Retired Judge Has Questions

In fact, more questions than answers:

• To avoid raising concerns of a conflict of interest by a skeptical public, the top criminal courts judge in Cook County stepped aside last week to let another judge decide whether to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate how actor Jussie Smollett’s case was handled.
  
  But the retired judge who is calling for the special prosecutor now wants to know how Judge LeRoy K. Martin Jr. settled on sending the case to veteran Judge Michael Toomin, court records show.
  
  Martin on Friday announced he would “transfer” the matter to Toomin, head of the Juvenile Division and one of the most senior judges on the Cook County bench, after retired state Appeals Court Judge Sheila O’Brien called for Martin to recuse himself. Martin’s son, LeRoy Martin III, was hired last year as an assistant state’s attorney, and O’Brien argued that Martin might have faced a conflict because State’s Attorney Kim Foxx could be called as a witness.
  
  In a motion filed Monday, O’Brien notes that in court Friday, Martin said he had “called Judge Toomin” and “spoke to him” about transferring O’Brien’s petition to him.

Is Shield O'Brien running for office? Because she seems to be pointing out the appearances of corruption and she's irritating the correct people in order to run as a "reformer," though that term has lost all meaning in Cook County.

Pointing out that Martin Jr. got to pick the judge substituting in for his own conflicted status doesn't lend much credence to an already corrupt process.