Adams County Judge Removed From Bench After The Vacates Rape Conviction

The Illinois Courts Commission (ICC), removed Adams County Judge Robert Adrian following his reversal of an 18 year old man's conviction for raping a 16 year old.

The judge sparked outrage by reversing Clinton's rape conviction in Adams County, Illinois, January of 2022.

In October 2021, Adrian had found then 18-year-old Drew Clinton of Taylor, Michigan, guilty of sexual assaulting a 16-year-old girl during a May 2021 graduation party.

Clinton was accused of sexually assaulting Cameron Vaughan, who was 16 at the time.

After Adrian threw out Clinton's conviction, Vaughan said that the judge told the court “this is what happens whenever parents allow teenagers to drink alcohol, to swim in pools with their undergarments on,” she recounted in an account supported by a court transcript of the January 2022 hearing.

The judge was removed from the bench after a judicial oversight body found he circumvented the law and engaged in misconduct.

The Illinois Courts Commission removed Adams County Judge Robert Adrian from the bench Friday after it held a three-day hearing in Chicago in November on a compliant filed against Adrian.

Its decision says Adrian “engaged in multiple instances of misconduct" and “abused his position of power to indulge his own sense of justice while circumventing the law.”

The commission could have issued a reprimand, censure or suspension without pay, but its decision said it had “ample grounds” for immediately removing Adrian from the bench in western Illinois' Adams County.