Professors as Critics of Judicial Ethics: Remembering Prof. Rubin G. Cohn

 A small group of professors examine problems in their state judicial systems. At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, I had an influential predecessor, Prof. Rubin G. Cohn.  His superbly researched, “The Illinois Judicial Department: Changes Effected by Constitution of 1970,” University of Illinois Law Forum (1971), said:

The issue of judicial reform which most dramatically— almost exclusively— absorbed the attention of the public and the communications media in the December 1970 referendum on the proposed Illinois constitution was election versus appointment of judges. Because of its intensely controversial nature, this issue was submitted to the voters for separate resolution, designated on the ballot as Proposition 2A (election of judges) and Proposition 2B (appointment by the Governor from nominees submitted by judicial nominating commissions). Proposition 2A carried, thus assuring a continuation of the adversary elective process for vacancies in judicial office but with significant substantive changes which have not received the attention they deserve.

Forty-five years later, I am trying in my research to retrace his footsteps, with the trail grown over by brush.