Quincy, the county seat of Adams County in downstate Illinois, is a quiet town. Here residents vote conservative, prize neighborliness and don’t raise voices. Controversy isn’t courted.
But that changed when a judge reversed his guilty judgment in a sexual assault trial that has raised a loud outcry. National media took notice when Quincy Area Network Against Domestic Abuse (Quanada), whose board I sit on, expressed its outrage over the verdict. Quanada provides services to victims of domestic and sexual violence in west central Illinois.
At a sentencing hearing Jan. 3, Adams County Judge Robert Adrian overturned his October decision that found 18-year-old Drew Clinton guilty. He declared the state’s mandatory minimum sentence of four years for rape was too much. By this time, Clinton had served 148 days in the county jail.
