Judge removed after reversing man's rape conviction for brutal assault of girl
A judge who sparked outrage when he reversed a man's rape conviction involving a 16-year-old girl has been removed from the bench after a judicial oversight body found he circumvented the law and engaged in misconduct.
The Illinois Courts Commission removed Adams County Judge Robert Adrian from the bench on Friday after it held a three-day hearing in Chicago in November based on a complaint filed against Adrian. Their decision says Adrian "engaged in multiple instances of misconduct" and "abused his position of power to indulge his own sense of justice while circumventing the law."
The commission could have issued a reprimand, censure or suspension without pay, but its decision said it had "ample grounds" for immediately removing Adrian from the bench in western Illinois' Adams County based on the case involving the alleged rape of a 16-year-old girl. In October 2021, Adrian found then 18-year-old Drew Clinton of Taylor, Michigan, guilty of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl at a May 2021 graduation party.
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The judge believed the time Clinton had spent in jail was enough (AP)When the judge declared that the 148 days that Clinton had spent in jail was punishment enough, he threw the case out. The state Judicial Inquiry Board filed a complaint against Adrian following this shocking decision. The complaint said Adrian had acknowledged he needed to impose the mandatory four-year sentence against Clinton for his crimes, but that he would not send him to prison to serve that time.
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"That is not just," Adrian said at the sentencing hearing, according to court transcripts. "I will not do that."
Teenage Clinton was accused of sexually assaulting Cameron Vaughan, who has spoken out publicly about the shocking decision.
Clinton was accused of raping Vaughan at a party, but cannot now be retried (QHS Football)Cameron told The Associated Press in November 2023, when she was 18, that Adrian's reversal of Clinton's verdict left her "completely shocked" and made her determined to oust the judge. She attended the November commission proceedings with family, friends and supporters.
Following Adrian's dismissal of Clinton's conviction, Vaughan said that the judge told the court "this is what happens whenever parents allow teenagers to drink alcohol, to swim in pools with their undergarments on," she recounted in an account supported by a court transcript of the January 2022 hearing.
Adrian's move and comments sparked outrage in Cameron's hometown of Quincy, Illinois, and beyond, with the prosecutor in the case saying that her "heart is bleeding for the victim."
Vaughan has shared her joy at the dismissal (AP)Cameron told the Chicago Tribune following Friday's decision removing Adrian from the bench that she was "very happy that the commission could see all the wrong and all the lies that he told the entire time. I'm so unbelievably happy right now. He can't hurt anybody else. He can't ruin anyone else's life."
Denying this however, 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."
Despite the dismissal, Clinton cannot be tried again for the same crime under the Fifth Amendment. However, a motion to expunge Clinton's record was denied in February 2023.
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