Dorman, Hulme ask for outside judge
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By Randy Pierce
Continuing their persistent quest for what they feel is justice concerning their terminations as employees of Madison County nearly three years ago, Rob Dorman and Douglas Hulme have made a request for their arguments to be heard by a judge from outside of the Illinois Third Judicial Circuit that has been denied.
Alleging that Circuit Judge Sarah Smith, designated to preside over this litigation, like “all of the judges” in the third judicial circuit “have in the past exhibited personal bias and/or prejudice” against them, for reasons stated in their petition asking that their case to be heard by someone else, the two former county employees have appealed the decision to disallow another judge being brought in.
Dorman, who resides in Maryville, was terminated from his position of information technology director for the county, along with the county’s former administrator, Doug Hulme of Edwardsville in early 2020. Both have since mounted a concerted, determined effort against Madison County consisting of various court filings related to their dismissals along with numerous requests for public information in order to provide the documentation they feel is needed to prove the allegations of unlawful action.
Among the most recent of the pair’s volumes of legal petitions, requests, filings and other action, Dorman and Hulme base their request for an outside judge on what they contend is Smith’s awareness of the work of a “task force” established by county officials to investigate charges concerning their alleged misconduct while they were employees.
In that the investigation “became the source of gossip and innuendo,” the original outside judge request petition stated, Dorman and Hulme are citing a video recording of another judge, William Mudge, who stated there were discussions at a meeting of those holding these court positions in the third circuit during which one of the subjects addressed was the authority of the two former employees to access the e-mails of others within the county government unit. Those actions by Dorman and Hulme were utilized among the reasons for their terminations.
Smith had been aware of the content of those judicial meeting discussions referred to by Mudge but is said to have defended her position on hearing this matter, Dorman/Hulme state, by citing case law which mentioned “there must be more than the mere possibility of prejudice” to warrant her disqualification.
But the plaintiffs countered this by arguing that in the case referenced by Smith, the individual involved in the disqualification issue as a chief procurement officer for the City of Chicago and not a circuit court judge.
Dorman further argued that Smith had personal knowledge of the facts and evidence to be introduced in this case and contend that she, like other judges in the same judicial circuit, “formed personal opinions regarding them (Dorman and Hulme), both positive and negative, which leads to bias.”
In their attempt to build their argument further, Dorman and Hulme added to their petition that Smith and other judges “are personally friends and/or acquaintances” of the county officials, their agents and representatives of various municipal governments involved in the investigation and employment termination decisions, all being sued by the two men and that they have “worked closely with them in the past.”
Additional allegations against Smith include how the plaintiffs feel her bias against them is based on “rumors and innuendo in the Madison County Court House from 2018 to 2020.”
In their efforts to bolster their position, Dorman and Hulme concluded that in other existing similar legal cases where prejudice and bias were seen as grounds for changing judges, the prevalence of influential comments, remarks and statements from others outside of the judicial setting, as they feel has occurred in this situation, were determined as justification for what they are seeking here.
