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This story was produced by Injustice Watch, a nonprofit newsroom in Chicago that investigates issues of equity and justice in the Cook County court system. Sign up here to get their weekly newsletter.
CHICAGO — One Cook County judge was losing his bid to keep his job and two more were in peril as vote-counting continued after Tuesday’s election.
Shannon O’Malley — one of two judges facing questions about whether they live in Cook County — was just shy of the 60% of the vote required to keep his seat as of Wednesday, with votes left to count in a few dozen precincts and mail-in ballots not yet tabulated.
In addition to O’Malley, E. Kenneth Wright Jr. had 62.8 % and Ieshia Gray had 62.1%, per unofficial totals released by elections officials.
All three judges in peril were the subject of Injustice Watch investigations prior to the election.
Both O’Malley and Wright benefited from tax exemptions on homes they own in Will County. Gray has been the subject of a Judicial Inquiry Board investigation spurred by an allegation she abused her power, also revealed by Injustice Watch.
One other Cook County judge was under 65 percent Wednesday morning: Kathy M. Flanagan, the acting presiding judge of the Law Division, who bar groups have criticized for her temperament and who also has been the focus of a Judicial Inquiry Board investigation over a courtroom dispute with a lawyer. She had 64.1%.
Wright, O’Malley and Gray were all under 60% in Chicago voting Wednesday morning, with more support in the suburbs.
Wright, in particular, faced backlash in the run-up to the election, with the Illinois State Bar Association rescinding its support. The Chicago Bar Association — over which he once presided — changed its rating to “not recommended” the day before the election, after nearly a million people had voted early. The Chicago Council of Lawyers downgraded his rating from “well qualified” to “qualified” in light of Injustice Watch’s findings.
In a late development on Wednesday, Cook County Chief Judge Timothy Evans referred both O’Malley and Wright to the Illinois Judicial Inquiry Board to investigate their residency conflicts. The decision came after Evan’s Executive Committee of the Circuit Court of Cook County — on which Wright serves — met to rule on the conduct of the two judges.
O’Malley was the only judge found not recommended for retention by all of the reporting bar associations that evaluate judicial candidates.
The judges’ fates, however, remained unclear Wednesday, as about 40 Chicago precincts had not reported totals, and tens of thousands of vote-by-mail ballots in the city and county remained outstanding. Election officials said those ballots would be counted on a rolling basis through Nov. 19.
Chicago election authorities couldn’t say how many of the 266,000 mail-in ballots voters requested had been returned Wednesday. In suburban Cook County, about 106,000 mail-in ballots were outstanding, said Frank Herrera, a spokesman for Cook County Clerk Cedric Giles. Only a portion of those would likely be returned and still fewer of those would include votes in judicial races.
None of the three judges in the closest races responded to requests for comment Wednesday.
Along with the 75 circuit judges and two appellate judges trying to keep their posts, there were five partisan contests between candidates trying to take the bench for the first time. As of Wednesday morning, Democratic candidates held sizable leads in all of them. Those frontrunners were Pablo F. deCastro, Alon Stein, Frank J. Andreou, James “Jack” Costello, and John Hock.
Every two years, a portion of the judiciary stands for retention, and each judge seeking to remain on the bench has to win 60 percent “yes” votes among votes cast in their races. If a judge loses, the Illinois Supreme Court fills the post. Circuit judges serve six-year terms; appellate judges serve 10-year terms.
Before 2018, it was incredibly rare for a judge to lose a retention race, and most judges still coast to victory by comfortable margins. But if one of the judges in peril loses, it would be the third time in the past four elections.
The only judges to lose recently did so after embarrassing scandals or concerted movements to oust them. This year, no popular movement against any judge emerged. Lawyers have clear incentives to avoid criticizing sitting judges, and progressive activists said attention went instead to the presidential election and first Chicago School Board elections, among other causes. With attention largely focused elsewhere, the judges ran a quiet campaign, doing little to promote themselves and working harder to avoid media scrutiny than in past elections.
Voters seem to have grown more tuned in to retention elections, through the efforts of bar associations, advocacy groups and Injustice Watch, said Elizabeth Monkus, senior attorney and project director for the Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts.
“I think more people are open to understanding how judges affect everything, not just the people who are in their courtrooms,” she said.
In a near-void of other reporting on the judges, Injustice Watch published a guide with information on all of them, along with several stories on noteworthy candidates.
Injustice Watch last month revealed Wright and O’Malley had taken homestead exemptions on houses they owned in Will County. State law requires judges to live in the jurisdiction they serve and allows homeowners to benefit from homestead exemptions only on their “principal residence.” Wright quickly sought to remove his tax exemptions after the story, Will County officials said.
Wright’s support from bar associations softened. O’Malley, who before running in 2018 changed his political party and name, received negative ratings from bar associations, citing concerns about his courtroom management and legal ability.
O’Malley told Injustice Watch through his attorney he moved to Cook County to live apart from his wife in 2017.
In September, Injustice Watch revealed Gray was the subject of a rare Judicial Inquiry Board investigation of her interactions with an attorney at the Markham Courthouse. Gray repeatedly denied the lawyer’s routine requests to be heard by a new judge and then issued an order recusing herself from his cases while blasting him as “unprofessional and abrasive.”