(Editor's note: The bill passed in the Senate early Tuesday morning along party lines).
SPRINGFIELD – Democrat State Rep. Jay Hoffman (Belleville) proposes to lop Monroe, Washington, Randolph and Perry counties off the 20th Judicial Circuit and make St. Clair County a circuit unto itself.
Hoffman introduced the plan on Sunday, May 30, as an amendment to a bill for a report on racial disparities in the state’s protection of children.
The House committee on ethics and elections recommended adoption on Sunday. Republican Rep. Deanne Mazzochi of Elmhurst requested a note on the cost.
The split of circuits would occur in December 2022, after the general election.
The Supreme Court would assign five “at large” circuit judges to St. Clair County.
Currently, candidates at large positions must carry the whole circuit.
Failure to carry the outer counties cost former Democratic chief judge John Baricevic his job in 2016, who lost to Republican Ron Duebbert.
Democrats achieved three victories in 2018, but the results again showed the party’s popularity plunging beyond the St. Clair County line.
Chris Kolker ran as a resident circuit judge among St. Clair County-only voters and won by about 12,000 votes, while Heinz Rudolf and John O’Gara ran at large in all the circuit’s counties and won by about 5,000 and 4,000 votes.
The outer counties didn’t warm up to Democrats last year, when President Biden scored 31 percent in Monroe, 26 in Perry, 24 in Randolph, and 21 in Washington.
Hoffman would designate the outer counties as a 24th Circuit, puny in comparison to adjacent rural circuits with nine and 12 counties.
Eliminating accountability beyond St. Clair County line would solidify a court that an unusual number of defendants strive to escape.
From January through May, defendants removed 24 cases from St. Clair County circuit court to U.S. district court.
Defendants removed two cases from the rest of the circuit, one from Randolph County and one from Washington County.
The removal rate for St. Clair County ran at about one for every 11,000 residents, and the rate in the outer counties ran at a rate of about one per 50,000 residents.
Defendants removed 20 Madison County cases, about one per 13,000 residents.
Defendants in the 36 counties of the Southern District outside St. Clair and Madison counties removed 14 cases, about one per 52,000 residents.
Three days before Hoffman introduced his amendment, U.S. District Judge Staci Yandle ruled that a plaintiff improperly asserted St. Clair County jurisdiction.
She found plaintiff Mark Ramos fraudulently named Casey’s General Store manager Ebony Sunkins as a defendant to defeat federal jurisdiction over Casey’s.
Attorney Katrina Cooksey of Belleville filed the complaint in St. Clair County in February, claiming Ramos suffered injuries in a fall on ice in Mascoutah in 2019.
She claimed that as an agent of Casey’s, Sunkins maintained control over the premises individually and through employees.
She claimed Sunkins invited the public to the premises and “negligently caused and permitted the premises to become and remain in a dangerous condition.”
Casey’s removed the complaint to district court on the basis of diverse citizenship as an Iowa corporation, and Ramos moved to remand it to St. Clair County.
Sunkins signed an affidavit stating she didn’t work at Casey’s when Ramos fell and didn’t manage the store until several months later.
That settled the matter for Yandle, who began her order by stating that defendants from other states must clear a high hurdle to show fraudulent joinder.
She wrote that a defendant from another state must show that a plaintiff can’t establish a cause of action against the Illinois defendant.
She wrote that an agent is subject to liability by a third party only when the agent breaches a duty that the agent owes to the third party.
“A duty of care flows from the relationship between the parties and there is no such relationship between Ramos and Sunkins,” she wrote.
Yandle found Ramos provided no evidence to counter Sunkins’s affidavit.
A day later, three defendants removed cases from St. Clair County.
Attorney Konstantin Pominov of Missouri asserted diverse citizenship in a suit claiming he caused an injury collision that injured Larita Crowder.
Viacom CBS removed an asbestos suit that Carson Menges of Belleville filed against 38 defendants for U.S. Navy veteran Timothy Murphy of Michigan.
Viacom CBS claimed its predecessor Westinghouse acted as a federal officer in supplying products according to Navy specification.
Teva Pharmaceutical removed a suit claiming its prescription drug Para Gard injured Jennifer Horton of Illinois.
Teva asserted diverse citizenship as a Delaware corporation in New Jersey.
Outside the Chicago area, no county stands alone as a circuit.
Madison County shares the Third Circuit with Bond County.
The Seventh Circuit in the Springfield area and the Sixth Circuit in the Champaign area each contains six counties.
The 11th Circuit in the Bloomington area and the Tenth Circuit in the Peoria area each contains five counties.
Winnebago County, home of Rockford, shares the 17th Circuit with Boone County.