The Nominating Committee of the Circuit Court of Cook County decided today to reconvene the Associate Judge selection process in April.Now everybody go back to work....
The Nominating Committee took this action to avoid overlap with the March primary in which several applicants for Associate Judge are also running for Circuit Judge, and to avoid a scheduling conflict with the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts’ mandatory Education Conferences that judges will attend in February and April.
While Circuit Judges are elected by the public, Associate Judges are appointed by the Circuit Judges in a selection process conducted by the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts. For this selection process, Circuit Judges will see 34 names on their ballots and will select 17 candidates. The 17 candidates who receive the most votes will become Associate Judges.
A total of 272 licensed attorneys originally submitted applications for consideration for the 17 Associate Judge vacancies and underwent evaluations by several bar associations. The bar associations’ evaluations concluded in December.
This month, the Nominating Committee interviewed 248 applicants, as 20 withdrew from the process and four did not appear for their interviews. Interviews concluded today, and the Nominating Committee will reconvene in April to select 34 finalists.
All Circuit Judges who will vote in the Associate Judge selection process must attend one of two state-mandated judicial education conferences on February 5-9 and April 9-13. If the Nominating Committee was to move forward with selecting the Associate Judge finalists, the timing of the conference would limit the Circuit Judges’ ability to personally meet with the 34 would-be Associate Judge finalists before the Circuit Judges cast their ballots.
Cases, controversies, the occasional water-cooler rant, and news about Cook County judges and judicial elections Feel free to browse here or on page two of this blog.
Thursday, January 25, 2018
Stand down from red alert: Associate judge process to "reconvene" in April
As promised -- herewith the updated information just provided by Pat Milhizer, Director of Communications for Chief Judge Timothy C. Evans --
Many sitting judges are out on March 20. That's all this is about. Save some of them.
ReplyDeleteTim won't save them all. Ask the bunch he didn't save in 2016, 2014, 2012 . . .
ReplyDeleteJack, the raw comments are why the candidates and judiciary tune in. not the press release.. This was the ultimate train wreck by the "Executive Committee of PJs" otherwise, Tim's rubber stamp/ Evan's PJs broke precedent by not staging the Associate's "short list" immediately following the election primary. Although Tim's PJs had saved numerous appointed judges by the Supreme Court that could not get elected in the primary, Evans and his PJs correctly decided this year to keep the 2 selection processes separate. There should be no relation to the Associate selection and the political Supreme Ct. appointments. (They are not vetted by the full judiciary, just named by a Sup Ct jurist. However by delaying the process until April, The PJs must concede that they chilled a Revolution of judges voting for "write in " candidates that would have dominated the PJs short list. Half the judiciary in the State are in Lombard for ClE and the write ins would have kicked ass contrary to the PJs selections of diverse yet weak candidates. Evans and the PJs were exposed. This press release and the explanation is a joke.
ReplyDelete