By Charlton (Chuck) Stanley, Weekend Contributor
The sad case of Cook County (Illinois) Judge Cynthia Brim has been discussed on this blog previously here and here. To sum up, she had a mental breakdown while holding traffic court on March 8, 2012.
She went on a paranoid rant, accusing police of targeting minorities for traffic tickets. For the next 45 minutes, she rambled on about her childhood as well as describing at least five prior hospitalizations for mental illness. During her rambling outburst, she told her audience she was once removed from the courtroom by paramedics after a previous breakdown.
Witnesses reported she said, “Not only men have balls, but women can have balls too. You just have to grow them.”
Someone reported her outburst to Chief Judge Brian Flaherty, who was having lunch at the time. Flaherty got up from his lunch and went directly to Judge Brim’s courtroom. After some persuasion, Judge Flaherty talked her into leaving the Courtroom.
The next day, she went to Daley Center dressed in hospital scrubs, a fur coat and a fur hat. No one recognized her as a judge at the security checkpoint. She reportedly shoved a deputy sheriff and threw her keys at him. She was arrested for misdemeanor battery. Later she was transported to a psychiatric hospital for an evaluation of her mental condition.
In the November 2012 General Election, she was reelected by an overwhelming majority vote, despite being ruled “unfit” by the Chicago Bar Association. However, she was not allowed to return to the courtroom, but did continue to draw her salary as an elected official.
She was tried on the assault charges in February 2013 and found not guilty by reason of insanity. Testimony showed Judge Brim had been having psychotic breaks since at least 1994, and had been hospitalized at least five times. She was diagnosed with a bipolar type of Schizoaffective Disorder a number of years ago, and had been prescribed antipsychotic medication for the condition. The history showed she made a practice of stopping her medications on her own, apparently as soon as she began to feel better.
Friday, May 9, Judge Cynthia Brim was removed from her position as a county court judge by the Illinois Courts Commission, which oversees the judiciary in Illinois. Her salary stops immediately. The Commission expressed sympathy for Judge Brim’s mental illness, but pointed out her own culpability in refusing to stay on her medications and failure to follow through with treatment when she needed it.
The 55 year old Brim is the first judge in more than a decade to be removed from the Bench during a term of office. In fact, only the seventh in the last forty years. In the unanimous ruling, Illinois Supreme Court Justice Lloyd A. Karmeier wrote, “The public expects and deserves predictability in the judicial process, and the unpredictable and unrecognizable nature of (Brim’s) mental illness places the public at risk,” He went on to say that she had left the panel no choice by her refusal to stay in treatment.
My analysis of this sad situation:
When I first started in this business, what is now called Schizoaffective Disorder was called “Ambulatory Schizophrenia.” It is a strange disorder, because the patient can appear to be exceedingly normal much of the time. However, the facade of normalcy may be masking delusions, hallucinations, and a major disturbance of thought.
This is a treatable condition, and many people with Bipolar Disorder function quite well in society as long as they stay on the medications. However, it is not “curable” and is a lifelong condition. Like diabetes and some other chronic disorders, the patient can never go off their medications.
It is more treatable than true schizophrenia, and the treatment for both Bipolar Disorder and Schizoaffective Disorder are pretty much the same. The catch is that a self-proclaimed “flight into health” will never succeed. Sadly, Cynthia Brim does not have enough insight into her own condition to see that. Just because she may feel better does not mean she is better.
It is people like Cynthia Brim who create problems for others who may suffer from a similar disorder, but who stay in treatment. I hope she has learned something from this, but one of the best predictors of future behavior is past behavior. My sympathy to her and her family, because from all indications, the pattern is likely to repeat itself. I just hope that she is not one of those mentally ill people who get themselves killed or imprisoned because of their illness.
The full ruling of the Illinois Courts Commission is posted here on Scribd.
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Hey Nick Spinelli, can you find my puppy?
Is Rahm Irish?
She is black, the Dem party is run by Irish. She was too much of an embarrassment. If her name was O’Malley she would probably still be spewing crazy talk from the bench.
Nick,
It is Cook County, but she was removed even though she was a Dem. How did that happen?
rafflaw – even the Dems can see the handwriting on the wall every so often.
States should adopt The Missouri Plan. A Commission of savvy people are appointed. They screen out the applicants and nominate three people. The Governor choses one from the three. In a few years they run on an election to keep them or remove them. Not all of the State of Missouri has it. The Supreme Court, Courts of Appeals, Saint Louis City (separate county), Saint Louis County, Jackson County and I think Springfield all are part of this system. The rest of the state votes them into office in partisan elections. One can compare. The Missouri Plan works better than the election counties. Clarence Thomas would not have made it to the three candidate panel if he had applied for the Supreme Court of Missouri. Instead, he went to head up the EEOC and then the rest is history.
This particular Chicago judge needs to go into private practice and handle divorce cases. My dad was a plumber and he always stated that he would never clean outhouses. When I got my law license he made me promise to never do divorces.
There are more judges on the bench that should be closely monitored. They may not be diagnosed at this time, but are darn close to being mental cases themselves.
She went on a paranoid rant, accusing police of targeting minorities for traffic tickets. -Charlton Stanley
From the Illinois Courts Commission ruling (Scribd):
“Blacks and Hispanics were being targeted by the South Holland and Evergreen Park police departments” (one of Brim’s claims)
To suggest that blacks and Hispanics are singled out for “special treatment” by the police, especially in certain jurisdictions, would not be considered “paranoia” by some.
While, in general, her entire “rant” might accurately be described as “paranoid”, there is probably a better example of it.
And what rafflaw said.
Folk, folks, this is Cook County. She is a Democrat and untouchable. That’s how it works in a one party system.
Theo,
Mental illness such as this is not “caused” by discrimination or any other life event. Mental illness can strike anyone, of any station in life and of any race. The comedian Jonathan Winters was bipolar, as is former Today Show host Jane Pauley. They both went public about their mental health issues. Howard Hughes was seriously mentally ill and despite his great wealth, did not get treatment. In that respect, he was much like Judge Brim. There are only a handful of mental health problems that are definitely caused by external events, PTSD being one of them.
We know from biomedical research that most mental illness results from a combination of how the brain is hard-wired, plus out-of-kilter neurotransmitters. Genetic researchers have uncovered a strong genetic component in Bipolar Disorder. It can be inherited.
http://guardianlv.com/2014/02/bipolar-disorder-and-famous-people-video/
Discrimination does not cause mental illness. And the fact that she was not removed for over two years after she was disallowed back into her courtroom says this decision was not taken lightly. Like far too many with mental illness, she has chosen, numerous times, to stop treatment. Even knowing she was likely to lose her job.
Very sad.
I recently lost a close friend to ‘Early Alzheimers'(?). We had known each other since high school. From the time he was diagnosed in his early fifties to the time he died in his mid sixties, his wife and friends watched him deteriorate from one of the best friends a person can have, a truly loving husband, father, and man to his last years bedridden. These diseases deserve our sympathy, attention, as well as adjustments. However, some in positions of the public trust: judges, police officers, guards, social workers, etc., are allowed to continue on dispensing justice and dealing with the most intimate of our lives in ways that are not in the best interests of the public but in the best interests of he or she who is dispensing treatment clouded by mental illness. The authority of and the reverence for these positions in the field of justice should not overreach the actual ability of the individual to be in control. It took too long to remove this judge. There are too many flawed officers policing our streets. We must have some accountability to the public that pays for all this. This is another example of control for the best interests of the elite and not the best interests of the people.
She seemed on the right path when she started with cop stopping minorities for traffic stops… but then kind of went off the rails from there.
Very sad and a terrible indictment of having judges be elected without some thorough vetting – no matter how small the post.
So an African American judge feels discriminated against, and, inasmuch as African Americans are recipients of discrimination from the larger society, she undoubtedly has been discriminated against at various times in her life. So what came first? Her illness or the discrimination and the life experiences engendered by that discrimination that probably brought it on? Yes, she probably does have the illness described, but the remedy is to remove her without salary and without medical insurance so that she is assured of not receiving care and possibly not being able to support herself? Who are the sick in this case? Aren’t they both ill? The uncaring bureaucracy/political system and the judge.
A very sad situation and enlightening post.
leave = live
She has been in and out of treatment before, according to her self-reporting, why was she she not pulled from the bench before?
Diversity. .
This is the problem with electing judges. When you select judges these issues are winnowed out early on. This is not an easy disease to leave with an I can easily see her going off her meds when she was feeling better, it is not uncommon with this disease, but she should have been ‘benched’ so to speak way back.
This case does offer a possible explanation for the rulings of many judges, it would seem. Most of them just cover their afflictions better, apparently.
Huh? That’s why Clarence Thomas voted to end affirmative action. He knows the secret. When Thurgood Marshall retired from the Supreme Court in 1991 he held a press conference. Justice Marshall, a protege of Charles Houston, who argued Brown, not once but twice, was asked by a young women, when will the promise of Brown be fulfilled, Justice Marshall answered: “100 years.” Over and out.
As a veteran of the Circuit Court of Cook County, what’s new. Over and out.
I hope she gets the help she needs. The Courts Commission, as Darren suggested, did the correct thing in removing her.
This is a sad story of this woman’s difficulties with mental illness. The Illinois Court Commission did the right thing in removing her from the bench for the reasons stated. It is important to recognize that a person being unable to perform their occupation by reason of mental illness is just as debilitating as a physical disability. It is important for individuals to recognize this and not give in to stereotypes or belittle these patients.