As President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden wrestle atop the 2020 election ballot, 61 Cook County judges at the bottom of the ticket are vying to keep their jobs.
But the judges running for retention don’t craft viral tweets or make many headlines.
Many people don’t even know their names.
Research shows many voters choose judges based on their political party or assumptions about their ethnicity or gender. About one-quarter of Cook County voters in 2018 skipped over the judicial section of their ballot altogether, either because they were overwhelmed with the choices or just didn’t have enough information about the candidates.
But judicial elections bring high stakes and consequences, especially for Black, Latinx and other marginalized groups disproportionately impacted by the justice system. Judges wield immense power to change lives for better — or for worse. That’s why Injustice Watch put together an election guide for the 2020 Cook County judicial elections. The guide — also available in Spanish — offers voters a deep dive into all 61 judges running for retention this year (not counting one candidate on the ballot, Jude Mauricio Araujo, who recently resigned before the Illinois Courts Commission could discipline him for sexual harassment).
Circuit Court judges serve six-year terms and hear all kinds of cases, from traffic tickets to personal injury to child welfare to criminal cases. Appellate Court judges – there are two running for retention this year – hear appealed cases from the Circuit Court and serve ten-year terms. At the end of their terms, the judges have to run to keep their jobs for another term. Voters have just two options on their ballot: Vote “Yes” to keep the judge or “No” to remove them.
A judge needs 60 percent of the people who vote in their retention race to vote “yes” in order to keep their seat, but historically, voters have almost always chosen to retain judges. In 2018, only one judge, Matthew Coghlan, was not retained. He faced accusations from two exonorees that he allegedly helped frame for murder more than two decades ago when he was an assistant state’s attorney.
This election, our research sheds more light on controversial decisions made by some judges during their tenure, as well as their past stints as private attorneys, public defenders and government prosecutors. The guide also highlights personal connections between judges and other public figures in the city and the state.
Voting in judicial elections is particularly crucial at this moment. Many people have called for police defunding and the abolition of prisons and jails, confronting state violence and gendered violence, and reckoning with the legacy of inequity in our country, including the consequences of mass incarceration in Black and Latinx communities. But we can’t have an honest conversation about injustice without considering the role of judges, whose ranks are dominated by white men.