Bizarre, Courts, Politics, Society

Illinois Judge Reelected Despite Being Barred From Courthouse, Suspended From The Bench, And Charged With Battery Of A Police Officer

We previously discussed the bizarre case of Cook County Judge Cynthia Brim, a judge in Markham, Illinois who has been barred from entering the courthouse without police escort and has a prior arrest for assault. Well, Cook County voters have now returned her to the bench in the election this week. She was reelected despite the fact that she is currently in court not as a judge but as a criminal defendant asserting an insanity defense. She was reelected the same week as Jesse Jackson Jr. who is currently housed in the Mayo Clinic for mental illness while reportedly negotiating his own plea bargain to criminal charges.

Brim was suspended by a judicial panel after being charged with misdemeanor battery for allegedly shoving a sheriff’s deputy in a Chicago courthouse and throwing keys at the officer.

A court-appointed psychiatrist testified that Brim was legally insane when she allegedly shoved the officer and, like Jackson, has bipolar disorder. She won reelection by the same margin as Jackson – 63.5 percent of the vote — despite opposition by the Chicago bar association. She will therefore continue to collect her $182,000 annual salary despite being suspended and unable to walk into the courthouse without a police escort.

Source: Chicago Tribuen

29 thoughts on “Illinois Judge Reelected Despite Being Barred From Courthouse, Suspended From The Bench, And Charged With Battery Of A Police Officer”

  2. Bill, Eugene Debs! Be still my heart!

    He and the Wobblies are perennial heroes of mine. There are those that say our entry into WWI was specifically to destroy the IWW and by extension the wildfire of labor activism and agitation that was poised to reform the class structure of America. The IWW was making inroads into uniting the industrial workers and agrarian workers and farmers, and unbeatable coalition at the ballot box.

    Thanks for the quote.

  3. “years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.”

    Eugene V. Debs (Nov.18, 1918

  4. It would be easy to ask ‘what are they putting in the water in (and around) Chicago’ but it would be too easy. It would be a good bit of research if, where these things happened (other that the occasional one-off), a local college sociology department took it upon itself to conduct a study on why this kind of thing happens. There may be some very interesting lessons that are relevant to our society and politics from this kind of voting.

  8. Blouise, Valid point. I usually don’t vote for judges b/c I don’t know anything about them.

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