Many hardworking Illinoisans deserve to make more than they do.

Meanwhile, the State of Illinois employs a woman found to be legally insane for nearly $200,000.00 per year plus full benefits and generous retirement. Now that's criminal.

A Cook County judge who was found guilty but legally insane in February after shoving a courthouse deputy will go before the Illinois Courts Commission to determine whether she's "mentally able" to return to the bench.

It might be the first time the state commission, which has the power to reprimand, suspend or even remove judges from office, has been asked to rule on a sitting judge's mental fitness for the bench.

Judge Cynthia Brim, 54, was named in a complaint filed Monday by the Judicial Inquiry Board alleging conduct that was "prejudicial to the administration of justice and that brought the judicial office into disrepute." She also was charged with "being mentally unable to perform her duties unless she receives regular treatment, including consistently taking necessary and appropriate medication."

Brim has been suspended with pay from her $182,000-a-year job since March 2012 after she launched into a lengthy tirade during her traffic court call in the Markham courthouse and then shoved a Cook County deputy outside the Daley Center a day later.

She has been hospitalized for bipolar mood disorder at least six times since 1993, including for three weeks after shoving the deputy, according to the complaint. Brim was retained by voters for an additional six-year term in 2012 even after being suspended and charged with battery.

While hearing a traffic call at the Markham courthouse on March 8, 2012, Brim stopped her work, sat silently for a few minutes and then told those in court that her grandmother had been raped by a white man, that the South Holland and Evergreen Park police departments were targeting blacks and Hispanics and that "justice is all about if you're black or white," according to the complaint.

The next day, Brim embarked on a confused journey that had her making a 5-mile "march for justice" to the Loop. She was arrested outside the Daley Center when she shoved a deputy who had asked her to stop after she threw her special courthouse keys on the lobby floor and left.

There are only two other judicial board complaints from the last 41 years that mention mental qualifications, but it's unclear whether either involved mental illness. Both judges resigned.

The panel that will eventually hear Brim's case is composed of one Illinois Supreme Court justice, two appellate court judges, two circuit court judges and two citizens, said John Gallo, an attorney for the Judicial Inquiry Board.

Brim's attorney, James Montgomery, could not be reached for comment.

sschmadeke@tribune.com