Chief judge Timothy Evans has lost his bid Wednesday for a ninth term at the helm of Illinois’ largest judicial circuit after 24 years in the seat to Judge Charles Beach, according to a spokesperson with the judge’s office.
Beach, the newly elected Cook County’s Circuit Court chief judge, received 144 votes to Evans’ 109, or about 57% of the votes cast by circuit judges; one ballot was “spoiled,” the spokesperson said.
Beach will serve a three-year term starting Dec. 1.
The loss was an upset for Evans, 82, who was first elected by unanimous vote in September 2001, becoming the first African American to serve in the role. He has remained since, the longest continuous term of anyone in the seat and will continue to serve as a judge.
Neither Evans nor Beach could be immediately reached for comment.
In 2022, Evans won with 84% of the vote, up from the 58% he landed in 2019 and nearly 56% in 2016.
Evans had previously served as 4th Ward alderperson for the city of Chicago for nearly 18 years, where he served as the late Mayor Harold Washington’s floor leader on the City Council, and was first appointed to the bench in 1992.
Notable changes during Evans’ tenure included implementing Illinois’ cashless bail system in a court that sees more than a million cases every year, as well as opening a courthouse specifically for domestic violence cases and the expansion of restorative justice programs, specifically for individuals struggling with addiction and veterans.
Earlier this year, Evans oversaw the transfer of electronic monitoring to his office from the Cook County sheriff’s office, though the move was criticized by Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke.
Beach, a 1996 graduate of DePaul’s College of Law, was first appointed to the bench as a circuit judge in 2017, and was elected as a Cook County associate judge a year later. The 55-year-old later worked in the pretrial division, overseeing bail hearings and helped usher in Illinois’ new pretrial detention system in Cook County before serving in the law division.
“I think we’ve come a very long way in the right direction,” Beach told the Chicago Sun-Times last year. “Things are working well. … There’s a sense in the courtroom that taking money out of the equation has leveled the playing field.”
In a statement Wednesday evening, the Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice thanked Evans for his years of service and role in ending cash bail.
“[Evans’] work helped show the state that Illinois could dramatically reduce the pretrial jailing of legally innocent people while prioritizing community safety,” the statement said. “The Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice looks forward to working alongside [Beach] to continue to improve pretrial practices in Cook County. We are grateful for his leading role in implementing the Pretrial Fairness Act in Cook County and are excited to see another champion of the Pretrial Fairness Act step into the role of Cook County’s Chief Judge.”