What does it take to get a judge outright fired? How much more incompetent and corrupt do they have to be?
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Hopefully there’s an appeal here. Putting aside how morally abhorrent this was, it’s also legally indefensible. In a criminal case, a jury notwithstanding the verdict is only applicable when no reasonable jury could have arrived at a guilty verdict. (Usually this will be because the state offered no evidence for a necessary element of the crime.) An appeals court could, and should, reverse the judge’s decision.
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Reason #437 why electing judges is stupid.
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The full quote is even weirder. “This is what happens when we have people, adults, having parties for teenagers, and they allow co-eds and female people to swim in their underwear in their swimming pool". Also, apparently the adults whose house the party was at supplied the alcohol for the party. I wonder if they were charged with anything?
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If the adults are guilty of providing the alcohol, shouldn’t they be at least partly guilty of any crime committed by the teens who consumed that alcohol?
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In Illinois it certain is illegal for adults to provide booze for teen parties. Illinois General Assembly - Illinois Compiled Statutes
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Oh wow, Misogyny. Again.
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“A “not guilty” verdict on all charges normally ends a criminal case—the prosecution cannot appeal an acquittal.”
– Appealing a Conviction | Nolo
Edited to add that, frustrating though it is in this outrageous case, it is, in general, a very good thing.
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Women’s Lives Matter.
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id like to believe gross misconduct is an exception
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I looked that up as well and the exception to double jeopardy is interesting, if the defendant was never in jeopardy in the first place (an example being if the judge were bribed). Our legal system would, I imagine, never accept this line of reasoning in a million years but logically a case could be made that since the judge said
… that means the defendant was never in jeopardy in the first place, as the judge clearly had a predermined outcome in mind that precluded a jail sentence.
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Giving teens alcohol is illegal, but it is not a rape-level crime. I have been drunk many times, both as a teenager and as a young adult when drunk teenagers were present, and as a adult when drunk adults were present, and I have never raped anyone. I don’t think alcohol makes you a rapist.
It may create a better opportunity for a rapist to rape, but that crime is entirely the rapists.
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Seriously what is the legal theory here? Judges can just read jury verdicts and then go “haha lol nope”?
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I keep forgetting that you guys elect judges. That’s so wild. But maybe in this case it might help with removing him.
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The term “rape culture” is a concise explanation of this exact situation: normalization of sexual assault such that “this is what happens” is considered an argument.
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It’s…interesting…how he doesn’t seem motivated by the idea that criminals going to jail is what happens in courtrooms; which is the sort of normative assumption one would expect from a judge.
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Yup.
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Right, but this isn’t a not guilty verdict. The actual term for this is “judgment notwithstanding the verdict.” The jury returned a guilty verdict, and the judge unilaterally overruled it. An appeals court would only need to find that the judge overruling a guilty verdict was inappropriate here.
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Only if there’s no way the jury could have reasonably arrived at their conclusion. It’s more common in civil cases than criminal, generally when one party fails to submit any evidence to prove an essential element of their claim.
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