WILL COUNTY – The prospective judges have been judged by a jury of their peers and the verdicts are in.
The Illinois State and Will County Bar Associations have released the result of a recent poll sent to members about the 13 candidates seeking nominations in next month’s primary election.
Earlier this year 853 ballots were sent out to members of either association who practice in the 12th Circuit. Executive Assistant Shelia Russum said there are about 600 members of the Will County Bar Association.
“The state bar association sends out the questionnaire and determines the scores, but they do not release how many respond,” Russum said.
The candidates receive the results about a week before they are released to the public.
Respondents were asked to recommend the attorneys and judges who have filed to run in subcircuit 1 or 2 on their integrity, impartiality, legal ability, temperament and ability to manage cases and clients.
They also are evaluated on whether their conduct shows bias against any client’s, opponent’s or witness’ race, gender, age, sexual orientation or economic status.
And leave it to the lawyers to come up with a poll that can legally ask in today’s world of HIPAA and hiring concerns whether a potential judge has the physical health, stamina and stability for the job.
The categories are averaged together and any candidate who scores above 65-percent is recommended as a candidate.
Judge Dinah Archambeault, Judge Dave Carlson, Judge David Garcia, Assistant State’s Attorney Tina Filipiak, and private attorneys Daniel Kennedy, James Murphy, Dan Rippy and Dawn Underhill were recommended candidates.
Assistant State’s Attorney Moira Dunn, Assistant Public Defenders Stewart Ferreira and Sherri Hale and private attorney Cosmo Tedone were not recommended.
Attorney Diane Para was not evaluated because of a lack of response, according to the poll.
Archambeault, whose integrity rating was the only perfect score in the poll, also had the highest overall rating with 94.76. She is running unopposed in the Republican primary for Subcircuit 2 and will face off against either Dunn, Ferreira, Filipiak, Garcia, Kennedy, Murphy or Underhill in November.
Hale is running unopposed in the Democratic primary to replace the retiring judge Robert Livas in Subcircuit 1 where Rippy and Tedone are the Republican candidates.
Carlson, a Republican, and Para, a Democrat, are unopposed in their primaries for the newly created judges seat also in Subcircuit 1.