A judge on the South Side of Chicago has been indefinitely removed from the bench Wednesday for allowing a Democratic lawyer running for election this November to wear her robe and sit in on her cases last week, according to the Chicago Tribune, a serious violation of judicial ethics and law.
"The public's confidence in the judiciary is the cornerstone of our system of justice, and I have taken the steps necessary to preserve that confidence," Cook County chief Judge Timothy Evans said in the statement, per the paper. "Because the investigation is pending, I believe it is inappropriate to comment further at this time.”
Cook County Circuit Court Judge Valarie Turner is alleged to have allowed Rhonda Crawford sit in on her morning cases, prompting Evans to remove Judge Turner, a former federal prosecutor and a sitting judge since 2002, from the bench until further notice.
"I can't see how someone else can just sit and be a judge,” a legal ethics expert from The John Marshall Law School in Chicago, Clifford Scott-Rudnick told the Tribune. "Obviously, if you're entitled to have a judge hear your case, it has to be a real judge.”
The Tribune’s report cannot speculate on what cases were heard, what lawyers were involved and what the eventual outcome of those cases might be.
Crawford currently works for Evans' office as a staff attorney making $57,000 a year, according to the report, and is running unopposed for the 1st Judicial Subcircuit on Chicago’s South Side after "handily" defeating two Democratic opponents in a March primary.
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