Judge Prather reflects on 3 decades on McHenry County bench

Sharon Prather said she has felt isolation, fought back tears, struggled to find the right words and believed in second chances in her almost 30 years as a McHenry County judge.

“It’s an honor to be a judge,” said Prather, 75, who retired July 12. “I was dedicated to my job, my career, ... to doing the right thing and trying to see to it that there was some justice for people.”

Whether the defendant was a hardened criminal or “fancy businessman,” all got fair treatment in her courtroom, she said.

“Being a judge, it’s not about you,” she said. “It’s about the people in your courtroom.”

Prather, née Lofthouse, grew up in DeKalb and said her mother was her “best friend.” At 14, she worked de-tasseling corn for DeKalb Ag. At 19, she became an older sister when her mother gave birth to another girl.

Prather had her first son at 18 and did not go to college right after high school.

She married Donald Prather, a plumber. Later, with a young child and “crabby husband” at home, she earned her law degree in 1979 from Northern Illinois University. Later, she went to work for a law firm in Crystal Lake, then began her own civil litigation firm in 1984. In March 1992, she became an associate McHenry County judge in the civil division. She was elected circuit judge in 1996 and moved into criminal courtroom 304 in 2002.

Today as she settles into retirement, spending time with family and at her cabin in Wisconsin, she still misses her courtroom. She misses the lawyers who fought for their clients, especially assistant public defenders Rick Behof and Angelo Mourelatos.

She calls them her “adoptive sons.”

“They are just two of the finest guys you could find, they work so hard,” she said, adding, “and the prosecutors, too. Rita Gara and Randi Freese, and I miss them.”

Hard job, hard to give up

Prather, once called McHenry County’s own Ruth Bader Ginsburg, stayed on as a judge well past the time she could have retired. When she did retire, she said she felt “like I was deserting my colleagues.” But the courthouse was changing, and she felt she no longer “fit in.”

As a judge, she said, it was difficult to have a large circle of friends. She couldn’t be too close with the lawyers and her circle of judge friends shrank as they retired.

Yet, she felt guilty leaving because she knew she had a wealth of knowledge and history that could still benefit the courtroom.

As a criminal judge, Prather said she struggled most with sentencings, especially in fatal drunken-driving accidents, violent crimes and sex crimes.

There were times she quickly called for recess so she could leave the bench and wipe away tears.

At times, sentencing a defendant convicted of a fatal DUI was difficult “where the defendant was a good person but one day made a very bad choice, like drinking and driving,” she said. But she said she never let emotion influence her sentencing. The law had to guide those decisions.

“I knew what I had to do,” she said, “and there is a price to pay even though you didn’t intend it.”

She was always aware of crime victims and their families in the courtroom. She often walked onto the bench nervous, searching for the right words to say.

“In a sentencing there is a courtroom full of people who think you are going to have some magical words to make everything better. ... You can’t take away people’s pain. I would walk in and think, ‘I wish I had something to help these people, but I don’t.’ I felt bad all the time.”

Among the memorable cases she recalled were that of William Ross, convicted in 2016 of murdering his girlfriend then sealing her up in a bedroom of his home before fleeing to Las Vegas. Or the 2017 McHenry case in which four men were convicted of home invasion and murder of Donald Jouravleff. In May, Prather sentenced one of the men involved to 86 years in prison, another to 71 years.

Recidivism more troubling
than chauvinism

In her early years as an attorney, Prather was one of just five female lawyers in the county. When she first became a judge, she was one of two female judges.

She dealt with her share of chauvinism. A judge once asked her whose secretary she was. Another time, a lawyer asked how much her husband spent on her clothes.

She took it all in stride.

“It really did not bother me,” she said. “It makes you work harder to be better.”

She doesn’t think such behavior is as prevalent today and encourages other women in law to persevere, including prosecutors Freese and Gara.

“Continue to do what you are doing,” she said of Freese and Gara. “They have been very successful and very good, and I admire those two women so much.”

She also came to know many repeat offenders. Many she continues to root for. Some who she sent to prison later thanked her for it, sending notes saying had she not, they might be dead.

She still hopes for the best for Shane Lamb, whom she has dealt with in a courtroom since he was 14.

Lamb, whose lengthy criminal history includes ties to the notorious Brian Carrick murder case, currently is in prison on theft charges. She said she knew Lamb had a hard life and she felt sorry for him. She also got mad at him, and has sent him to prison, but said she never stopped caring about him.

“He broke my heart,” she said. “He’s a kid that never stood a chance in life.”

Prather said she believes in second and even third chances. It upset her when defendants spurned those opportunities.

She also has had some defendants call her nasty names. To them, she says, “Hey, I didn’t send out an invitation asking you to come here. You invited yourself here.”

Respected and retired

Local lawyers admire and respect Prather.

Behof described Prather as “awesome” and “compassionate.” He said he misses their banter over the Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers.

“She has no ego, she treats everybody respectfully, no matter what the charge is in front of her,” Behof said, adding that she was a fair judge. “Even rulings that went against me, I saw the rationale behind them.”

Assistant State’s Attorney Michael Combs said in his 20 years of practicing law, Prather was “one of the finest members of the judiciary” he had ever seen.

Prather described retirement like “going 100 mph for 40 years and all of a sudden you hit a brick wall and it’s ‘now what am I gonna do?’ ”

But she is enjoying her newfound freedom, and may take up quilting.

“I want to do fun stuff like that now.”