Despite being chastised by a fellow judge for her bias in two lesbian custody cases, Circuit Judge Susan J. McDunn has won an initial victory from an ethics panel.
The Chicago Daily Law Bulletin reported Sept. 27 that the Illinois Courts Commission [ ICC ] dismissed a complaint charging McDunn violated ethics rules by allowing her bias against gays to impact the two rulings.
McDunn had involved anti-gay activists from the Family Research Council as a "secondary guardian" in one case, and tried to delay the other ruling. Another judge intervened and reassigned the cases to his own court, and granted custody. McDunn then tried to reverse that ruling.
But despite her aggressive pursuit of anti-gay opinions in the cases, which involved lesbians trying to adopt their partners' children, the seven-member commission said the complaint filed by the Judicial Inquiry Board against McDunn was dismissed "with prejudice."
The Bulletin said the committee members said the complaint lacked outright instances of bias. The Inquiry Board has a right to file a motion for reconsideration.
After the custody cases, McDunn was transferred to as administrative post within the courts system, but still draws a $137,047 annual salary, the Bulletin reported.
Lesbian attorney Susana Darwin is among those who have followed the McDunn case since the 1998 and 1999 lesbian custody cases came before her.
"This case is deeply troubling on a number of levels," Darwin said. "First, the Illinois Courts Commission, the hearing body in Judicial Inquiry Board complaints, appears to have dismissed the JIB complaint against McDunn 'with prejudice' on a procedural matter ( that the complaint did not contain 'sufficient specific facts to support the contention that McDunn was biased,' according to the characterization in the Law Bulletin ) , rather than going to the merits. 'With prejudice' means that the JIB may have a difficult time winning its request for reconsideration, and there is not an appellate body beyond the ICC in these matters.
"The assertion that McDunn acted without bias defies logic, given the facts of the case, but that question could and should have been explored by the ICC prior to dismissing the complaint: for example, did she subject adoptive parents who are converts to Islam or part of a biracial family to inquisitions similar to the ones suffered in court by the lesbian moms? Did she subject those families to the frightening and arguably illegal invasions of privacy the lesbian moms experienced? That's part of what takes this beyond the GLBTQ communities.
"The larger aspect of what takes this beyond our communities, and what should startle everyone in Cook County, is the threat to the rule of law McDunn's action pose. Part of what undergirds justice is its orderly administration. McDunn's supervising judge, Judge Barth, removed the case from McDunn for cause ... and ruled that the adoptions should go through. Should be case closed, families secured. But then McDunn issued orders reversing her boss' rulings, and she injected herself as a party in the case. What's pathetic is the apparent lack of understanding of the law...both its procedures and its substance. But what's key here is this: creating a situation where litigants cannot trust the finality of the outcome of their cases ... is not how you assure order in the justice system. Creating a situation where litigants live in fear of having intimate aspects of their lives revealed to organizations avowedly hostile to them and their children is not how you instill trust in the justice system.
"The Courts Commissions won't issue its written ruling for a few months, so we have no way at this point of knowing exactly what its problem with the complaint is, but hopefully it will grant the JIB's request for reconsideration," Darwin concluded.
