Misdemeanor Trial Looms for Suspended Chicago Judge re Security Checkpoint Dispute
A misdemeanor trial is looming for a Chicago area judge who was removed from the bench last year after being criminally charged in a dispute with security officers in a government building and subsequently retained by voters in November.
Cook County Circuit Judge Cynthia Brim plans to assert at her expected two-day trial in early February that she was legally insane at the time of the March 2012 incident, her lawyer, James Montgomery Sr., told an out-of-county judge at a Thursday hearing. DuPage County Judge Liam Brennan was brought in to preside over the case to avoid a potential conflict of interest with those involved in the local court system, the Chicago Tribune reports.
Brim was charged with misdemeanor battery after allegedly shoving a deputy and throwing a set of keys at the security checkpoint in the Daley Center in downtown Chicago, which houses numerous courtrooms.
A day earlier, the newspaper says, Brim had been removed from her own courtroom in the suburban Markham, Ill., courthouse after a 45-minute diatribe. She was subsequently suspended from her $182,000-a-year job, as an earlier ABAJournal.com post details.
