Illinois judge who reversed sexual assault ruling awaits fate after disciplinary hearing

Did a veteran judge in downstate Quincy who reversed his guilty ruling against a young man in a sexual assault case do so because he reconsidered the evidence and realized he was wrong?

Or, did he do it to get around a state law that would have forced him to send 18-year-old Drew Clinton to prison for at least four years?

Those two scenarios form the crux of the decision now before the seven-member Illinois Courts Commission, which on Wednesday concluded a rare hearing on whether 8th Judicial Circuit Judge Robert Adrian’s actions in the Clinton case amounted to judicial misconduct.

The Illinois Judicial Inquiry Board, which investigates grievances against sitting judges, accused Adrian of circumventing the state’s mandatory sentencing law when he vacated his decision during Clinton’s Jan. 3, 2022, sentencing hearing. The board also accused Adrian of lying about his motives during sworn testimony last April as part of its investigation, and of ejecting from his courtroom a prosecutor who “liked” a social media post critical of Adrian.

Adrian defended his reversal, saying that his reevaluation of the evidence and testimony led him to conclude that an Adams County prosecutor “totally failed” to prove that Clinton was guilty of sexually assaulting Cameron