Bertina Lampkin: Not the retiring type

To no one's surprise, except perhaps my own, I am not Facebook "friends" with every Cook County judge.

Some current judges "friended" me during their initial campaigns and didn't dump me immediately after winning. Which was nice. Sometimes I "like" one of their posts, sometimes they "like" one of mine. A few are pretty active in my Facebook feed.

Appellate Court Justice Bertina Lampkin is not one of these. I heard that she'd put up a Facebook post about her plans to retire from that court -- she doesn't have any, as you can now see -- but, when I went to investigate, I found at least three Bertina Lampkin Facebook pages. That may mean that two of the three are phantoms -- hacked pages. It seems like nearly every week I get an invite to "friend" someone I've been "friends" with for years. Some of these I actually know in real life, so I can verify that a bad actor has decided to appropriate one of my IRL friend's Facebook accounts. What I don't understand is why a bad actor would do this; there's no money in fake Facebook pages that I can figure.

Multiple pages might also mean that Justice Lampkin started different Facebook pages at different times and for different purposes and abandoned two of them. That happens, too. Facebook is apparently forever. I get far too many birthday announcements on Facebook for people who have departed this vale of tears. Who knows? Maybe there's Wi-Fi in Heaven. Maybe, there, it's even reliable. But while the Rockies may crumble, and Gibraltar may tumble, old Facebook accounts, even abandoned ones, are apparently here to stay.

But let me come back to the subject here. I had this rumor. I investigated. I did not find the rumored post.

In one sense, that's good, obviously.

Any Facebook user, but especially a Facebook user who serves in the judiciary, should be extremely careful about privacy settings. I tell people not to post anything on Facebook that you couldn't have read back from the pulpit by your pastor (or rabbi, or imam, or whatever). And that's with controlling your privacy settings -- because, once you turn something loose on the world, one of your Facebook "friends" might redirect your message out of your network, and plunge you into unwanted controversy.

But, being unable to verify the message, even though I had reliable sources, I was hesitant to go with the story.

I could try to "friend" Justice Lampkin, presumptuous fellow that I am, and thereby (at least presumably) gain access to the rumored post, but that meant also potentially friending two Russian bots. Or whatever.

So the story has remained on hold.

Until today... when I got this screen grab from someone. Someone named Anonymous, of course. It wouldn't be FWIW if people used their names.

But, anyway, now I think I have enough to run the story... which you've just read.

It's not the whole story. It's not necessarily even the most interesting part of the story. That would involve finding out who is telling potential Appellate Court candidates that Justice Lampkin is retiring soon, and why. In fact, from what I'm hearing, Justice Lampkin is not the only serving Appellate Court justice who is having to fend off unwanted resignation rumors. Why? The dots seem pretty easy to connect... but that would involve some speculation. And I try to refrain from speculation.

If I can add to this story later, however, I will.