Jim Nowlan: Illinois Supreme Court embarrasses itself again with Edward Burke decision

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Illinois Supreme Court justices appear to recuse themselves when they shouldn’t and not recuse themselves when they should.

Former Chicago Ald. Edward Burke leaves the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse in Chicago during a lunch break in his corruption trial on Dec. 6, 2023. and former powerhouse Chicago Ald. Edward Burke. The justices may well have done so because Burke played a role in putting several of them on their judicial benches. The judicial selection process in Illinois needs change.

The judicial nominating committee operated, in effect, as a patronage mill. If, for example, a Democratic state legislator gave yeoman, loyal service to the party’s interests, he or she could be nominated to the appellate bench, serve a couple of years and retire with a pension double that of a lawmaker. This engendered party discipline as well — if you wanted a judgeship, toe the party line.

A 2016 decision by a four-Democrat-to-three-Republican majority illustrates the latter. The court rejected more than 563,000 petition signers who wanted to see Worse, the lawyer arguing the case before Kilbride and the Democratic court majority was Michael Kasper, treasurer of the Illinois Democratic Party. Obviously, Kilbride, and probably the other Democratic justices as well, had a responsibility to recuse themselves from the case, out of blatant conflict of interest and lack of impartiality.

 

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