Cook County Judge Found Not Guilty By Reason Of Insanity

I'm not sure who is more insane: Cook County Circuit Court Judge Cynthia Brim or the voters of Cook County who handily re-elected her to another term last fall. Yesterday, one of Judge Brim's fellow judges found her not guilty by reason of insanity after she stood trial for assaulting a sheriff's deputy who had the misfortune of finding a set of keys she misplaced (after throwing them to the ground during a tirade) and returning them to her. Judge Brim has been drawing her $182,000 a year salary since last March even though she hasn't worked a single day since her arrest because she's been banned by a panel of judges from returning to the county's courthouse without a police escort. Even worse, she had previously been forcefully taken from her courtroom and taken to a hospital for mental evaluation due to uncivil conduct on the bench. Since 2000, bar associations have recommended her removal from the bench. The Chicago Tribune reports on the trial that ended with her being found mentally insane and how yesterday's verdict could actually aid Judge Brim in returning to the bench:

A Democratic Party-backed judge who won re-election in November while facing battery charges was found not guilty Monday — by reason of insanity.

The insanity verdict could aid the judge's effort to return to the bench.

Not long after Judge Cynthia Brim was charged in March with misdemeanor battery for shoving a deputy outside the Daley Center, a panel of supervising judges effectively suspended her, banning Brim from the county's courthouses without a police escort.

Bar associations have recommended since 2000 that Brim be tossed from her $182,000-a-year job, but voters have kept returning her to the bench. Experts have said Brim's case highlights the difficulty of unseating a judge up for retention in Cook County.

On Monday, less than a year after the judge embarked on what attorneys described as a delusional journey across the city that ended with her in handcuffs, Brim sat at a wooden table marked "Defendant" on the 13th floor of the Daley Center for a highly unusual bench trial.

Testimony revealed that Brim has been hospitalized five times after suffering mental breakdowns in the 18 years since she was first elected. In 2004, Brim was carried off the bench at a suburban courthouse after she froze while addressing her courtroom before starting the day, standing mute until someone called paramedics, her attorney said.

Brim, 54, was diagnosed years ago with a bipolar type of schizoaffective disorder, which means she experiences delusions and hallucinations, psychiatrist Mathew Markos testified. The symptoms can be kept in check with medication, he testified.

Prosecutors argued that Brim was "criminally responsible" for her actions last spring as she had chosen once again to stop taking her medications. Her attorney said a psychiatrist had advised her to only take the drugs when she needed to.

"She made the choice, despite numerous hospitalizations, to go off her medications," Assistant State's Attorney Maria Burnett said.

DuPage County Judge Liam Brennan — who was brought in to hear the case — said his verdict is separate from the larger question of Brim's fitness to be a judge. The state's Judicial Inquiry Board is investigating Brim for multiple alleged violations of the code of professional responsibility, an inquiry that could ultimately end with her removal from the bench, her attorney James Montgomery said.

"This is not about the wisdom of allowing this defendant to serve as a judge," Brennan said.

Legal expert Warren Wolfson, who spent 15 years as a trial judge, said the board will want to be sure that Brim is capable of performing her duties on the bench. The board would consider other incidents as well, including the disruption in her own courtroom.

"The issue is whether she has the ability to perform her duties," Wolfson said.

Brim's November re-election campaign was backed by the Cook County Democratic Party as well as the Committee for Retention of Judges in Cook County, a campaign committee funded by judges. Judges need 60 percent of the vote to be retained; failing to meet that mark is rare.

On March 8, Brim was asked to leave the Markham courthouse after going on a tirade while presiding over traffic court, sources told the Tribune last year. The next day, she read a newspaper story about a Cook County judge who was using lots of sick leave and decided to complain to the judicial board, which disciplines judges, about what she viewed as an unfair story.

But she took the wrong bus and ended up on 47th Street, so she decided to make a "march for justice" up to the board's Loop offices, Markos said. After walking more than 5 miles, she at some point went to her attorney's building, but got off at the wrong floor and refused to leave a different attorney's offices, Montgomery said.

That attorney later filed a complaint with the Judicial Inquiry Board, he said.

Brim also went to the Daley Center. After standing in the lobby for about 15 minutes, she asked deputies if any keys had been left at the security station that day, officers testified.

She then left with a set of keys and returned a few minutes later, throwing her own keys on the floor as a protest against the unjust judicial system, Montgomery said. Deputy Nicholas Leone testified that he noticed Brim's set included special security keys for opening courtrooms and judge's chambers in the building.

"I wanted to know why a civilian had those keys," Leone said.

This is just one of the many reasons there is absolutely no hope left for the future of this country. The same voters who gave us Judge Cynthia Brim gave us Barack Hussein Obama, whose sole purpose in life is to end America as we knew it.

I found this interview of Judge Brim by a Chicago minister where she talks about her faith, her former jobs working in the Chicago corporation counsel's office and Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris' office (the same one who wound up with Barry's Senate seat after Blagojevich's arrest) and how she was dumbfounded when an associate judge came up to her one day and asked her if she was interested in running for judge. She says someone asked her after she decided to run if she had the backing of the Cook County Democratic Party. No, she replied. She had the backing of a higher authority: God. Sounds like she suffers from Ray Lewis delusional syndome. Have a good laugh as the friendly minister urges young viewers to tune in and listen to Brim's words of wisdom.

Judge Cynthia Brim from PCC Studio on Vimeo.