A judge in Illinois, in the United States, was dismissed last Friday for overturning his own judgment “without valid reason” in the case of a young man accused of raping a teenage girl, several American media report.
In May 2021, the accused, Drew Clinton, then 18 years old, allegedly took advantage of 16-year-old Cameron Vaughan’s drunken state to rape her while holding a pillow over the teenager’s face.
During the trial, which took place in October 2021, Judge Robert Adrian declared the accused guilty, but in January 2022, when passing sentence, the magistrate reversed his decision.
He then declared that in his opinion the accused had spent enough time behind bars, a total of 148 days, and that he did not believe that the young man deserved to spend a minimum of four years in prison, as provided by law for this type of crime.
“He has no history. Under the law, this court should send him to corrections. This court will not do that, it is not fair. There is no question of sending this young man to correctional services because of what happened in this case. I won’t do that,” he said.
Since he could not exclude any detention sentence, the judge reversed his verdict and exonerated the accused.
A complaint was then filed against the judge following a three-day hearing in Chicago, the Illinois Judicial Commission decided to relieve Judge Adrian of his duties. The disciplinary committee found that the magistrate had notably “abused his position of power to apply his own vision of justice by circumventing the law”.
As for the accused, he cannot be tried a second time for the same crime under the Fifth Amendment of the American Constitution.
