Judge under scrutiny for reversing sex assault verdict he handed down

Cameron Vaughan thought the worst was behind her.

The 16-year-old had already told her parents what happened that night in June 2021, and then recounted each excruciating memory to the sexual assault nurses, the Quincy police detectives and Adams County prosecutors. She already endured the three-day bench trial, the questions and comments and the looks aimed at making her feel like she was lying. Like it was her fault.

She told herself it had all been worth it when, four months later, she heard 8th Judicial Circuit Judge Robert Adrian say he found her accused attacker, 18-year-old Drew Clinton, guilty of one felony count of criminal sexual assault.

All that remained was the Jan. 3, 2022, sentencing hearing, at which Clinton faced a mandatory minimum sentence of four years in prison, and where Vaughan and her family had planned to read aloud victim impact statements they painfully prepared.

“I was so ready to see him finally get what he deserved,” said Vaughan, now 18, who agreed to be identified for this story.

Instead, in a decision that gutted the Vaughan family and stunned sexual assault advocates and survivors well beyond the downstate Illinois river town, Adrian reversed his guilty verdict, saying that the 148 days Clinton spent in county jail was “plenty of punishment.”

“By law, the court is supposed to sentence this young man to the Department of Corrections,” Adrian told the courtroom, according to a hearing transcript. “This court will not do that. That is not just. There is no way for what happened in this case that this teenager should go to the Department of Corrections. I will not do that.”

Now, nearly two years later, the Illinois Courts Commission will convene Tuesday in a Chicago courtroom for a rare hearing on whether the veteran judge should face discipline for his actions.

The Illinois Judicial Inquiry Board, which investigates misconduct allegations against sitting judges, has accused Adrian of circumventing the state’s mandatory sentencing law by vacating his own guilty verdict against Clinton. The board also accused Adrian of lying under oath about his motives for the reversal, and of ejecting from his courtroom a prosecutor who “liked” a social media post critical of Adrian.

Adrian’s attorneys did not respond to messages seeking comment. In filings before the Courts Commission, he denies any wrongdoing.

If the seven-member Courts Commission disagrees, it could hand down a range of punishment from formal reprimand to removal from office.

Advocates say the outcome of this week’s hearing could have lasting repercussions for sexual assault survivors and other crime victims across the state.

“If you can have a judge that’s just allowed to disregard the statutes passed by the general assembly, any judge can,” said Megan Duesterhaus, chief executive officer of the Quincy Area Network Against Domestic Abuse. “I can’t imagine if I was in the situation of trying to report my sexual assault to police and I lived in Adams County, if that’s the kind of justice being offered, I’d have real hesitations to even report it. And I don’t blame survivors.”

Legal experts say judges rarely reverse their own verdicts. And when they do, it’s often because they reconsidered the evidence or felt they made an error in allowing inadmissible evidence.

“The fact that the judge wants to reverse his verdict because he feels the sentencing range is too high is truly unique,” said University of Illinois at Chicago law professor Hugh Mundy.

The case centered on a graduation party attended by Vaughan and Clinton. During the bench trial, Vaughan testified that she got drunk at the party and, later, fell asleep on a friend’s couch. She said she woke up with a pillow pushed on her face and Clinton sexually assaulting her.

“She at no time gave consent,” Assistant State’s Attorney Anita Rodriguez said during the sentencing hearing, according to a transcript. “In fact, earlier in the evening, she had specifically indicated that she did not want any sexual contact with this defendant.”

Clinton’s attorney argued that Vaughan was aware of, and consented to, the encounter.

After reversing his own verdict, the transcript shows, Adrian went on to blame parents and adults for “having parties for teenagers, and they allow coeds and female people to swim in their underwear in their swimming pool. And, no, underwear is not the same as swimming suits.”

He continued: “It’s just — they allow 16-year-olds to bring liquor to a party. They provide liquor to underage people, and you wonder how these things happen. Well, that’s how these things happen. The court is totally disgusted with that whole thing.”

Vaughan said she walked out of the courtroom in tears, unable to hear the judge as he “blamed every single person for what happened, except Drew.” Her father, Scott Vaughan, had to be escorted from the room.

“I was filled with anger until I got home where I could let it all set in, and that’s when it actually hurt,” he remembered. “Oh my God, how is this possible? What comes next? Does this kid just get a slap on the wrist? What does this say for everybody else? What does it say to my then-9-year-old son? That it’s OK if they’re drinking and wearing skimpy clothes?”

The case quickly drew the attention of Quincy’s nearly 40,000 residents, some of whom rallied to support Vaughan. A petition calling for Adrian’s removal from the bench currently has more than 175,000 signatures, fueled in part by national and international media coverage, as well as Vaughan’s appearance on the “Dr. Phil” show.

Days after the sentencing hearing, Adrian was temporarily reassigned to civil cases after he ejected from his courtroom the prosecutor who “liked” a social media comment that criticized the judge.

“I don’t get on social media, but my wife does, and she saw the thumbs-up you gave to people attacking me,” Adrian told the prosecutor, according to the Inquiry Board’s complaint. “I can’t be fair with you. Get out.”

As the backlash grew, Adrian tried to elaborate on his sentencing hearing decision. Last August, he sent the Muddy River News a copy of a court order in which he explained in detail the ways he did not find Vaughan’s testimony credible or supported by evidence. The newspaper reported that the unsigned order had not been officially entered into the record. A circuit court clerk told the Chicago Tribune Monday she could not find such an order in the court record.

The judge, who a month earlier had launched his retention campaign — which he narrowly won — at an outdoor news conference met by protesters chanting for his removal, also wrote a letter to the Muddy River News. In it, he accused the county’s Democratic Party of carrying out “a political attack on me, a well-known Christian and conservative.”

For Lindsey Lane, who helped organize the grassroots group, Stand With Cammy, behind the petition, the case has little to do with politics. Lane, 41, was a year older than Vaughan, she said, when she was sexually assaulted by someone 21 years older.

She kept it to herself for years, worried it would upset and embarrass her family.

Vaughan’s willingness to talk publicly about what happened to her has inspired women across the country, young and old, to share their own stories of survival. And that’s helped heal old wounds, Lane said.

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“Cameron’s very special and probably one of the bravest people I’ve ever met,” said Lane, who planned to join Vaughan on the train ride to Chicago for the commission hearing.

Vaughan, meanwhile, said the outpouring of support and messages from survivors has been unexpected and, at times, overwhelming. She’s since moved from Quincy. She has a job, a boyfriend, a dog and a cat.

After the sentencing hearing, she and her father planned to head to the Mississippi River. There, they were going to rip up the suicide note she wrote before trying to take her life, and throw the pieces in the water.

They may still do it someday, she said, but the catharsis that ritual promised might not be necessary anymore.

“Life is just so much better now,” she said. “I was about to kill myself over this. Now my life is amazing.”

If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, please call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988. For information about rape crisis centers in Illinois, visit the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault website at icasa.org.

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