Pro Se Litigants

Judge Posner Comes To Defense Of Pro Se Plaintiff, Excoriates Trial Judge

Once again, Judge Posner unleashes his intellect on some poor deserving soul.

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Judge Richard Posner has a bit of a reputation for showing no patience to those who get on his bad side. He’ll show remarkably little mercy ripping everyone from advocates advancing disingenuous arguments, to his colleagues, to the Chief Justice of the United States. Some lily-livers out there complain that he’s too mean, but Judge Posner is nothing if not fair and if he’s harsh it’s only to dissuade the next idiot from wasting his damn time.

Speaking of idiots, Judge Posner got a lot of attention earlier this year for taking out his frustrations on a pro se defendant. It was his first criminal trial and he rose to the occasion with a blistering attack on every whackadoo theory the “sovereign citizen” movement tosses around in their quest to overthrow the federal government one admiralty argument at a time.

Now Judge Posner swings in to the defense of a pro se plaintiff who fell victim to a judge whose impatience wasn’t backed by the moral authority that Judge Posner possesses. As Law360 reports:

A Cook County judge deprived a woman with a neurological condition of a fair trial by failing to properly accommodate her disability and even yelled at her and insulted her in front of a jury, according to a Friday Seventh Circuit opinion penned by Judge Richard Posner, reviving a federal lawsuit against the state court.

Linda Reed, who has a neurological condition that affects her ability to speak clearly, now has a second shot at her federal lawsuit against Judge Sidney A. Jones III, the Circuit Court of Cook County and the state of Illinois alleging that Judge Jones not only improperly failed to accommodate her condition when she represented herself pro se in a personal injury trial, but also embarrassed her and shouted at her in front of the jury because of behaviors related to her condition.

The extent of the “hectoring” Reed got from the Judge Jones is shocking. From Judge Posner’s opinion:

The judge knew or should have known that it was her condition, rather than willful defiance of courtroom proprieties, that was responsible for the long, involuntary pauses in her statements; yet he kept telling her to “hurry up,” to move on to the “next question,” and to wrap up her examination of witnesses. He permitted her only 10 minutes to examine a particular witness. At one point during the plaintiff’s cross-examination by the defendant’s lawyer the judge said “I have been waiting ten seconds for you to answer and am moving on to the next thing.” He also at times yelled at her, glared at her, smacked his bench, leaned forward, and otherwise expressed annoyance with her — all in front of the jury.

She suffered other embarrassments in front of the jury. For example, a piece of gum that she was chewing to control her involuntary movements fell out of her mouth, an accident for which the judge scolded her, precipitating a convulsive state in her.

Despite witnessing Reed’s responses, Judge Jones wrote that he saw nothing wrong with her beyond a “diminishment of speech ability” — which Judge Posner can’t help himself but nitpick with “[sic — he meant ‘diminution’]” — before adopting the jarringly common vernacular he employs for his most devastating critiques:

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Ability to speak was the critical physical ability that the plaintiff needed in order to litigate a jury case; without that ability, being “fully mentally capable and alert” couldn’t do much for her.

After calling out other failings — the lack of any independent record of Reed’s hearing, the state appellate court’s understanding of estoppel, etc. — the Seventh Circuit reversed and remanded the case, and Judge Posner added “Judge Sidney Jones” to the black book in his office labeled “The Vanquished.”

As usual, if you’re a fan of Judge Posner lighting into people, check out the full opinion on the next page…

Posner Blasts Judge For Bullying Disabled Woman At Trial [Law360]

Earlier: Judge Posner Lights Into Pro Se ‘Sovereign Citizen’
Judge Posner Rips Poor Winston & Strawn Lawyer
Judge Posner Defends His Benchslap Of Chief Justice Roberts
Judge Posner Schools Colleagues On Marriage, Basic Logic

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