The COVID-19 crisis, and the associated pivot to virtual hearings and livestreams, has exposed plenty of flaws in the judicial system and its practitioners. We’ve seen a lawyer who could not get rid of a cat filter, defendants appearing semi-naked, attorneys smoking cigars and all kinds of shenanigans with the mute button.
Add in a variety of nefariously hijacked feeds, such as the one in Australia broadcasting the deportation hearing of tennis player Novak Djokovic, and this has not exactly been a great two years for the dignity of the American judicial system.
Judges tend to skew older (thank goodness). Anyone of a certain age can empathize with the technical challenges of the current era. And, as the former New Yorker writer Jeffrey Toobin and many others can attest, judges and lawyers have not been the only ones embarrassed by the new presence of cameras in what they thought were private domains, even if they had turned the cameras on themselves. When it comes to hot mics, we’ll stipulate that there for the grace of God go many.
Nonetheless, our jaws dropped to the floor at the recent goings on in the courtroom of Cook County Circuit Judge William Raines, as reported in riveting fashion by the Tribune’s Megan Crepeau.
Raines was heard on the YouTube livestream (a courtroom feature of which he apparently was blissfully unaware) mocking an attorney who had appeared before him that very day.
“Can you imagine waking up next to her every day? Oh, my god,” he said. “I couldn’t have a visual on that if you paid me.”
Let that sexist comment sink in for a moment. It’s pathetic coming from anybody. It’s unconscionable coming from a judge.
Yet worse, Raines was not indulging in this offensive locker-room talk in a private setting, or even at some tavern with fellow judges, well away from the courthouse. He was doing so right after the case, and his audience, the Tribune reported, was a Cook County assistant public defender and two Cook County prosecutors.
Raines didn’t even stop there. He ran his mouth yet more.
“Did you see her going nuts?” he said. “Glasses off, fingers through her hair, the phone’s going all over the place, it’s insane.”
Here’s what actually insane. This kind of conduct, not only on the part of the judge but on the part of the prosecutors in the room.
Not only is it wildly inappropriate for a public official of any kind, but it renders the court very much open to the charge of prejudicial jurisprudence.
This was a matter of utmost seriousness, a case involving an imprisoned man who was accusing the police of framing him for a crime he did not commit. Whatever the merits of that case, the judicial system expects such a person to receive vigorous legal representation. “Glasses off” and all. That sounds to us like an attorney doing her job with the requisite intensity.
Now imagine the feelings of a female attorney with a sexual assault case on Raines’ docket. How can she now have a reasonable expectation of a fair trial? Will she be invited to chummy courtroom gossip sessions with the prosecutors? Will she fear being mocked for her own fortitude?
Often these issues with live-feeds and cameras are presented as problems of the courts getting used to technology. In fact, technology and Raines’ apparent ineptitude actually did us all a favor here by shining a light on Raines’ comments, and to whom he felt confident making them.
It’s like a scene out of the play “Chicago” with, once again, Cook County as a poster child for crudeness and cronyism.
Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx has reached out to the attorney who was the object of all of this disparaging verbiage, Jennifer Bonjean, and Foxx told the Tribune that the members of her office who participated in this incident will be dealt with through appropriate personnel procedures, and rightly so.
But it’s hard to tell a judge to shut up when you have a vested interest in staying on his good side. And that’s why the principal responsibility in this tawdry affair lies firmly with Raines. He was the one who opened his mouth and he is supposed to be the adult in the room when it comes to the back and forths of the courtroom. It’s one thing for prosecutors to complain about a defense attorney. It’s another when it’s the judge himself.
Bonjean was able to get her case reassigned (Raines had to recuse himself, which means additional hassle for harried court workers and costs to the taxpayer). She has asked Criminal Division Acting Presiding Judge Erica Reddick to preserve the video, which has since been taken down, in order to press a case against Raines to the Judicial Inquiry Board.
On the face of all the above, at least, any such complaint would appear to have merit. At the very minimum, Raines clearly has some explaining and apologizing to do, not just to Bonjean herself but to the citizens of Cook County who rely on him to treat everyone fairly and impartially and to do so in a fashion that brings honor to the bench and to our system.
The Illinois State Bar Association rated Judge William B. Raines as “Qualified” for election in 2014. We wonder if that august body is rethinking that evaluation. Raines’ term expires in 2026.
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