Media Doing Its Job?

It's like a freakin' miracle or something - and all it took was an insignificant blog pointing out the amazingly obvious facts:

• The young woman from the Northwest Side had stopped paying attention to the news.
  
  Ever since last summer, she didn’t want to hear it.
  
  But a friend told the 24-year-old woman to take a look Sunday. So she did. And she saw the face of Luis Pantoja, the man who made headlines after police accused him of the December sexual assault of a 15-year-old girl.
  
  He’s the same man prosecutors accused in August of raping the 24-year-old woman in an alley. That attack allegedly happened less than a mile from the scene of the brutal assault on the 15-year-old.
  
  The 24-year-old woman told the Chicago Sun-Times, in Spanish, that she reacted Sunday with these words: “Wow. My God.
  
  “No, it can’t be.”

Unfortunately, it was. But guess what the victim's aunt says?

• But the aunt of the 24-year-old woman allegedly raped in the early morning hours of Aug. 15 said the 15-year-old girl might never have been assaulted in December had last summer’s charges against Pantoja stuck.
  
  “The police did their work,” the aunt said. “The problem was the judge that threw the case away.”
  
  The 24-year-old victim and her aunt each spoke to the Sun-Times, in Spanish, on the condition their names wouldn’t be used. Judge Sullivan, meanwhile, did not respond to messages left by the newspaper seeking further explanation for her ruling.

And of course, the judge isn't answering questions and probably won't be forced to because there is no mechanism in place for judicial review in Illinois. We've stated it here and elsewhere, the Cook County judicial system is broken, before and since Greylord and Gambat. There is barely a qualified or uncorrupted judge sitting on the bench today, and if you don't believe that, you haven't been paying attention for the past 50 years.

We have advocated for years that people should vote "NO" across the board on judicial retention ballots, yet only one judge has ever been removed via a vote and that was with Mike Royko's assistance 30+ years ago. People act surprised when we point out instance after instance after instance of criminals roaming the streets who ought to be held on bail, serving time or be anywhere except where they are committing crimes again and again.

And once again, an innocent pays the price.