I live in C-U and have met Julia Rietz, but I do not know her well. Her predecessor really didn't impress me, and most people in Champaign County seem to consider her a major improvement. From what I understand, she may have been misquoted in the News-Gazette, so I'm not sure that she actually made the comments about cyclists that have infuriated so many people.

It's hard for me to judge her legal reasoning, since I'm not a lawyer. If she was way out in left field, though, I'd suspect that some other attorneys might have piped up, and they've been very quiet. It's apparently considered unethical to prosecute if the attorney doesn't genuinely believe that the defendant has broken the laws (as written); they can't just press charges to appease the public.

It'd be disingenuous to claim that Rietz is completely oblivious to public opinion and political considerations; few elected officials really are. But she doesn't stand to gain from her course of action; it would have been far more politically expedient to ignore ethical guidelines and make a show of throwing big charges at Jennifer Stark. I even glanced at the state campaign disclosure statements and saw that Jennifer Stark's parents hadn't given money to any political candidate, let alone Rietz. So the only explanation that I was left with was that Rietz was trying to do what she thought was right.