After controversy in Quincy, advocates question whether Illinois should require judges to undergo training on sexual assault cases

Over the years, Carrie Ward’s organization, the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault, has worked with law enforcement agencies and attorneys across the state on how to better understand the complexities of sexual violence cases.

But one part of the criminal justice system has been largely absent from that training: judges.

Since 2018, all Illinois police officers must undergo training to better respond to rape survivors — a mandate designed, in part, to encourage more survivors to come forward (an estimated 75% of sexual assaults nationally go unreported and in Illinois, more than 4,000 rapes were reported last year, FBI data show).

Ward and others question whether that training requirement should extend to the state’s roughly 1,000 judges.

“The experience sexual assault survivors have is unique and we’d certainly welcome the opportunity to do training on sexual assault, victimization and recovery,” said Ward, the organization’s CEO. “Those opportunities could be invaluable to learn more about the work and the impact of sexual assault on survivors.”

Every two years, Illinois judges are required to earn 30 hours of continuing education credit, offered largely through attendance at biennial education conferences. Among the courses offered as options at last year’s conference, four were related to cases involving sexual violence, and only one was specifically designed to cover the unique aspects of sex crimes cases.

None of those courses appear to have been offered prior to 2020. A spokesperson with the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts did not know how many judges attended those courses since 2020, nor could he say whether similar classes were available in previous years.

The question of judicial training comes as the seven-member Illinois Courts Commission continues to deliberate over whether a veteran Judge Robert Adrian’s handling of a sexual assault case amounted to misconduct.

Adrian sparked a firestorm of controversy when he reversed his guilty decision against Drew Clinton, a then-18-year-old accused of sexually assaulting Cameron Vaughan, then 16, after a May 2021 graduation party in downstate Quincy.

The Illinois Judicial Inquiry Board, which investigates grievances against sitting judges, accused Adrian of circumventing the state’s mandatory sentencing law when he vacated his decision during Clinton’s Jan. 3, 2022, sentencing hearing. The board also accused Adrian of lying about his motives during sworn testimony last April as part of its investigation, and of ejecting from his courtroom a prosecutor who “liked” a social media post critical of Adrian.

Adrian defended his reversal, saying that the absence of certain bodily fluids during expert testing and inconsistent testimony from Vaughan were factors that led him to eventually conclude that an Adams County prosecutor “totally failed” to prove that Clinton was guilty.

It’s unclear when the commission, which held a two-day hearing last month in Chicago, will reach its decision. If it sides with the inquiry board, it could hand down a range of punishment from formal reprimand to removal from office.

Adrian’s stated reasoning for the reversal raised eyebrows among survivor advocates, who also bristled at comments he made during the January 2022 sentencing hearing. After reversing his ruling, a transcript shows he blamed parents and adults for “having parties for teenagers, and they allow coeds and female people to swim in their underwear in their swimming pool. And, no, underwear is not the same as swimming suits.”

He continued: “It’s just — they allow 16-year-olds to bring liquor to a party. They provide liquor to underage people, and you wonder how these things happen. Well, that’s how these things happen. The court is totally disgusted with that whole thing.”

In a letter to the editor of the downstate legal journal Madison-St. Clair Record published days later, Megan Duesterhaus, chief executive officer of the Quincy Area Network Against Domestic Abuse, wrote:

“If Illinois Eighth Circuit Court Judge Robert Adrian’s recent behavior has demonstrated anything, it’s that courts must mandate comprehensive training of judges on domestic and sexual violence dynamics, so they understand this simple fact — the one person responsible for the violent crime of rape is the perpetrator.”

Amid the fallout, Duesterhaus and others worried whether Adrian’s handling of the case would have lasting repercussions for sexual assault survivors and other crime victims across the state.

“I can’t imagine if I was in the situation of trying to report my sexual assault to police and I lived in Adams County, if that’s the kind of justice being offered, I’d have real hesitations to even report it,” she previously told the Chicago Tribune. “And I don’t blame survivors.”

Others drew comparisons between Adrian and California Judge Aaron Persky, who in 2016 sentenced former Stanford University swimmer Brock Turner to six months in jail on three felony counts of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman.

Persky, whose rationale was published in full by The Guardian, was recalled by voters two years later. Adrian narrowly won reelection to another six-year term in November 2022.

Similar controversies have put a focus on judicial training.

In 2019, New Jersey’s Supreme Court Chief Justice Stuart Rabner paused court operations across the state so judges could undergo mandatory training on sexual assault, domestic violence, implicit bias and diversity, The New York Times reported.

The training came on the heels of comments made by judges in separate sexual assault cases. One judge resigned from the bench, the newspaper reported, a second was removed by the state’s Supreme Court.

“These statewide education conferences will serve to enhance understanding of the complexities and nuances associated with sexual assault, sex offenses, and domestic violence matters and to raise awareness of the impact of implicit bias on decision-making, while providing skills for judges to recognize and respond to their preconceptions,” wrote Glenn Grant, then-acting administrative director of the courts in New Jersey. “The programs also will train judges in effective communication skills that will aid them in delivering clear decisions that are rooted in the law, respectful of victims, and understandable to the public while protecting the rights of the accused.”

A 2021 law in Canada requires all new judges in that country to go through training on sexual assault and systemic racism before taking the bench, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported. Like in New Jersey, the CBC reported that the law was crafted “after a series of high-profile cases revealed that many judges adhere to archaic stereotypes about women who are subjected to sexual violence.”

The court system in Washington state publishes an extensive “sexual violence bench guide for judicial officers,” while in Colorado a task force of court system representatives and crime victim advocates is working on recommendations for how that state can better train its judges on issues of domestic violence, sexual assault and other violent crimes.

Lynn Hecht Schafran is director of the National Judicial Education Program for Legal Momentum, a national nonprofit legal defense and education fund for women. Over the last four decades, the program has focused on teaching judges how to better preside over sexual assault cases. She’s worked with the Colorado task force and on the mandatory training for judges in New Jersey.

“The fact is that judges are by and large coming to these cases without training,” Schafran said. “What is striking is the judges saying, ‘I did not have the most basic information.’”

In past years, she’s co-authored the publication “Judges Tell: What I Wish I Had Known Before I Presided in an Adult Victim Sexual Assault Case.” Among the 25 points judges shared in the publication:

•“The widespread misconception that rape is about sexual desire — rather than power and control — colors every aspect of the justice system’s response to sexual assault.”

•“Traumatic memories are developed, stored and retrieved differently than nontraumatic memories.”

•“The widespread belief in rampant false allegations of rape is erroneous.”

“When law enforcement and judges learn about these issues, many say, ‘Why didn’t I know about this three years ago? Why did I have to do these things wrong?’” Schafran said. “It’s wonderful they’re coming to that conclusion, but it’s not wonderful they didn’t have training that was available — knowledge that is widely available.”

For information about rape crisis centers in Illinois, visit the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault website at icasa.org .