The Advocacy Partners visit the courthouse. From left to right, back row: Ida Van Boven, Carolyn Mc Bride, Michelle Sanders, Phillip Sanders, Lisa Rogers, Steven Novy, and Lennox Iton. Front row: Marlene Stratton, Cheryl Dugan, Carole Hobson, and Patricia Hobson.

The Advocacy Partners of the Northern Illinois Conference led a group of 11 United Methodists from four Northern Illinois Conference churches on July 25 to meet Illinois Supreme Court Justice P. Scott Neville.

The group met at the Illinois Supreme Court in Chicago and took a brief tour of the Appellate Court Room before hearing a presentation by Shelley Bethune, the executive director of the Illinois Courts Commission. The commission, created in 1970, hears and makes final determinations on complaints filed by the Judicial Inquiry Board against Illinois judges who are accused of having violated the Code of Judicial Conduct.

Justice Neville explained that three courts make up the Judicial Branch: the Circuit Court, Appellate Court, and Supreme Court. The group examined a chart that pictured all Illinois Supreme Court Justices since Illinois became a state. The first African-American justice was not elected until 1990 and the first woman was elected in 1992.

Today, the Illinois Supreme Court is made up of five women and two men, and three are African American. Justice Neville shared a few examples of rulings that had a wide impact in the state of Illinois, one of those being the 2023 ruling that abolished cash bail. The group learned a lot from its visit to the Illinois Supreme Court and discussion with Justice Neville.