Illinois punishes a state judge who wrote a pro-Trump op-ed.
The Editorial Board | June 5, 2026
(The Wall Street Journal)
Free speech is under assault in many places these days, but traffic court? Leave it to Illinois, where the state Supreme Court kicked a Cook County judge off the bench over an article he wrote while a private citizen.
That’s the plight of retired Cook County Circuit Court Judge James R. Brown, who wrote an op-ed and appeared on a podcast after he resigned from the bench in 2020. When the state Supreme Court called retired judges to return to fill vacancies in 2025, Judge Brown returned to service at traffic court, only to be kicked out weeks later.
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To learn more about Brown v. Neville, et al., click here.