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It’s amazing what can happen when attorneys get desperate enough. In the case of Cook County Circuit Judge James R. Brown, they got pretty desperate.
The controversy erupted when Judge Brown wrote a caustic piece for John Kass in Chicago, after he had retired from his position, protesting the kinds of misbehaviors he saw in government.
In that column, titled ‘His Judgment Cometh, and That Right Soon,’ Brown assailed what he called ‘lawfare’ waged by Democratic activists and politicians in Illinois and elsewhere in the U.S. against President Donald Trump and his supporters. He further singled out for criticism the controversial criminal prosecutorial and policy decisions of former Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx and other prosecutors, who Brown agreed had been propped up by billionaire left-wing activist George Soros and his political organizations to advance left-wing criminal justice reforms in Chicago and nationwide.
Again, note that Judge Brown was a retired judge when he wrote this column. After he had been retired for five years, the Illinois Supreme Court called on him to serve a temporary assignment in Cook County’s traffic courts due to an overload of cases.
Of course, the Democrats were enraged. When the Cook County Bar Association and the Chicago Council of Lawyers demanded that the Illinois Supreme Court rescind Brown’s appointment, they did. They claimed that he had “clearly violated” the code of conduct.
Judge Brown was not going to take his removal lying down and filed suit in federal court, seeking a court order to reverse the state high court's decision to abruptly toss him from the bench.
He argues the Illinois state constitution alone provides the process for the removal of judges: impeachment by the Illinois General Assembly or a removal action through the Illinois Courts Commission, following the investigation of a formal complaint of misconduct against a judge. In either instance, a judge accused of conduct which could result in removal should be afforded hearings and due process. In this case, Brown said, he received neither. Further, the complaint asserts the Courts Commission received no misconduct complaints against Brown. In the complaint, Brown asserts the Illinois Supreme Court exceeded the bounds of its authority under the state constitution in removing him as they did.
He also added the following in an interview:
‘Conservatives, I don’t think, are welcome on the Cook County judiciary,’ Brown said on the radio show. He later added, ‘For the Illinois Supreme Court to cave to the mob is unconscionable. It’s unconscionable.’
I agree!
Discussion (22)
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Yes, the title is not a typo; it's meaning will become clearer when you read the post.
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Federal judge tells the plaintiff to go to IL state court first. Stays the Federal case to address any Federal issue after the state courts address.
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I (a lawyer) am not familiar with the specifics of former Judge Brown's case or circumstances, and there are some esoteric legal issues involved (federal versus state jurisdiction, how to preserve the public's perception of fairness when they appear before a court, "temporary" judicial assignments versus "regular" judgeships, etc.). But as a general matter, bar (lawyers') associations (including the licensing bodies and the groups that write judicial codes) have been left-biased for decades, since at least as early as when I was in law school circa 1980. During the days after lawsuits and judicial activism became the left's preferred method of implementing the left's preferred social and legal priorities in the 1960s and 1970s. Judicial codes of conduct (and many lawyer codes of conduct) were rewritten to favor left-leaning priorities.
I'd like to know in this case about other instances in which retired judges wrote editorials (or made speeches) and then were considered for, or appointed to, temporary judicial assignments. Were judges who wrote "left-wing" or "liberal" editorials also blocked from future judicial appointments?
In recent years (since the advent of Trump), state lawyer licensing bodies have stripped lawyers of their law licenses because they had the audacity to represent Mr. Trump. The most egregious is the California Supreme Court stripping Professor John Eastman of his law license because he did what all lawyers do - present to his client (not even a submission to the court) for debate a plausible argument on an untested area of law. New York stripped Rudy Giuliani of his law license for proposing novel legal theories on behalf of Mr. Trump (lawyers push untested and novel legal theories on the court all the time, so if Mr. Giuliani is to be disbarred, lots of other lawyers should be also). And Colorado stripped Jenna Ellis of her law license for her participation in representing Mr. Trump. There is some controversy about the facts in Ms. Ellis' case, including some statements she made to the court, but some of that may have arisen because Ms. Ellis did not have the ready cash funds available to mount a full-blown defense. Also, many lawyers have made questionable or even false statements to courts without similar punishments.
So stripping a judge of his position because he expressed agreement with some of President Trump's issues does not surprise me.
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Also the performatively disingenuous or outright false assertions made by leftist judges.
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The problem with flipping someone off on your way out the door is what happens when they invite you to come back in.
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