'That's it, take him!' Lawyer handcuffed in courtroom hallway after judge's alleged command
A hallway handcuffing of a Chicago lawyer has led to an ethics referral for a Chicago judge accused of ordering his ouster from her courtroom. (Image from Shutterstock)
A hallway handcuffing of a Chicago lawyer has led to an ethics referral for a Chicago judge accused of ordering his ouster from her courtroom.
“That’s it, take him!” Cook County Circuit Court Judge Kathy Flanagan allegedly told deputies.
Flanagan acted after lawyer Brad Schneiderman from the law firm Johnson & Bell failed to obey her order to “stop talking” and “step back,” according to a Cook County, Illinois, sheriff’s office report.
The Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times have coverage that cited the report and hearings that followed.
At first, it appeared as if Schneiderman would follow Flanagan’s step-back order during the May 7 hearing at the Daley Center in Chicago.
He walked toward the gallery while “speaking in a muttering manner before stopping halfway to the gallery and turning back toward the bench,” according to a written account by a courtroom deputy summarized by the Chicago Sun-Times.
That’s when Flanagan told deputies to “take him.” A deputy took Schneiderman to a hallway and handcuffed him to a chair. Schneiderman was released when Flanagan declined to sign an order for the lawyer to be taken into custody.
Schneiderman, a shareholder with Johnson & Bell, handles negligence cases and represents hospitals and health care professionals in medical malpractice litigation, according to his firm bio. Flanagan is an acting presiding judge of the Law Division in Cook County.
Flanagan was referred to the Illinois Judicial Inquiry Board on Friday following two hearings on the matter before a court executive committee. Flanagan, Schneiderman and witnesses offered differing accounts of what happened during the hearings, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Schneiderman said he was advocating for a client after Flanagan ruled on a motion without giving him a chance to argue.
“At no time was I trying to be disrespectful to the court,” he said.
Flanagan said Schneiderman “became disruptive over a ruling on a motion,” and she never ordered him handcuffed. Rather, she wanted him to be taken from the courtroom for a “time-out.”
Flanagan gave this statement to the Chicago Tribune: “At this time, I will say only that I am shocked at how the facts have been distorted into a now-public narrative that has veered so far from what actually occurred. I have cooperated fully with the executive committee and will cooperate fully with the Judicial Inquiry Board on this matter.”
