About Julia

Julia Rietz was elected Champaign County State’s Attorney by an overwhelming margin in November, 2004. A 1993 graduate of the University of Illinois College of Law, she began her legal career as a prosecutor in the State’s Attorney’s Office, prosecuting cases ranging from traffic to homicides, and focusing on child abuse and neglect. From 1999 through 2004, Julia was in private practice as a partner at Beckett & Webber in Urbana, focusing on family law.

Among her accomplishments as Champaign County State’s Attorney, Julia has created processes within the State’s Attorney’s Office to decrease the backlog in criminal cases and ensure that decisions are made with a focus on justice, helped create the continuous jury term process, created the Delinquent Court Cost Recovery program which is on track to bring in $100,000 in revenue to the county in its first year, made innovative use of state forfeiture statutes to forfeit houses and property from area drug dealers, spoken and taught at each of our area high schools, Parkland, and the U of I about the justice system, led the effort behind the successful collaboration between the Children’s Advocacy Center (of which she is the Board Chair) and the Champaign Urbana Public Health District, and personally prosecuted major felony cases involving child victims.

Julia lives in Champaign with her husband, Al Johnston, a 20 year veteran of the Urbana Police Department, and their children, Alice and Rachel. She is proud to have brought respect and integrity back to the State’s Attorney’s Office, and looks forward to continuing to serve Champaign County.