One of my least favorite parts of the ballot are the retention votes for Judges. I'm not really opposed to retention votes, but usually any information on the judges seeking retention are minimal at best.
The current county ballot appears to have six judges, Sue E. Myerscough in the 4th Judicial District as Judge of the Appellate Court, and Thomas J. Difanis, Harry E. Clem, Arnold F. Blockman, Katherine (Kitty) McCarthy, and A.G. Webber in the 6th Judicial Circuit as Circuit Judges.
Given our local cyber-community of insiders, wonks, and generally opinionated nerds with far too much time on their hands... is there any opinion on why any of these folks should/shouldn't keep their job? Examples of job well done or abuse of power, or rulings that make one question their sanity or alternatively make one want to sing their praises?
Clem seemed like a nice guy when I was in his courtroom for jury duty, and I agreed with the way he handled the Patrick Thompson case. Years ago, I encountered McCarthy when I went to court to get court supervision for a traffic ticket and she also seemed very reasonable in the cases that I saw. A few weeks after my appearance, I saw her in Springfield at what's now Panera and said hi. She didn't remember me, and I said that I was a boring defendant. She said something like, "Good, I like boring defendants," and was very pleasant.
Thanks, Glock. I was wondering the same, although McCarthy is the only total unknown to me.
I also don't know McCarthy who maybe from another county. The rest a combination of republicans and democrats have been there a while.
McCarthy is in Macon County.
This post demonstrates just how useless the retention system is setup. No metrics, no information, no oversight------meaningless.
Thomas J Difanis help put a stop to Urbana City Council meeting in private so ,I vote for him because we the people have a right to see what is going on at these meetings