“Do as I Say…Not as I Do” (cont’d)
Posted by Lawrence Taylor on January 28th, 2009In my last post, I presented three news articles from the previous three days reflecting the double standard in how cops, prosecutors and judges are treated when they are caught driving drunk. In the judge’s case, despite aggravating facts she avoided any jail time…But surely she’ll be removed from sitting on the bench, right?
Secret Discipline of $150,000-a-year DUI Judge ‘Could Take Two Years’
Chicago, IL. Jan. 25 – She quietly pleaded guilty to drunken driving and was sentenced on the day President Obama was inaugurated.
But it may be another two years before Cook County Judge Sheila McGinnis is disciplined by the authorities who oversee Illinois judges – if they discipline her, according to the executive director of the Illinois Judicial Inquiry Board.
McGinnis on Tuesday dodged a potential one-year jail term when she admitted drunkenly crashing her Chevrolet sport utility vehicle into the back of a family-of-four’s minivan May 9 in Tinley Park.
With the attention of the Southland and the world focused on Washington, D.C., Judge Edward Burmila fined McGinnis $1,000, ordered her to complete an 18-month probation stint, to attend counseling and to attend a victim impact panel during a brief hearing at the Markham courthouse.
Secrecy governs the process by which judges are disciplined in Illinois, meaning the JIB cannot reveal if an official complaint has been made against McGinnis in her role as a judge, JIB executive director Kathy Twine said…
A Southtown Star survey of Illinois Court Commission records shows that not one of the eight Illinois judges investigated for DUIs since 1973 has been removed from the bench for even one day…
Want to bet what’s going to happen to this judge after two years of secret "investigation"? Or what your sentence would have been standing in front of this same judge with the same facts?
The only thought I have on this matter is what gives any gov’t entity the right to withhold any information in regard to possible misconduct by individuals that are charged upon oath to administer the law as best they can understand it to satisfy the concerns of the citizens of this country? Afterall, they(we) pay their salaries. Everyone of us has a lien right to anything the gov’t owns or runs, yet behavior says otherwise.
These fuctions that these individuals perform as a representatives of the people are a matter of public interest and concern.
To claim that even the hint of an investigation into practice on the bench( or off,,or any other entity that is funded by us) is not something the public is allowed to review is nothing short of thumbing one’s nose at a piece of paper called the Constitution.
The Constitution was put in place to prevent behind the scenes activity. It appears now that anything our gov’t does is being hidden under the guise of national interest. There are plenty of good hearted individuals that take the oath of whatever public function they may win a seat for, but then again there are many that see it as a pension for the rest of their lives. Nothing more, nothing less.
Its sad to see what the latter has done to this country.
I’m afraid one would have to look long and hard to find that alive anymore as it doesn’t exist here anymore.
A very sad reality for America