Chicago DUI attorney comments on the non-Greylord traffic ticket scandal

This Chicago DUI attorney has posted here, here, and here on professional courtesies.  She’s a bit surprised that the prosecutor decided to report it.

June 15, Springfield, IL

 A pair of Sangamon County judges are suspected of fixing a traffic ticket, and the case has been turned over to the Illinois Judicial Inquiry Board, which could result in discipline ranging from reprimands to removal from the bench.

Associate Judge Judge[ sic] Robert Hall on June 7 dismissed a Leland Grove ticket issued a month earlier to the 16-year-old daughter of Associate Judge Christopher Perrin. Police say the teen failed to heed a road-closed sign.

Hall initialed a court document indicating the state’s attorney’s office had moved for dismissal, and the docket on the circuit clerk’s website shows the ticket was dismissed for insufficient evidence.

However, the docket also shows that no prosecutor was present when the case was dismissed, and State’s Attorney John Schmidt confirmed Tuesday that his office did not seek the dismissal.

Schmidt said he told presiding Judge Patrick Kelley of the problem last week, as soon as a prosecutor discovered it while reviewing dockets.

In a written statement, Kelley said Hall dismissed the case of his own accord after speaking with Perrin.

“It’s mind-boggling that this would happen,” Kelley said in an interview. “It calls into question all of us. We all take this very seriously. This was obviously a lapse in judgment on the part of one or both judges.”

No. The judges in question have not been fired, embarrassed (I suspect), but not fired.