St. Clair County Circuit Judge Jan Fiss has continued hearings on a felony ballot violation charge against Steveland Kidd for almost four years, but on the most recent occasion Fiss skipped the formalities altogether.
At a status conference on Dec. 8, Fiss signed orders in at least a dozen criminal cases but none for Kidd, who didn’t appear in person or by counsel.
Kidd’s prosecutor, assistant state’s attorney Daniel Lewis, didn’t appear either.
Fiss conducted the conference in chambers for an hour and 15 minutes, with lawyers passing through his silent courtroom.
Fiss emerged at last, held a brief public proceeding in one case, and left.
His clerk confirmed that Kidd’s case had not come up in chambers.
Kidd allegedly took an absentee ballot for deposit into the mail in March 2013.
The docket for the conference also showed two pending ordinance violations against him from 2008, and traffic tickets from 2011 and 2014.
Five other suspects in felony ballot violations have avoided accountability for more than 18 months.
Fiss has set a Dec. 19 conference for Shavette Wills, who allegedly committed perjury by signing a false affidavit in the March 2015 election.