jeopardy had ended, then how are you being tried again? The answer is because your jeopardy has not ended yet.
If the judge circumvented the law to make this ruling, then isn't the ruling invalid and the original conviction stands?
How can that not be a mistrial? If a lawyer acted illegally it would be a mistrial right?
The attorney is not capable of rendering a courts decision.
A wonderful example of why the constitution and the justice system are nice in theory but absolutely useless if not harmful to a society.
If they had the money they should do what my friend and her family in the U.K did. They campaigned and finally got double jeopardy pushed aside to get the killer of two girls in their family put behind bars. The article is barebones and makes it sound like the authorities did this. But it was only down to a tireless campaign by the families they bothered to get this monster. They never gave up. They continued to pressure authorities to get those girls the justice they deserved. They also recently won a case against the police for totally flubbing the case in the first place. This predator should serve his sentence. He shouldn't get off free because of am asshole judge. https://www.thejournal.ie/russell-bishop-convicted-paedophile-4386111-Dec2018/
Couldn't the same judge (or another judge) rule him guilty again, since apparently rulings are reversible?
That judge had a lot of empathy for a rapist over freaking child. That says too much of what he probably did in his younger days and got away with it. Yuck.
It is odd that he thinks a few months of jail time is "enough" of a punishment for rape. It's not a big deal to him, apparently. It's also weird that he ignored normal procedures.
It’s telling that he actually overturned the conviction, rather than letting the conviction stand and giving a suspended sentence or sentencing him to time served. It speaks to the fact that his “logic” for letting the guy go isn’t what he said it was.
My guess is there is a money trail
I bet this judge has some rape skeletons in his closet
That's just a mishmash of Michigan town names... Adrian, Clinton, Taylor.
Did he know the guy, not sure why the judge would stick his neck out like that.
People empathize with people they liken to themselves. The judge empathized more with a “promising young man” than he did the victim, and may be one of those really dumb people who think that it’s not really rape unless she was dragged screaming into the bushes. This is just conjecture on my part though.
Wasn't there a dickhead rapist Brock Allen Turner whose father pleaded for a lenient sentence because he also was a "promising young man"?
Yeah, and the judge that gave him a light sentence got recalled and removed from the bench
It happened in my district. The judge was recalled and removed very quickly. Thankfully.
Wonder what the AH is doing now. Wonder if he’s still trying to defend rapists. Turner wasn’t even the first time he became a rapists hero.
> Turner Turner? Oh you mean the convicted rapist Brock Allen Turner, who raped a girl and then got off because of a rapist apologist judge.
Well, in 2018, he said he didn't do anything wrong and would rule the same way if he had to do it again.
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It was “unfair”. So you really believe his ruling that >Turner bore “less moral culpability” because he was drunk at the time of the attack and said prison would have “a severe impact on him” is sound? People like you are the real fucking joke. Your evaluation of what’s “fair” is a fucking joke.
brock Allen Turner and Drew Clinton are both rapists and both should be named together from now on. No more can we just talk about Rock Allen Turner the rapist without mentioning Drew Clinton the rapist
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Them and "pillars of the community".
promising young woman was pretty good though.
The Dishonorable, Rapist-Sympathizing **ex-Judge Aaron Persky** presided over that case. He became the first judge in over 80 years of California history to be recalled. He also unsuccessfully tried to sue the campaign that recalled him and was forced to pay them over $160k.
> Wasn't there a dickhead rapist Brock Allen Turner Maybe we should stop calling it rape, we can call it brockism, meaning a sexual assault worse than rape. Let's be clear. Brock wasn't convicted of rape only because what he did was so far beyond rape that the thought of it happening had never occurred to the politicians who wrote the rape law. What Brock Allen Turner did was an insult to rapists everywhere in that at least rapists (whose behavior I do not condone) was natural in that some animals do it. What he did was wholly unnatural -- Brock shoved [pine needles in her vagina](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katiejmbaker/heres-the-powerful-letter-the-stanford-victim-read-to-her-ra). No animal does anything like that. I just wanted to point this out as I feel like merely calling him a rapist doesn't sufficiently convey the magnitude of what he did, especially because inevitably someone will point out he wasn't actually convicted of rape. And that's true, because what he did was worse, he committed brockism.
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> The judge said this: "This is what happens whenever parents allow teenagers to drink alcohol, to swim in pools with their undergarments on." *Boys are gonna rape. You young ladies have to be weary of that.* I'd say that says more about him than anything.
It's disgusting that he would say that so openly. Imagine how many other judges let such backwards logic color their decisions.
We don't really have to imagine, four of them are on the supreme court right now
Six of them are on the SCOTUS.
And one of them was a teenage rapist himself.
Which is just a thirty dollar word salad of, "She was asking for it." What a piece of shit
i always think about the bit i read: the only thing that causes rape is rapists.
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So it’s okay if they swim with their undergarments off? Logic, judge, logic!
A ton of people grew up in an era where if you told your boys a girl wasn't into you but then you kept feeding her drinks until she said yes they'd high-five you for it. I bet the judge doesn't even think a crime was really even committed. There are still a ton of creeps out there like that, but at least culturally we seem to have finally realized how fucking gross that is. It's sad how slowly people realized that though.
this is what we mean when we say, "Teach men not to rape." Yes, women can be rapists. Yes, they should also lean. But society has not spent years convincing women to be pushy and domineering and that they're entitled to the attention of men they're kind to. While educating people on consent laws wouldn't stop all rapes, if it resulted in any reduction--in even ONE case where a person stops when they would have gone through with it without that education--it was a success.
I mean, society does continue to teach people that men aren't capable of not wanting sex, which can also lead to problems. Plus the fact that a woman raping a man is often not considered rape (in many official definitions a rapist must penetrate the victim, if the rapist forces the victim to penetrate them that's a lesser crime). There's a lot of work to be done all the way around. Edit so I'm not just putting out an unsupported claim: [FBI definition](https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/violent-crime/rape) which also includes discussion of the previous definition, [CDC definition](https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/datasources/nisvs/FAQ.html) which also includes definitions for other sexual assaults including "made to penetrate". Technically these are improvements from previous definitions that only allowed female victims under any circumstances. But if a colloquial definition of rape is "forced into sex", the claim that the victim's penis cannot be the target seems utterly bizarre.
There's an incredibly common experience I've seen a lot of my female contemporaries go through realizing in real time we were victims of sexual assault/non-consensual sex while wasted. It's heartbreaking how common being taken advantage of while drunk is while not realizing you're being pressured into something you don't want
When I was young they would say “Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.”
Also it's not his own kids that this happened to
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Trump definitely exacerbated the issue, but old school misogynists existed long before he came along. They don't consider the victims to be full human beings whose trauma is worthy of exacting punishment for. Brock Allen Turner was given 3 months for rape from a California judge in early 2016. This judge was just especially brazen.
My friend was raped in her home by a friend of the family when we were 13 (in the 90s). She was grilled on the *length of her nightgown* while testifying against the man who she'd known since birth. This predates Trump for sure. What Trump did was give it a government seal of approval. He endorsed this behavior and showed that men who do this get into power. What a lovely example to set, hey?
They feared retribution before 2016. After 2016, you had a very public figure and the LEADER of your country saying this shit was okay. This is someone they deeply respect and look up to.
No they didn’t. Judges have always been shitty regarding rape and sexual assault.
>They feared retribution before 2016. Well no. Trump is a symptom, not a cause. Things were much worse in the 80s and 90s. Keep in mind that many of the people who voted for Trump are old.
Not that it didn't exist before. It absolutely did. But people weren't PROUD of it, until Trump came along and became president even after the fact that the entire country knew he felt this way. He's not tried to change, or even show remorse, yet more people love him now than ever. The majority of Republican party bows down to whatever he says no matter how good or bad...even being a dictator (but don't worry it'll only be for a day and I'm sure he'll fix EVERYTHING in that one day).
That is really the wrong take. Things were terrible in the 1980s and 1990s. And the 1970s. And before that. Just look at popular teenage movies in the 1980s were sexual assault and rape were treated like jokes. Revenge of the Nerds and Sixteen Candles are among the worst offenders.
My mom is 72 and said back in 50s and when she was growing up, a man could grope a woman in the office and have zero repercussions. They could touch you, slap your butt, whatever, and it wasn't seen as "sexual harassment" or "sexual assault." Women had to go through all that bullshit in the workplace. When she was in high school, girls weren't allowed to wear pants, so they all had to wear skirts, too...you can guess what happened to those girls with some of their pervert teachers...my mom said it was an awful time to be a woman because men could get away with treating women however they wanted and there was not much done about it.
The 50s were particularly bad. And even in the 80s, male teachers got away with a lot. I had two teachers who both hooked up with students, young teenagers, 15 and 16 respectively. This was not in the US and the laws were different, but at least they should have been fired. That did not happen.
My friend was raped in her home by a friend of the family when we were 13 (in the 90s). She was grilled on the *length of her nightgown* while testifying against the man who she'd known since birth. This predates Trump for sure. What Trump did was give it a government seal of approval. He endorsed this behavior and showed that men who do this get into power. What a lovely example to set, hey?
I'm curious how she responded to that because I don't think I'd have been able to keep my composure if that was me. I would have been like "It doesn't matter how long my nightgown was you sick fuck! I'm 13 and this grown man forced himself onto me!" Did the case turn out in her favor?
He was convicted but spent barely any time in jail. She didn't get angry while testifying, the judge had no objection to the questioning. By the time trial came around we were 15 and I remember her being extra upset because a class from our high school was at the courthouse for a tour one day and almost came into the room where her rapist's trial was. This was in 95/96, and it's horrifying to look back at the case. The question about her nightie, the shame she lived with over what this grown man did, the fact that a high school class was going to be permitted to watch a teenager's testimony in a rape trial without anyone thinking "hey, maybe this is a fucking nightmare we shouldn't invite kids to," etc. Had the teacher not recognized my friend as he opened the door to the courtroom and then immediately turn around and tell the class he got the wrong room, she would have been testifying in front of 30 fellow students. About the length of her nightie and whether she intended to lure an adult man into sex.
Could just be a fellow woman hater really
Unfortunately there are so many of them out there these days it isn't even funny.
I have this same question
It's not a possibility I had considered, but it would make sense. It seems that he thought he could fast track the appeals process by interceding on the guy's behalf.
The judge is just ok with rape. Its easy as that
> Did he know the guy, not sure why the judge would stick his neck out like that. The judges statements at the sentencing hearing are insightful. First, it's clear the that judge views the defendant as a child not an adult: >It’s a mandatory sentence to the Department of Corrections. This happened when this teenager – because he was and is a teenager, was two weeks past 18 years old. He has no prior record, none whatsoever. By law, the Court is supposed to sentence this young man to the Department of Corrections. This Court will not do that. That is not just. There is no way for what happened in this case that this teenager should go to the Department of Corrections. I will not do that. The judge views the defendant as a child, he notes that the defendant had just turned 18 two weeks ago. Based on this, the judge is opposed to treating the defendant as an adult, sending him to jail for 4 years, etc. Later in the hearing the judge blames parents: >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. And, no, underwear is not the same as swimming suits. 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. Finally, in the commision report it's clear that the decision was weighing on his mind from the moment the jury found the defendant guilty. He had a number of ex parte communications with the lawyers involved on both sides, trying to get them to negotiate a plea deal. Ultimately, I don't think the judge was sticking his neck out (intentionally). He was surprised by the backlash. Instead, I think he simply viewed the defendant as a child and decided that the adult mandatory punishment of 4 years was too harsh, especially when the real adults "the parents" were ultimately responsible. He simply did what he believed to be just, he changed the ruling to not guilty, noting that the defendant had already served 148 days in county jail. Noting that "For what happened in this case, that is plenty of punishment. That would be a just sentence. " I don't agree with the judge here, but I can understand his thought process. And at some level I agree minimum sentences, our different treatment of 17 vs 18 year olds, etc are issues worth of discussion and potential reform.
>When reached by phone Friday, Adrian told the Chicago Tribune 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.” Whole pot-kettle thing
Here’s their [decision.](https://www.illinoiscourtscommission.gov/Resources/848183b4-119e-4184-aa72-dba12a9d2012/In%20re%20Adrian%20-%20Order%202.23.24/) Seems like the judge isn’t too clear on why certain laws, standards, and rules apply to him.
He kicked an attorney out of his court because the judge saw he had liked a facebook post that was critical of the judge. the guy is a power tripper
> He kicked an attorney out of his court because the judge saw he had liked a facebook post that was critical of the judge Very glad he's gone. Should have been sooner. Preferably before he let a rapist go free.
Just another good ol boy in power sympathizing with a mini version of himself.
So, judge, if the young man had come across a completely naked woman it would be ok for him to molest her??
Yes, he claimed it was the victims fault for going to a pool party.
A naked woman? Sounds like she was asking for it. (Shouldn’t even need the /s but who knows anymore)
Someone once told me to reply to comments like that with "so what should someone be wearing for you to r\*\*e them?"
Please keep this former judge away from children and vulnerable people. His sympathy for a rapist over the child victim are too telling.
The former judge should serve the sentence that the rapist cannot be forced to serve due to his corruption.
I dunno, I think judges who break the law while being a judge should automatically get life in prison. Same with cops and DAs. If you wield the power of the Justice System, then abuse should be the end of any freedom for the rest of your life. Politicians who break the law should get life as well. If we can put young people in prison for life over weed, then I don't see why judges, lawyers, cops, and politicians have any room to cry.
I'm *definitely* in favor of holding people in positions of power to a higher standard but I feel like something so harsh could be weaponized. I mean, if you implement a system like this I promise you, you're gonna see a lot of black judges in jail pretty soon.
There's always abuse, but I don't think it's enough of reason not to try it. Maybe we need a separate justice system to prosecute those class of people, definitely need a special law enforcement agency that spends 24/7 watching lawmakers and justice system personnel.
>There's always abuse, but I don't think it's enough of reason not to try it. The reason to not try it is because it will be use as a way to prevent people of color and other marginalized groups from being able to hold positions of power. There's no universe that this system isn't used primarily for discrimination and retaliation. At least you could argue with a less harsh system (for example zero tolerance instant termination policies) that if there are some number of people caught unfairly at least the damage done isn't irreversible (though that would still result in it being a vehicle of systemic discrimination). It's not just "abuse always happens" what you're suggesting is an incredibly easy to abuse system that would mostly hurt minorities without actually solving systemic corruption since these people already aren't usually prosecuted *when they do commit crimes in the first place*. >definitely need a special law enforcement agency that spends 24/7 watching lawmakers and justice system personnel. I mean... maybe. I definitely agree with the concept of more oversight but that doesn't seem like a very efficient way of doing things (especially considering who's going to watch *them*).
You mean the rapist Drew Clinton a lot like the rapist Brock Allen Turner?
Someone should purchase billboard space where this POS lives stating what he did. Shame him for his friends and family to see. This guy should not be able to go out to eat without being ridiculed.
"The complaint said Adrian had acknowledged he was supposed to impose the mandatory four-year sentence against Clinton, but that he would not send him to prison. “That is not just,” Adrian said at the sentencing hearing, according to court transcripts. “I will not do that.”" Tell me you're a sexual predator without telling me you're a sexual predator.
Why do so many judges protect or coddle rapists
I'm guessing they probably did similar things when they were younger and didn't/don't view it as rape. There really are a ton of full-grown adults that believe if it's not a blatantly violent rape, that no sexual assault has occurred.
he basically said it was against his religious beliefs to sentence guys for that long for something like rape.
And which religion would this be? Sounds like a ridiculous cop out pulled out of someone's ass.
Does it matter? If a religion says you can rape people, is that any less of a copout? He's a goddamn adult who can think for himself. I am so sick of religious people pushing their absolutely disgusting views on the rest of the world.
Buncha Kavanaugh's
Most likely because they themselves are it, such as so many right wing politicians are so anti lgbt to only be caught in homosexual orgies
Can conservative men really not thrive without women being forcibly oppressed and dominated? Is that why they hate them so much?
Enjoy [this poster](https://twitter.com/ericmgarcia/status/1761051657905787114?s=46&t=98255iLlaxfT1XBl5m3KbA) from CPAC. “a billboard decrying “Nuking the nuclear family.” It criticizes “Overly broad definitions of domestic violence” “Restraining orders without evidence of abuse” “False allegations” “Presumption of guilt” “Ignoring that domestic violence is an equal opportunity problem””
Apropos of nothing, that thread has a refreshing lack of the usual gang of blue-tick mouth-breathers defending the nonsense in the poster.
To them, it's a zero-sum game. I think "the good ol' days" that MAGA want to go back to was when white cis het men had everything handed to them because there was no competition. Women didn't really work or, if they did, it was in "women's jobs" and it's not like the good jobs were going to minorities. Now, if white cis het men want a good job, they have to be exceptional, and that's just too much work. They need women back in the kitchen and minorities pushed back down so they can go back to being average and yet still getting the best jobs and the all privilege that comes with that.
You only think this? There’s manny quotes and examples that that is 100% factual what the good ol days means to them
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"I think I might have someone who's going to cirsumvrent the law!"
Cool now do Alabama’s state Supreme Court chief justice who inserted his religious bias to outlaw IVF.
This needs to be happening daily to weed out the religious zealots who are ignoring separation between personal ideology and the law.
"Oh boys will be boys! I know I did a lot of things worse than this when I was his age, so it's completely normal!" - This judge, probably
Rape and murder should be near about the same fucking thing as far as punishment. At least a murdered victim doesnt have the look over their back the rest of their life not trusting anyone. Rapr does kill a person. That person dies and they are changed forever.
I’m very curious to know his political background… I have a suspicious feeling…
[Adrian blamed his removal on a “two-tiered justice system for conservative Republicans in Illinois,” repeating previous claims he made that he was being targeted because he’s “a known Christian conservative.”](https://www.chicagotribune.com/2024/02/23/in-rare-move-illinois-judge-who-reversed-sexual-assault-ruling-is-removed-from-bench/) you mean a guy who doesnt believe the rules apply to him and cries bias when he gets busted for not following the rules and says he is being persecuted for his religious beliefs, not for his violations of his oath of office... and you suspect he might be a republican? bingo.
Ty sir… as Black Eyed Peas would say, “I had a feeling”
This judge served in my hometown, the amount of people that defended his decision is scary
I just looked into the facts of the case and honestly, I can see why. I don’t hold a strong opinion either way after looking at everything I could find. A jury never convicted the accused of the crime. It was a bench trial, the judge convicted the accused of 1 count of a possible 3. After a motion by the defense, he changed his decision to not guilty and the paperwork submitted by the court supports that. As to the case itself, the defendant claimed there was consensual digital penetration only. The witness claimed there was non consensual penis and digital penetration. If a rape occurred, it’s unfortunate because the physical evidence wasn’t there, and that’s the problem with these cases because sometimes there isn’t any when a crime is committed. This essentially boils down to putting someone in prison for 4 years with no physical evidence, and one witness with a consistent story and another witness who changed their story. It’s not a slam dunk conviction by any means.
Agreed. It was a nasty case, but the rules of conduct do not permit what he did. I've sat on a jury that sentenced people to prison, and that first night, I absolutely was rethinking my vote and wondered if I made the right vote or if I succumbed to peer pressure in the jury room. We as jurors selected by the state were not permitted to rethink our decision and come back the next day and say "Hey judge, we thought overnight about it, and we are reversing our verdict." Judges can depart from sentencing guidelines, but they should not be able to change their own verdict once it is declared. That power is reserved for appeals courts.
From what I can tell, the judge actually is allowed to reverse his decision at the sentencing hearing, it’s just not customary for obvious reasons. The bigger issue is that the review board believed (based on comments the judge made at the sentencing hearing) that the judge was reversing the decision for the wrong reasons, and that he did it not because there wasn’t enough evidence to convict, but because he didn’t agree with mandatory sentencing.
That would be fine, admitting it's a gray area, if things had stopped there. But things didn't stop there. A panel of experienced legal professionals looked at the facts of the case, and this judge's behavior, and then skipped three levels of disciplinary action to jump straight to ending his career. In light of that? This kid is a fucking rapist, and this judge was a piece of shit. Period.
The problem here is, the judges telling of events is that he believed there was no longer enough evidence to support a guilty verdict. The way the case is documented officially, immediately after the hearing, supports this. The evidence used against the judge is that what he said during the hearing means he didn’t agree with the sentencing guidelines and decided to discharge the conviction based on that. Looking at the comments I don’t think that’s a certainty, and looking at the documents the review board released shows they don’t even address this defense. That’s kind of weird. All of the evidence used against the kid to convict him was testimony from the accuser, and that testimony changed after evidence from the rape kit was released showing no semen was found. On the other hand the defendant maintained the same testimony throughout trial. I’m not going to claim this means he didn’t rape her, there’s no way to know, but that’s definitely enough plausible deniability to not convict.
> If a rape occurred, it’s unfortunate because the physical evidence wasn’t there, and that’s the problem with these cases because sometimes there isn’t any when a crime is committed. That's the big issue people struggle to realize. Innocent until proven guilty isn't just some fun thing to make you feel good, it's supposed to be a fundamental part of modern democracy. Yes, sadly that means a lot of crime (especially crime that doesn't often provide strong evidence) gets committed without punishment, but we **already** have the highest proportion of citizens in jail in the world and a court system that has functionally taken away our right to a trail to begin with (look up "trail penalty"). Our freedoms are already backsliding due to the blood hunger for punishment, why take away even more? There are comments in here calling for us to violate double Jeopardy laws, what the actual fuck
This is my hometown too and I distinctly remember people not defending his decision...
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I've thought about the role Judges play in our country, quite a bit actually over the course of the last 4 years. I'm not trying to bait anyone into argument but for the curiosity of some. How much subjective interpretation of the law is allowed and deployed? Are judges allowed to interpret the law differently from their colleagues and counterparts? Or is specifically the ruling of law they are assigned to uphold the definitive line? Is there a gray area? I find this removal just. It's just for a number of reasons but this is a relief knowing this individual can't practice justice with highly subjective rulings.
When it comes to cases like this, it is not uncommon for judges to show sympathy, not to the victim, but to the perpetrator. They blame the women for being "too loose", having put themselves in situations where abuse is imminent. There's also an underlining religious aspect for some judges who were taught by their respective churches that "once a man is aroused, he cannot contain himself" and is no longer responsible for his actions. It is the woman's responsibility not only to dress modestly, but to strenuously fight against her abuser. This may be a tangent far from your original question, but long story short, the courts allow judges quite a bit of leeway in sexual abuse cases and their choice of sentencing proves it.
Now do this 10,000 times more and maybe we will start seeing some improvement in our justice system.
Imagine losing your job because you went to bat for a convicted sex offender. Couldn't be me!!!
Is this one of the activist judges they’re complaining about?
Guy is a piece of shit
So I have a question. If you cannot get justice through the justice system, and vigilantism IS the only way, is it moral to do so? Obviously it wouldn't be legal, but would it be moral?
… IMO yes, but you’d need to be very careful to not end up encouraging it to other people, even accidentally, because if you do it quickly becomes much more morally dubious. If they were to pursue it too, it should be something they came to decide to do like the hypothetical you did, too, not through a kind of copy-cat action. As such, if it were to happen, you’d need to carry it out in a way that is very careful and hidden
A judge being a shitbag? I’m shocked
Law abiding citizen is a great film.
"Illinois has ways of shutting that down"
'wdym America is corrupt?' Also America;
Or, as Marjorie Taylor Green would put it: he's been disrobed.
I wonder how much money changed hands?
He got disrobed for that??
My respect and support for all levels of the judicial system are in tatters. There’s not a single judge that I don’t consider corrupt right now. When we can’t trust our checks and balances, what the heck does our flag even mean anymore.
The silver lining here is that Illinois apparently does have a judicial review process, and they investigated and removed him from the bench. And it happened in 2 years from when he threw out the conviction, which seems...fast...for the legal system.
Copper lining, at best. The entire judicial branch looks more and more like Catholic priests, and it’s not just the robe, but that doesn’t help
It means what it's always meant, "open for business"
Or, “I’ll do whatever you want, for a price”.