As far as I know, Illinois Supreme Court Justice James Heiple has been a model citizen these last couple of years.
He hasn’t berated any cops. He hasn’t driven erratically through the streets of Peoria. He hasn’t used his court opinions to insult the governor. He has stayed out of the headlines.
Oh, there was a piece the other day in The Wall Street Journal that selected Heiple as one of “America’s worst judges.” It rehashed the Baby Richard case and Heiple’s legal skirmishes. Heiple wrote a letter to the editor to defend himself. Not to respond, he wrote, would be detrimental to the cause of justice.
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So Heiple has been behaving himself. But he has some strange notions about the cause of justice.
Heiple had the chance recently to choose a judge for the Illinois Appellate Court. That’s one of the perks of being on the Supreme Court. When there’s an opening in your district, you get to pick the judge to fill it. The rest of the Supreme Court rubber stamps your choice.
Heiple had some fine prospects for this opening.
He could have picked the veteran state Sen. Carl Hawkinson of Galesburg, who is the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, a Harvard Law School graduate and a former Knox County state’s attorney.
Heiple could have picked Judge John Gorman of Peoria. Gorman is the chief judge of the 10th Judicial Circuit. He has been a judge for 19 years, including time as an appellate judge when he filled a vacancy. He’s one of the most respected judges in the entire state.
Heiple could have picked any number of distinguished and experienced judges or legal scholars from the 21 counties in central Illinois that make up his district.
Instead, he picked Judy Koehler. You might remember her as “the rolling pin.”
That’s the nickname Mike Royko gave her for the way she badgered and hectored her political opponents when she ran for the U.S. Senate in 1986. She served six undistinguished years in the Illinois House, where she was known mostly for her virulent opposition to abortion. She ran for the Senate against Alan Dixon and lost by nearly 1 million votes. So she went to law school.
Judy Koehler has now been a lawyer for all of 5 1/2 years. She has never been a trial judge. For that matter, she hasn’t spent much time at all in courtrooms. She worked for a year as a prosecutor in misdemeanor courts for the DuPage County state’s attorney’s office. She has done some occasional work for the Illinois state’s attorney’s appellate prosecutor. For the last four years her full-time job has been senior legislative counsel for Americans United for Life, drafting anti-abortion legislation.
The elevation of Judy Koehler to the Illinois Appellate Court stunned a lot of people in the courts. When they got over the shock, some of them laughed.
“Heiple just mooned everybody,” said one prominent member of the legal community. “There were some really distinguished judges in line for that position. This just came out of the blue.”
If Koehler ran for judge, she wouldn’t deserve a second look. Most of the bar groups that evaluate candidates believe 10 to 12 years of legal experience is the bare minimum to be qualified to preside over traffic court, much less on the appellate court.
Even when lawyers have plenty of experience, it sets off alarms when they’ve been an activist on an issue such as abortion. After six years as an anti-abortion crusader in the Illinois House, and four years working for an anti-abortion organization, could anyone expect Koehler to set aside her personal beliefs and consider the legal niceties of an abortion case?
Now, I knew Koehler when she was in the legislature. I wish she had returned my phone call to talk about her appointment, but she didn’t.
Most of the time, I got a kick out of watching her operate. She got elected by hammering her first opponent for voting for a pay raise, and then every year she turned $8,000 back to the state, the pay raise she wouldn’t accept. She took pride in not being one of the boys. It was fun to see her give other politicians fits.
But she didn’t get much done in Springfield. She was little more than a novelty as a legislator, and she doesn’t have the legal experience to represent a first-rate law firm in court, much less decide matters of law as an appellate court judge. There’s no doubt that Justice Heiple knows this.
But Heiple has no use for the judges and lawyers and politicians who believe he should have been impeached last year.
He just sent them all a message. He reminded them that they might well have forced him to step aside as chief justice last year, but he’s still there on the court. He still has the power of an almighty justice of the Illinois Supreme Court. And there isn’t a thing they can do about it, at least until his term ends in a couple of years.
Heiple has used that power to tell them that experience and ability doesn’t have to count for the appellate court, at least not when it’s his pick.
That’s right. Heiple just mooned everybody.
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