In the first shakeup of the troubled Cook County Juvenile Court system since the death of 3-year-old Joseph Wallace, four judges have been transferred to other courts where they will hear traffic, housing and domestic violence cases instead of those directly involving children.
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The transfers include Associate Judge Walter Williams, who came under the most fire for a string of court decisions that sent Joseph back to his mother despite evidence that she was mentally ill and violent.
Joseph was hanged by an electrical cord in April 1993, allegedly by his mother, Amanda.
The transfers, decided upon by Cook County Circuit Court Chief Judge Harry Comerford, became effective Monday.
While the transfers are bound to be perceived as fallout from the recent Wallace Commission report that examined the actions of the Juvenile Court in the Wallace case, they are not demotions and had been requested by the judges themselves, according to a court official.
“The four judges moving out have been there quite a while and they all had requested a transfer,” said Bill Kelly, spokesman for a vacationing Comerford.
“Judge Comerford wants to inject new blood into the Juvenile Court. These are all young, energetic, very dedicated people.”
Three of the judges have been reassigned to the First Municipal District, where traffic, housing, ordinance violations, domestic violence, personal injury cases and others are heard in 89 courtrooms.
Those judges are Williams, who for the last two years heard delinquency cases and had the Wallace case from August 1989 to January 1991; Associate Judge Arthur Rosenblum, who had heard waiver cases to decide if children should be tried as adults or remain in the Juvenile Court; and Charles Barish, who heard cases in the abuse and neglect and delinquency courts.
Judge Allen Goldberg, who made the last decision returning Wallace to his birth mother, heard abuse and neglect cases. He was reassigned to the Domestic Relations Court, according to Judge Sophia Hall, who presides over Juvenile Court.
Williams and Goldberg each drew criticism for not prying more information out of attorneys about the mother’s criminal and mental history before removing Joseph from his foster home and returning him to his birth mother.
The Wallace Commission issued its report in October and largely cleared the judges of wrongdoing.
Most of the blame for the Wallace case was pinned on attorneys, including Cook County Public Guardian Patrick Murphy’s office. And the Juvenile Court system itself was said to have “surely consigned Joseph to his death.”
Murphy called the commission’s report “a whitewash.”
The report did not completely exonerate the judges, however. While stating, “None of the four judges who awarded custody to Amanda Wallace is responsible for Joseph’s death,” the report also said, “Nevertheless, after all is said and done, a judge is still responsible for the decision.”
Specifically addressing the judges, the report said: “In Judge Williams’ defense, the `soft’ evidence was current. Nevertheless, the mauling that Judge Williams has taken by others, who like us, have the benefit of hindsight, is a reminder that a judge who treats the “touchy feely” testimony of psychotherapists with equal or greater regard than reports of self-mutilation, fire setting, and violence to others, is going to be subject to heavy criticism.”
And that “Unhappily, Judge Williams erred in failing to go beyond the arguments of counsel.”
Regarding Goldberg, the report said: “Judge Goldberg at least attempted to probe; he received misleading answers for his efforts.”
Though somewhat critical of Williams’ handling of the Wallace case, one member of the Wallace Commission said he was saddened to hear the judge had been moved, unless it had been at his request.
“Williams became a lightning rod for criticism and that doesn’t do him any good, the system any good or the people who appear before him,” said attorney Joel Bellows. “We thought he had in fact done a very good job in the Wallace case.”
The new Juvenile Court judges will be Carol Kelly, Thomas Davy, Daniel Pascale and Daniel Jordan, all full-circuit judges elected by voters, Hall said.
“They’re going to get their baptism of fire like everyone else,” said Kelly. “I would hope they would be innovative, creative and have vision.”
The task before them is staggering. Currently, judges in the Juvenile Court are assigned 3,500 to 4,000 cases each and scrutiny can be harsh, like that encountered by Williams in the Wallace case and the so-called “Sarah” custody case, which also returned a child to her birth mother from a foster home.
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“It’s not a good assignment for you from a standpoint of career stability,” said Bellows. “I would think most (judges) would want to get out of there. What do you do in a place like that where every case can come back and bite you? You wind up in a courthouse where you can’t do anything right. Your best day you don’t do anything wrong; your worst day, you lose a kid.”
Judge Ellis Reed, who is in charge of the First Municipal District, said Rosenblum and Barish will be in traffic court for four months and they will be rotated to different courtrooms in the circuit. Reed said that Williams is being briefed about the workings of branch courts.