What the Record Establishes
- A verified for-cause substitution motion and an August 6 setting before the named judge bear the same July 23 file stamp.
- Illinois law directs that a threshold-compliant for-cause motion be heard by a judge other than the one named.
- The emergency appellate packet frames the question as who decides, not whether the cause is true.
What They Have Not Produced
- Whether the motion was ever referred to a different judge for hearing.
- Whether any referral or reassignment order exists on the docket.
- What action, if any, the named judge took on the merits after the motion was filed.
The collision is not an argument. It is two file stamps bearing the same date. A verified motion asked that a judge other than Christopher Stride decide whether cause for substitution exists. On the same day, the clerk file-stamped a notice setting the matter for August 6 in Courtroom T-611 — Stride’s courtroom.
The narrow question, which is the strongest one
Illinois law under 725 ILCS 5/114-5(d) and the cases construing it direct that a threshold-compliant motion for substitution for cause be heard by a judge other than the one named in it. The emergency appellate papers do not ask a reviewing court to find the alleged cause true. They ask a simpler question: who decides. That framing is deliberate, because it is the one that does not require anybody to take the movant’s word for anything.
What the stamp does not establish
A file stamp proves a clerk accepted the instrument on that date. It does not establish that the motion was threshold-compliant, that it stayed formally unreferred at every later moment, or that the named judge took merits action afterward. Those questions require the complete docket and any referral or assignment order — which is one more reason the Odyssey audit log keeps being demanded.