Playing with Justice

Well, file this one under “shooting yourself in the foot” with a sub-heading of “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

Cook County, Illinois, Circuit Judge Valarie Turner has just been put on the bench, but not in the good way, because she allowed her law clerk, Rhonda Crawford, to preside in her stead over two cases, even letting her wear the coveted judicial robe.  Ms. Crawford was running unopposed for a seat on the first judicial subcircuit, so, sometime after November, she was going to be a full-blown judge in her own right.  Of course, that was then, this is now.  Because even though Cook County has been referred to as a “dark pool of political corruption,” apparently there’s some crap that even they won’t put up with.

The cases Ms. Crawford presided over were smaller matters–traffic tickets for driving without insurance and driving on a median–but every case is important to the people involved.  You don’t play games with real lives, and it is a special privilege to be the arbiter of something that could have far-reaching consequences over a person’s life and livelihood.  As a result, there are regular channels for getting onto the bench, like election or appointment by an appropriate authority, and no one who has to practice in front of a court wants to see those channels circumvented.  Certainly, you don’t want to see some sitting judge’s “favorite” get to take over the judge’s job on your case.

That’s why what Judge Turner did, by turning over her bench to an unelected and un-appointed person, is unforgivable.  As professors quoted by Above the Law note, you don’t put on the robes, the airs, and the authority of a judge unless you are one.  And it’s also why Ms. Crawford, presumably in the name of gathering some judicial experience (let’s give her the benefit of the doubt), has so destroyed her career.  In Texas, practicing law without a license can get you effectively barred from the profession for life.  If you try to pass yourself off as qualified to practice when you can’t possibly be, you’re out of luck.  You don’t get a second chance.  The same has to go for impersonating a judge.  And, yes, that’s what Ms. Crawford did.  She wasn’t a judge, but she put on the robe and played judge for a couple of cases.

To be a judge is to be one vested with the authority of the government to intervene in a person’s life and affairs.  That’s not something to be taken lightly, and it certainly isn’t something to be easily delegated.  It doesn’t matter how much Ms. Crawford may have known or how competent she may have been.  It matters who she was and whether she had been granted the sacred authority that a judge holds.

To my mind, Judge Turner needs to be removed from the bench, and Ms. Crawford needs to be barred from it.  Their actions reflect a lack of appreciation for the significance of their current and would-be stations.  There’s no such thing as “playing judge.”  You either are one, or you’re not.

H/T Courthouse News Service and Above the Law.

Note:  I edited this post after being called out by a friend who knows much more about the sort of case that Judge Turner presides over than do I. He pointed out to me that there are no minor cases. The ones that many of us might consider “small” can still have a huge impact. That realization underscores the significance of what Judge Turner did here, and it also calls for a “mea culpa” on my part.