Two judges in the state of Illinois have come under fire this week for refusing to recuse themselves from being able to rule on the constitutionality of the state's new gun ban, signed into law by Governor JB Pritzker this past January.
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The state's Supreme Court denied a motion for recusal filed by the plaintiffs in the case. last Friday. The motion, which was filed by the Illinois State Rifle Association and several individual gun owners, argued that Mary O'Brien and Elizabeth Rochford had significant ties to advocates for stricter gun control measures, including Pritzker himself.
The Center Square first reported the following:
“Before Elizabeth Rochford and Mary O'Brien were elected to the Illinois Supreme Court in November 2022, Gov. J.B. Pritzker gave each of their campaign funds half a million dollars from both his campaign account and a revocable trust, totaling $1 million to each. The two justices also received six-figure donations out of a campaign fund controlled by Illinois House Speaker Emanual “Chris” Welch,” D-Hillside.
Both Pritzker and Welch are top defendants in a Macon County challenge of Illinois' gun and magazine ban brought by state Rep. Dan Caulkins, R-Decatur. The county judge there issued a final judgment that the law is unconstitutional. The state appealed the case directly to the Illinois Supreme Court after a separate case was found by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to have a likelihood of success on the basis the law violates equal protections.
… Asked in early March if the justices should recuse themselves because of the donations, Pritzker said that's “ridiculous.”
In a brief order issued on Friday, the court denied the motion for recusal, stating that the plaintiffs had failed to demonstrate that the justices had a “personal bias or prejudice concerning a party.”
The decision is a blow to the plaintiffs, who had hoped to remove the justices from the case. Questions about the impartiality of the court and the potential for conflicts of interest are sure to remain in the minds of many gun activists and law-abiding gun owners as the legality of their daily actions now rests in the balance of decisions set to be made by these judges.
Pritzker is the kind of person who should be exiled because he has no understanding or respect for the constitution.
Tarred and feathered maybe
You have to love governors who try to buy legislative victories thru the bench instead of getting enough votes in their legislatures elected by “We the People”. Somehow I don’t believe that fits “Original Intent” which was intended by our Forefathers in the Constitution.