From the Morning Sentinel

Karmeier, Maag spar over each other’s political ads
October 20, 2004
By David Porter
Mt. Vernon Sentinel Managing Editor
MT. VERNON — Judge Lloyd Karmeier’s campaign has lodged a formal complaint against Appellate Justice Gordon Maag — an act Maag’s camp has called “hypocritical.” Both men are seeking election to the Illinois Supreme Court from the 5th District.
Sen. David Luechtefeld, R-Okawville, is Karmeier’s campaign chairman. He wrote a letter of protest to the Illinois State Bar complaining about a television ad produced for Maag’s benefit. In the ad, Maag accuses Karmeier of giving probation to a person who was found guilty of sexually molesting children. It also makes reference to sodomy.
The defendant was mentally retarded and was found guilty but mentally ill. A doctor testified that he had the capacity of a 9-year-old boy.
In his letter to the state bar, Luechtefeld noted that the sodomy charges were dropped as part of a plea negotiation. Therefore, it would have been improper for Karmeier to rule on that issue. He suggested that Maag’s advertisement could be defamatory toward the defendant.
He said Karmeier sentenced the defendant to six years in jail but that the Appellate Court reversed the decision. Karmeier merely upheld the Appellate Court’s opinion as he was directed to do by the higher court, Luechtefeld wrote.
Brendan Hostetler, a spokesman for Maag, said Maag’s campaign stands by the accuracy of the advertisement and will not remove it from the airwaves. He said it’s ironic that Karmeier’s group has lodged a complaint because they’ve been running similar ads against Maag.
He pointed out that Karmeier’s original sentencing included statements suggesting that probation was appropriate. In giving the defendant jail time, the record shows that Karmeier believed that a prison term was mandatory.
The only issue on appeal was whether the judge had the discretion to issue a sentence other than jail time. The Appellate Court, in a unanimous opinion, said the trial court did have that leeway. “By our reversal,” the opinion read, “we do not mean to mandate the type of sentence the trial court should impose.”
Hostetler said he didn’t know whether Maag would file a complaint against Karmeier. “We’re considering all possibilities,” he said, “but we’re more focused on what we need to do and getting our message out.”
Luechtefeld asked the state bar to respond in 24 hours.
David Anderson, spokesman for the Illinois State Bar Association, said he’s hoping the Tone and Conduct Committee meets today. “Definitely, we’ll deal with it,” he said.
He said he didn’t know whether the committee would deal with Karmeier’s ads against Maag absent a complaint. “We’re also posing that question,” he said. “This is the first few steps down this path.”
He said the committee was formed this year due to what was happening in judicial races nationally. A 2002 race in Central Illinois also become politicized, he said, with third party money pouring into the campaigns.
So far, the Republican and Democrat parties in Illinois have dumped $1.2 million into the Maag/Karmeier race.
Anderson said he doesn’t know when the committee will respond to the complaint. He said he also did not know whether the response would be made public. “I can’t predict what the committee will do,” he said.
Hostetler said a Karmeier ad accuses Maag of putting a pedophile back on the street after the trial court had sentenced him to jail.
In fact, Hostetler said, that defendant got seven years in jail. The case was sent back to the trial court, he said, because the trial judge had “trampled the Constitutional rights” of the defendant.
The court record shows that police had asked the defendant whether he had molested the young girl. The defendant stated that he had been in trouble for sex crimes as a youth and that he had “done a lot of bad things in the past.”
The officer testified that the defendant did not confess to the crime at bar. The trial judge did not allow the information about the prior crimes because the defendant had been a juvenile. He did, however, allow the confession that the defendant had “done a lot of bad things” without the reference to “in the past.”
The Appellate Court opined that the statement forced the defendant to discuss his juvenile record in order to defend his confession in the context in which it was given. That information was prejudicial, the higher court ruled. It also stated that prior crimes were only relevant if they show a propensity for the crime at hand.
Maag was on the three-judge panel that handled that case, but the opinion was written by Justice Terry Hopkins. The third judge was Clyde Kuehn. The three judges concurred that the trial court had erred.
Anderson said the state bar takes complaints seriously but has no real authority over the two judges. If there are factual errors in the ads, the Judicial Inqiry Board would be the proper venue, he indicated.