Woman set aflame on CTA train a grim reminder Chicago voters are best served to keep an eye on Cook County judicial elections
When I was a boy in the 1970s, a family friend from Washington State, back when it was a swing state, asked my father: “Do you have law enforcement groups in Illinois who rate judges?”
He replied that only the Chicago Bar Association and a couple of other legal organizations do.
The family friend quickly answered.
“We have a better way. A New York liberal somehow got himself elected judge in Washington State. He’s the type who believes criminals are a protected class and we’re the ones who need to be locked up. So local cops formed a group to rate judges with the main goal of voting this bleeding-heart lib off the bench. And in the next election, the voters kicked him out and he moved his liberal ass back to New York, where it belongs.”
America's “Get Tough on Crime” movement of the 1970s and 1980s might have started then.
Flash forward several decades, and, to quote the Rolling Stones from "Sympathy for the Devil," some people firmly believe, "Just as every cop is a criminal — and all the sinners saints."
Some of those people are public officials.
A tragedy
In mid-November, in a horrific incident that received international attention, a recent mental patient at MacNeal Hospital, Lawrence Reed, a career criminal with at least 72 prior arrests, allegedly poured gasoline on a female CTA Blue Line passenger and set her on fire. The victim is suffering from burns on over 60 percent of her body. In a statement, her family says she faces “a long road ahead of her.”
After Chicago police officers arrested Reed, he reportedly screamed, “Burn alive, b*tch.”
Which brings us to another judge from another city. Cook County Circuit Court Judge Teresa Molina-Gonzalez, a Cleveland native, despite urgent appeals from an assistant state’s attorney to keep Reed detained after he allegedly brutally assaulted a social worker at MacNeal, released him on electronic home monitoring.
Cook County’s electronic monitoring program has been a worthless, feel-good charade of protecting the public for years. Tom Dart, Cook County’s sheriff, before passing responsibility for the program over to the Cook County Circuit Court, called it “reckless” last year.
And that’s not all he said.
“We can’t look people in the eye and say ‘this is an effective, responsible program right now.’ We don’t want to perpetuate this notion that this program is safe and secure.”
Dart, a Democrat, was mostly quiet about electronic monitoring’s dangerous flaws when he oversaw the program, so he shouldn’t receive a pass for his few moments of public lucidity on it.
Since April, the Circuit Court has continued mismanaging electronic monitoring. Timothy C. Evans, a longtime cheerleader for the no-cash bail SAFE-T Act, was not reelected as its chief judge by his judicial peers. His successor, Charles Beach, took office on December 1. His primary priority needs to be to get on top of the electronic monitoring program.
But voters can do more as well.
Way less confusing
Returning to Judge Teresa Molina-Gonzalez, she doesn't seem very intelligent. She told the Illinois courts website about her college studies, “I liked criminal justice because I found it way less confusing than most subjects.”
Cook County can do much better than that.
After allowing Reed to walk free, Molina-Gonzalez uttered these words that are now among the many notorious statements made by Illinois officials.
“I can’t keep everybody in jail because the state’s attorney wants me to.”
Clearly, Molina-Gonzalez is confused here. The ultimate duty of any public servant is to protect the public.
Which is why this judge needs to return to private life.
Voting out bad judges
Molina-Gonzalez is up for retention in next year’s general election ballot. It's not, ahem, confusing on how to get rid of her. When voters see her name, they need to vote “No.” If Molina-Gonzalez fails to reach 60 percent in her retention effort, she's out.
The hard part is to get the word out on removing reckless Cook County judges from the bench. Forming a pro-law enforcement judicial review group, as was done decades ago by my family friend, is an excellent way to go about it, albeit not the easiest one.
Another course of action is for you to tell every Cook County voter you know -- either face to face, by texting, by using social media, or by using the Howard Beale “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore” approach from the movie Network by screaming out of a window not to retain Molina-Gonzalez.
And then maybe she’ll move back to Cleveland. They can have her.
But as longtime Chicago White Sox broadcaster Ken “Hawk” Harrelson used to say during emerging South Sider rallies, “Don’t stop now!”
I’m sure there are plenty of other far-left pro-criminal judges who need to be voted out. That’s where the formation of a new judicial review group can be quite beneficial to the public -- so bright lights can expose these cockroaches in robes.
As for groups comprised of lawyers who rate judges, they can’t be trusted completely. Because attorneys, fearing facing a targeted judge in court, will muffle their concerns.
Another Chicago coincidence
Voters must wait five years to remove Ralph Meczyk from the Cook County bench. This judge expanded Reed’s time away from home while under electronic monitoring beyond the generous hours given by Molina-Gonzalez, so he could — wait for it — attend church events.
Meczyk is a piece of work. He was swept up by the Operation Greylord scandal when he was an attorney in the 1980s. He pleaded guilty to federal tax charges, although Meczyk was not connected with corruption from the Greylord investigation. In late 2000, Meczyk was one of many of Bill Clinton's lame duck pardons.
Here comes another “Chicago coincidence.”
Five years earlier, Meczyk donated $500 to Bill Clinton’s legal defense fund.
Even in a corrupt snake pit like Cook County, citizens deserve much better than Meczyk.
And the same reasoning goes for the easily confused Teresa Molina-Gonzalez.
Every two years, dozens of Cook County judges face a retention vote. Last year, only one judge, Shannon O’Malley, failed to reach the necessary 60 percent approval level. According to Injustice Watch, when another judge lost his retention race in 2018, it was the first time that it had happened in 28 years.
Also, Injustice Watch reported last year only 75 percent of Cook County voters made a choice in the first judicial retention selection — and that percentage dropped as voters made their way down the long retention ballot.
That needs to change. And even though the 2026 general election is 11 months away, it is not too early to get the word out about Molina-Gonzalez — and perhaps some other judges too.
On a side note, it is important to note before both Molina-Gonzalez and Meczyk were on the ballot in district sub-circuit races, they were already sitting on the bench, although both ran unopposed in their general election contests. Both judges were first appointed to their positions by the Illinois Supreme Court to fill vacant seats.
State Supreme Court justices face a retention vote every 10 years.
An informed and responsible citizenry is vital for democracy to thrive.
Remember the judge’s name: Teresa Molina-Gonzalez.
And never forget the victim in the CTA attack, who faces “a long road ahead of her.”
