Robert Adrian, the veteran judge in downstate Quincy who in 2022 reversed his guilty ruling against a young man in a sexual assault case, has been removed from the bench, the Illinois Courts Commission ruled.
The rare decision from the seven-member commission, issued Friday, said that Adrian sought to circumvent the state’s mandatory minimum sentencing law when he vacated his decision during a Jan. 3, 2022, sentencing hearing for Drew Clinton, then 18, whom he previously found guilty of sexually assaulting 16-year-old Cameron Vaughan during a 2021 graduation party.
Adrian attempted to defend his reversal, saying that his reevaluation of the evidence and testimony led him to conclude that an Adams County prosecutor “totally failed” to prove Clinton’s guilt.
Commission members called Adrian’s justification “a subterfuge.” Instead, they concluded, the judge “intentionally circumvented the law to satisfy his personal belief as to what constituted a just sentence, resulting in his reversal of a criminal defendant’s conviction.”
The commission also sided with the Illinois Judicial Inquiry Board, which investigates grievances against sitting judges, in saying that Adrian lied about his motives during sworn testimony as part of the Inquiry Board’s investigation, and of improperly ejecting from his courtroom a prosecutor who “liked” a social media post critical of Adrian.
“The nature and extent of this misconduct is egregious,” the commission wrote in its decision, and his “intentional, dishonest, and extensive misconduct demonstrates (his) utter disregard for the truth, the judiciary and our justice system.”
When reached by phone Friday, Adrian said he presided over a civil case that morning in the 8th Judicial Circuit Court and then learned of the commission’s decision around noon. His afternoon cases were continued, he said.
“It’s totally a miscarriage of justice,” Adrian said of his removal. “I did what was right. I’ve always told the truth about it.”
Vaughan said Friday 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.”
Since 2003, only three other judges have been removed by the commission, though others resigned or otherwise left the bench prior to a decision in their cases.
Adrian blamed his removal on a “two-tiered justice system for conservative Republicans in Illinois,” repeating previous claims he made that he was being targeted because he’s “a known Christian conservative.”
Adrian, who narrowly won his retention campaign in November 2022, said he planned to retire before the controversy over his decision, which drew intense media attention.
“I’m just going to retire and enjoy my retirement,” he said Friday.
Advocates for sexual assault survivors, meanwhile, praised the commission’s decision.
“This decision reassures survivors of sexual violence that they can have confidence in the criminal justice system in Illinois knowing that if they are mistreated it will not be without consequence and accountability,” said Megan Duesterhaus, chief executive officer of the Quincy Area Network Against Domestic Abuse.
