Tag: Judge Joe Brown

Categories
News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall

Neverending Elvis

Last week, the Dutch brewing company Bavaria launched an ad campaign suggesting that the company’s Radler — a fruity beer-based beverage — is popular among “dead” celebrities such as Tupac Shakur, Bruce Lee, and of course, Elvis Presley. The video, set on an uncharted desert island, looked a little something like this. First, old (possibly intoxicated) Elvis leers inappropriately at the scantily clad help.

Old Marilyn Monroe rubs suntan lotion on Tupac’s belly, while John Lennon and Kurt Cobain order more fruity beer-based beverages.

The ever-vigilant Bruce Lee spots a ship off the coast and sounds an alarm, reminding the celebrities that they are supposed to be dead and need to hide. It turns out Elvis isn’t very good at hiding.

Mean Joe Brown

What do you get if you google “meanest mugshot?” A photo collage of Judge Joe Brown, who was recently jailed for contempt of court.

Categories
News The Fly-By

A Question of Character

The minutes had turned to hours as I waited for my Uncle George to arrive. It was the day after I’d graduated from junior high. As my favorite relative, my uncle, who lived in Kentucky, had promised me we’d take a road trip from my home in Missouri to Chicago, and just the two of us would enjoy the sights. My family had left the city when I was a child, so to me it was going to be a pilgrimage I’d excitedly anticipated. But, just to be exclusively in the company of the man I had idolized from afar most of my then short and uneventful life was going to be thrilling enough.

On those rare occasions when I saw him — family reunions or his brief stopovers while traveling through — I became fascinated by the stories George told of people, places, and events that he’d experienced in his life. Though my other siblings would tire of his well-worn tales, I always intently listened, as if I’d never heard any of them before. I relished his braggadocio, tales of how he set foolish men straight, how he took it upon himself, at the risk of possible repercussions, to right injustice whenever he encountered it, even in the pre-civil rights era. I envisioned him as a black version of Don Quixote. Yet, when I would sing his praises to my mother, she would wistfully reply, “Yes, son, George is a character.”

This past week marked the reemergence of two colorful “characters” from this city’s past. In an extensive interview with the Flyer’s sage political columnist Jackson Baker, former state Senator John Ford, released from the legal probation that followed his release from prison as the result of his bribery conviction after the 2005 Tennessee Waltz scandal, went back on the offensive. He alleged he was among a group of black Democrats targeted by a predatory justice system. He asserted videos presented by federal prosecutors were edited to make him look guilty. The boisterous Ford attempted to make the argument that we should all be fearful that freedom of speech is under attack, based on what happened to him. In an accompanying interview, Ford also lashed out at the credibility of his attorney in the bribery case, Michael Scholl. Having reported on the trial, I can say Ford should thank his lucky stars the adept Scholl was almost able to defy the logic of what was undeniably incriminating evidence.

And then it was “Joe Time.” Television personality and former Shelby County Court Judge Joe Brown once again briefly ruled the airways in another reality show setting. His outburst inside a Juvenile Court room, as the pro bono legal representative of a woman he met in the hallway, was the fodder of websites, twitter, and ridiculous analysis ad-nauseum. The fact is, and what Brown continually refused to honestly address, is that as a former jurist he knew better than to stage such a contemptuous performance in another judge’s domain. He wouldn’t have stood for such a scene when he was on the bench.

But, the recent exploits of “Joe and John” reflect the fear of an aging generation of which I am a part. No one wants to feel obsolete. None of us wants to admit the sense of wide-eyed enthusiasm that propelled our youth now seems reduced to spouting the type of clichés we once thought were the last resorts of the foolish and the prideful. Our generation now often dreams of creating new moments by simply ignoring the truth of history or by rewriting it with a different and more favorable spin. We don’t want to admit the time we had on our drive to succeed in life has waned so much. It’s just easier to use the “shortcuts” we learned along the trail to make up for the time lost and the time we have left to still make a difference.

If we had gone on that trip to Chicago, maybe Uncle George would have taken the time to explain something like that to me. Maybe he would have told me there is a stark difference between “having character” and “being a character.” To be a character takes little more than to establish a personality that stands out from the crowd. That can be manufactured. To have character is to realize honesty and truth are more than just words. They are the foundation of our existence.

At some point, I stopped waiting on Uncle George.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Flash Points

Two events occurred on Monday of this week that indicate the unpredictability — nay, the volatility — with which the election seasons of 2014 may be expected to proceed.

On Monday afternoon, the Shelby County Commission was in session and considering, among other matters, the question of whether the administration of county Mayor Mark Luttrell should be urged to rebid the county’s existing 2011 contract with Christ Community Health Services (CCHS) to administer Title X federal funding for women’s health issues.

Commissioner Steve Mulroy had proposed a resolution to that purpose. He had voted with the pro-CCHS majority in 2011 and had done so, he said then and has repeated of late, so as to attach to the contract with CCHS guarantees of high-level service.

His request for a rebid this week was based on statistics he presented casting doubt about the organization’s adequate compliance.Commissioners opposing the resolution suggested, however, that his true motive had to do with propitiating pro-choice advocates of former Title X contractor Planned Parenthood in his current candidacy for county mayor.

For various reasons, many of them ad hoc rather than inevitable, the resolution was defeated. Question: Does the commissioner get credit for fighting the good fight or do his motives remain suspect, or does it even matter?

The same kinds of questions remain in the aftermath of the ruckus kicked up in Juvenile Court by former judge and TV eminence Joe Brown, who was jailed Monday for contempt of court but later released on his own recognizance.

Again, suspend for the time being your thoughts about the merits of the case: Will Brown, a candidate for District Attorney General, get votes — for himself and other Democrats — for taking on the Juvenile Court establishment? Or will he lose them by appearing to be a hothead?

Or, again, does it even matter?

On such questions — the kabuki principle, as it were — electoral outcomes may depend. Just sayin’.         

• And there’s this: Former state senator and convicted felon John Ford, who finally received notification late last week that the legal probation that followed his release from federal prison in August 2012 was at an end, is free to speak freely about what’s on his mind now. And one thing very much on his mind is a belief that he is an innocent man who was “set up” by a predatory justice system determined to target him.

In the course of two lengthy sit-down interviews with Ford — one last October in the living room of his condominium in a gated East Memphis suburb, another at the Ruth’s Chris Steak House in January — along with several telephone conversations, the former kingpin state senator, now meditating on a possible electoral comeback, confided his assorted thoughts and recollections about his fall from grace and his two felony trials of the late 1990s.

A comprehensive article on our conversations, “Waiting for Godot with John Ford,” will appear in the April issue of Memphis Magazine, and another article, “John Ford’s J’ACCUSE!,” focusing on the legal aspects of Ford’s two trials, appeared on memphisflyer.com.

Reprinted here is a seriously abridged portion of the latter, dealing with Ford’s conviction for bribery in Memphis in 2007 and the prison term of four-plus years, largely served in the low-security federal facility at Yazoo City, Mississippi.

“The crime was being committed on their part,” Ford says of the FBI agents who netted Ford, along with six other officials, in the “Tennessee Waltz” sting of May 2005.

“If you tried to bribe me, you would be guilty of trying to bribe me,” Ford says, but he contends that the video used in evidence at his trial, which shows him taking thousands of dollars in bills from an agent posing as a legislative lobbyist, allegedly to secure Ford’s help in passing a bill, was in effect edited to distort the facts.

“All they had was what they recorded on tape. You can make a video show what you want it to show,” says Ford. “Where’s the evidence? They’re the ones making a recording. There’s nothing illegal about that, about somebody counting out money and giving it to you. They give you some money and talk about something else.”

Is Ford saying that the money was passed for something other than the illegal purposes the government said it was for? “That’s exactly what I’m saying,” is Ford’s answer, but he doesn’t specify what. (In a separate interview with WMC-TV reporter Kontji Anthony, Ford says he was serving as a “consultant” to the agent’s pretended music business.) Ford is clearly making a case that he was framed. And what would be the motive?

Ford suggests that “Tennessee Waltz” and other governmental-corruption trials arose from the politics of the Bush-era Justice Department.

“I think for certain they targeted Democrats who had a lot of power — Democrats in particular who were black who had a lot of power.” As for Republicans — and Democrats — who were conservative, “They didn’t bother with them. I know a lot [of people] who should have been targeted who weren’t targeted. They’re still serving. They did things of their own volition, not when somebody set ’em up.”

Pending the end of his probation, Ford had been reticent about going public with his accusations against the legal system.

“That’s why they have probation, to keep your butt quiet for a year or two. Boom! Everybody that goes to prison — federal, county, state, whatever level — are not there because they committed a crime or because they’re criminals. It’s because the system wanted them there!”

And more in that vein about the bind he felt during his probation period: “You have freedom of speech, but you’re limited. You say something against a judge or a prosecutor or something like that, they can get you. They can say ‘boom boom’ and take your freedom away.

“What you say can and will be held against you. What you say may not be pleasing to them, it’ll be derogatory. They’ll cop an attitude so quick. They’ll try to find something. It ain’t gotta be right. If the judge goes along with it, boom!

“I know it. I’ve seen it. You don’t have to do anything that’s wrong to go to prison. A lot of folks who were down there where I was, we talked. They didn’t commit a crime. They hadn’t done any crime. They lost their cases like I did. They couldn’t out-gun the government. But I did in the end, though, didn’t I?”

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Ready to Rumble

CREDIT: JB

JB

Judge Joe Brown makes his pitch at IBEW.

I’ll say this for Shelby County’s Democrats: If in the county elections of 2014 they should go down to another defeat like that of 2010, when the rival Republicans, representing a minority of the county’s voters, swept all the contested races, it won’t be for any lack of intensity.

There was more than enough of that to go around last Thursday night, when a lengthy list of candidates — declared, undeclared, likely, and unlikely — had a chance to address the local Democratic Party’s executive committee at the IBEW Union Hall on Madison Avenue.

In a way, Thursday night’s decidedly hurly-burly affair was a kind of segue from a previous party event.

Last month, when the Democrats had what appeared to be a successful Kennedy Day fund-raiser at the Bridges building downtown, a once and maybe future party politician rose up to interrupt what had been, up until then, serial recitations of the usual boilerplate and talking points and sounded a late note that was both jarring and curiously rousing.

It was Carol Chumney, a former state representative and Memphis Council member who felt that, in her last race two years ago for district attorney general, she had been deprived of the kind of party solidarity that might have given her a chance to win against incumbent Republican Amy Weirich.

“Let’s stick together!” she demanded of her assembled party mates. But she didn’t restrict herself to mere exhortations. She went so far as to call out one of the party’s main men, 9th District Congressman Steve Cohen, who not only was in attendance but had played a major role at the fund-raising dinner, arranging the appearance of its keynoter, U.S. Representative Barbara Lee, a House colleague of Cohen’s from California.

Cohen had introduced Lee, who responded to his flattering characterization of her with some kind words of her own, citing Cohen for his “tremendous leadership in Congress” and going on to say: “We know that he is a true champion for economic and social justice. And we know, all of us, we know in the House that we can count on Steve to be with us on behalf of what is just and what is fair and what is right and on behalf of his constituents. … I can’t think of a more loyal or stronger or smarter ally than Steve.”

That was not how Chumney saw it. To her, Cohen was most remarkable for “Republi-Democrat” sentiments, by virtue of his having declined to endorse her candidacy against Weirich. “I think that very few people would say I was not qualified to be district attorney, but somehow one of our congressmen seemed to think that. He said he ‘birthed’ me, Congresswoman Lee!”

In deciding two years ago not to endorse her in the race for D.A., Cohen had indeed claimed, in what may have been an awkward attempt at a conciliatory grace note, to have midwifed Chumney’s entry into public office. (Anybody who covered Chumney’s successful 1990 race for state representative can attest to his daily omnipresence on her behalf in a crowded and contentious field.)

Between 1990 and 2012, clearly, the relationship had changed. And, in the immediate aftermath of Chumney’s remarks, another Democrat, state Representative G.A. Hardaway — whose 2012 primary opponent, fellow state Representative Mike Kernell, a longtime Cohen ally, had won the congressman’s endorsement — offered some payback of his own, referring in an email broadside to “treacherous political deeds” by Cohen and imputing to the congressman, routinely regarded as the most liberal Democrat in Tennessee, a previously unsuspected hand-in-glove relationship with Republicans.

Though most of that sound and fury had been, strictly speaking, more personal than political, the theme of party solidarity at all costs and outrage over potential apostasies carried over into last week’s executive committee meeting.

Speaker after speaker trumpeted the theme, and several, like Coleman Thompson, once again a candidate for Shelby County register, an office that eluded him in 2010, stoked the lingering belief that the party’s electoral wipe-out by the Republicans in 2010 had not been an honest result. “We caught them stealing,” he insisted.

Nowhere was this alleged GOP perfidy more prominent than in a lengthy and impassioned philippic against local Republican-dom delivered by Judge Joe Brown, whose title derives both from his former service as a bona fide elected criminal court judge and his long run as a reality show judge adjudicating domestic disputes on television.

It was the latter experience more than the former that had whetted his talent for tough talk, and Brown dished out lots of it, naming names and speaking of “secret accounts,” “differential vote counts,” stolen elections, “extortion,” sneaking privatization of public business, even a conspiracy to undermine traffic safety on the A.W. Willis bridge. Brown’s charges prompted voices in his audience to cry out, “Teach!”

Brown’s bottom line, reinforced by the fact that his TV show has been discontinued: He has “not quite made up [his] mind” about running for D.A., to end what he had characterized as a reign of error and terror.

Chumney, who had widely been rumored to be eyeing another race for D.A. herself, but who had as of yet given no public indication of it, was on hand again, with a retooled version of her Kennedy Day speech, again calling for Democrats to be “united for the team” and this time citing city council members Jim Strickland and Shea Flinn as Democrats who had abandoned her in 2012 and supported her Republican opponent.

Cohen, who had made a point to greet Chumney cordially, was there to address the committee and was all high road, noting that he had become a ranking member (meaning lead Democrat) on the Constitution and Civil Justice subcommittee of the House Judiciary, recounting his efforts on behalf of voting rights and immigration legislation, and making a special appeal to President Obama to ameliorate unfair sentencing procedures for drug offenses.

The congressman was applauded, but so was the next speaker, attorney Ricky Wilkins, his announced opponent in this year’s Democratic primary. Wilkins boasted of his South Memphis background and his 20 years of effort on behalf of improving public housing in Memphis, promising to bring the same degree of “compassion, energy, and fire” to Congress that he’d evinced in his law career, and making a point of pledging his loyalty in advance to this year’s Democratic nominees.

There were other speakers — Adrienne Pakis-Gillon, for example, on the need to oppose anti-abortion legislation in Nashville, and Councilman Lee Harris on putting an end to the lockout of employees at Kellogg. But it was the evidence of intense intra-party rivalries in this year’s primaries, coupled with the near-paradoxical demand for party unity (party chairman Bryan Carson announced that disloyalty would “not be tolerated”), which animated the evening and bespoke the revved-up nature of local Democratic ambitions this year.

Nowhere was this more obvious than in the party’s hopes of recapturing the office of Shelby County mayor from Republican incumbent Mark Luttrell.

The Democrats’ committee meeting had begun with statements from four mayoral hopefuls, all with established names and ambitions.

Shelby County Commission Chairman James Harvey offered “leadership at another level” and promised “stability.” Former commissioner and previous mayoral candidate Deidre Malone — making, as she proudly noted, her second try — rejoiced that “we have a Democratic primary.”  

County Commissioner Steve Mulroy touted his “core set of principles” and said, “I’m a real Democrat, and I can win.” And well-known minister and former school board member Kenneth Whalum Jr. brandished some stirring populist oratory, boasted his role in defeating the last sales- tax referendum, and asked the audience to help him decide whether or not to run.

Whatever happens in the May 6th countywide primaries (for which next week’s February 20th filing deadline is imminent) or on August 7th, date of the county general election as well as state and federal primaries, or on November 4th, election day for state and federal offices, last week’s Democratic meeting provided ample energy and abundant foreshadowing.

Discord and harmony, rowdiness and composure, affection and displeasure, logic and libido — all were present in equal and co-existent measure. The only given in the mix was that Shelby County Democrats aren’t likely to sit this one out.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this column had indicated that Deidre Malone had made two previous runs for county mayor. She has only made one to date; her current race is her second effort.

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

Letters to the Editor

Hoop City?

Those were two interesting stories about the University of Memphis Tiger basketball team and the Memphis Grizzlies NBA team (“Hoop City 2013: 20 Questions,” October 24th issue). Nice questions and some good answers. Now, I have one question: What qualifications does Memphis have to be called “Hoop City”? New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philly, and others pop up in my mind before Memphis does.

I love the teams here, but as a scorer/statistician (not a fan) I question that Memphis is Hoop City. I think it’s media hype and nothing more. Media hype in sports is frequent in Memphis from the print media to the sports talk-show people to television folks. I won’t go into details about why, but I hope that I am wrong when the Tigers and the Grizzlies bring home titles at the end of the season.

Jay Guinozzo


Memphis

Politics — as usual?

Regarding Liz Rincon’s article “A Wake-Up Call” in the October 17th Flyer and the buffoon Joe Brown’s diatribe at the Shelby County Democratic Party roast of Willie Herenton: Somehow, Brown and Rincon deserve each other.

First, and in all fairness, Brown did not say (as relayed by Rincon) that Obama had “failed to create a single job.” What Brown did say (according to the Flyer‘s own Jackson Baker) was that in six years, Obama had failed to produce a single jobs bill, which is true. The thin-skinned Rincon somehow imagined this to be an insult to the president, something clearly verboten among the true believers.

Nor did Brown say that girls should “keep their knees together.” What he did ask was why “black preachers are not telling girls to keep their knees together,” which was intended as a criticism of black clergy, not women.

Nor was Brown particularly critical of homosexuality, as Rincon perceived him to be. What Brown said was “we need to keep Big Brother out of the bedroom” and that he wished gays would remain “in the closet.” This was clearly Brown’s own personal belief, and, believe it or not, he has a constitutional right to express it —even if doing so conflicts with Rincon’s somewhat dogmatic and self-righteous views on the subject. Rincon should also note that black churches as a whole do not support gay marriage.

Most notably, Rincon completely failed to mention that Brown’s frank comments clearly “resonated” with a number of Democrats in the crowd.

The real issue here and the thing that really appears to have riled up Ms. Rincon is that someone in the morally challenged Democratic Party (albeit a dolt like Brown) had the audacity to question her somewhat tenuous, sactimonious, and ideologically rigid personal positions.

Finally, she puts the finishing touches on her own diatribe by issuing an ultimatum to Brown and other dangerous types who would stray from the tent of pseudo-inclusion and intolerant tolerance: Shut up, get back in line, and don’t question anything or “we’ll say goodbye” and exclude you from the great party of inclusion.

Erwin Williamson


Memphis

So, the party of “fiscal responsibility,” in thrall to a virulent absurdist fringe, has taken us to the brink of economic disaster, which, in the short run, cost us $24 billion, loss of credibility throughout the world, and induced international wonderment at how the greatest democracy on earth could be brought so low by such a small cabal of scheming anarchists! A simple answer would be that if you elect “fools” to high public office you should expect to suffer from the “errands” they undertake.

America, having endured this needless pain, will recover, though the long-term effects are yet to unfold. But those who bellow about “taking their country back” should realize that’s not going to happen. It ceased to exist at Appomattox in 1865.

Jay Sheffield

Memphis

Just how “fiscally responsible” is this: The Tea Party lunatics cost our country $24,000,000,000 in a temper tantrum trying to take health care away from 30,000,000 Americans. That $24,000,000,000 would have bought health care for every uninsured American for a decade. Instead, it was flushed down the toilet. It benefited no one. No foreign country helped. No wars paid for. No roads or bridges built. Just total waste never to be recovered.

I hope every voter in America will make “Twenty-four BILLION Wasted” a battle cry come November 2014. I also think legal action should be started immediately to sue the Republican Party for this money. It was ours, and they blew it on a terrorist attack against our country.

Jim Brasfield

Memphis

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

A Wake-Up Call

It was one year ago that the Memphis City Council passed the non-discrimination ordinance, which would protect city workers from discriminatory action based on sexual identity and orientation.

The Tennessee Equality Project was at the forefront of grass-roots lobbying and organizing to get the public involved with holding their city council members accountable along with several other organizations — including the Shelby County Democratic Party. 

The night that the ordinance passed, there was an amazing feeling in the air. Memphis had demonstrated the gumption to stand up and fight for equality, and there was a realization of progress being made.

That same evening, the Shelby County Democratic Party was hosting a presidential-debate watch party where several of the folks who worked to pass the ordinance joined in celebration. The feeling was electric. The SCDP had finally joined with advocates for equality and won.

What a difference a year makes. I was in attendance at the recent roast of former Mayor Willie Herenton, an event hosted by the SCDP. While overall it was a very successful event, toward the end of the evening the emcee, TV’s Judge Joe Brown, went off on a rant that sounded as if he had gotten confused and thought he was addressing a Tea Party rally.

Brown’s homophobic and sexist comments were simply too much to take, and I, along with several others, decided to leave. I was stunned that this person thought it was okay to tell young women to “keep their legs shut” at the knees and for the LGBT community to stay in the closet. He even insulted President Obama, accusing him of not having created a single job.

I did not understand. After all, the money raised that evening went to the Democratic Party, the same organization that had come out in support of marriage equality and hosted several women’s events the previous year. What was going on?!

The SCDP per se did not issue Brown’s comments, and I believe most people who are involved with that organization do want to make Memphis a better place. However, allowing for such vitriol at an event honoring our former mayor and raising funds for the party’s 2014 cycle should be addressed.

There are many people out there looking to get involved, and the progressive organization the SCDP has traditionally been in the past is inclusive. To bring more people into the party, we need to be tearing down the walls of discrimination, not adding cement to the wall of bigotry and hate.

In honor of the one-year anniversary of the passage of the nondiscrimination ordinance, I ask that the SCDP come out and stand up for those who have been discriminated against because of their gender, sexual identity, and orientation.

I say, come out and help fight for true equality and tell our great city that Brown’s remarks do not represent the views of the organization. The Democratic Party is the party of inclusion, and it is time that it stops being just a statement and becomes reality.

Election year 2014 is shaping up to be a difficult cycle in Shelby County for Democrats. It is true that there are more registered voters that identify themselves as Democrats, but the truth is that getting people out to vote on a local level takes a strategic field plan, good fund-raising, and the ability to build a strong organization of volunteers.

Building a coalition of people who are committed to fighting for issues and dedicated to political action is important — and necessary in order to win elections.

Capturing the excitement from winning such an important issue and working together in order to accomplish a victory should have catapulted progressives to feel more welcome in local Democratic politics, but, the truth is, it has not.

If the Shelby County Democratic Party continues to remain silent about the remarks made by a man whose politics are seemingly more aligned with Michele Bachmann than with Michelle Obama, then maybe it is time for progressives to start recruiting their own candidates and saying “good-bye” to the old-school patriarchal system that has left out young people, women, LGBT, and those who support their causes.

Liz Rincon is an activist and consultant, whose agency, Liz Rincon and Associates, focuses on accomplishing progressive goals.

Categories
Politics Politics Beat Blog

Judge Joe Brown, Ousted from his CBS Courtroom, Could Run for the Senate

JudgeJoeBrown.jpg

Remember “Send Brown Downtown?” No, probably not. Most of you weren’t fixated on the lengthy ballot that confronted Shelby Countians in the steamy summer of 1990.

The Brown in question was Joe Brown, candidate for Shelby County Criminal Court and, after he won that race, just plain Judge Joe Brown later on.

In a way he gave up that title, in a way he didn’t. In 1998 he attracted the attention of CBS producers, having won some notoriety as a result of handling an ultimately futile 1997 appeal by James Earl Ray of his 1969 conviction (via guilty plea) for killing Dr. Martin Luther King.

The result was that in 1998 Judge Joe Brown, Shelby County Criminal Court, became Judge Joe Brown of the eponymous TV reality show, Judge Joe Brown, which was paired by CBS Television Distribution with Judge Judy, starring retired Manhattan Family Court Judge Judith Sheindlin, in a national syndication package.

Both shows involved binding-arbitration situations staged as plaintiff-and-defendant courtroom drama with both the competing participants and the TV judge encouraged to ham it up.

For two years, Brown handled both the television show, installments of which were recorded in Los Angeles, and his regular judicial position in Shelby County, to which he had been reelected in 1998, the same year his TV show began.

The wear and tear of so much commuting, along with the far greater financial compensation of the television show, eventually convinced Brown to resign his judicial position in 2000 and focus on his TV career.

Cutting to the chase, last month Brown recorded his final installment of the show, which was canceled by CBS, following the failure of Brown and the network to reach agreement on a financial package. CBS, citing lower ratings, wanted to cut Brown’s compensation, publicized by the network as $20 million annually, although Brown, complaining about “Hollywood trick economics, said he was actually only paid $5 million a year.

In any case, the CBS-syndicated version of Judge Joe Brown is no more (Judge Judy was, incidentally renewed), and Brown is casting about for other syndicators for his courtroom theatrics. He and various partners are also purportedly planning a radio program to be called Real Talks With Judge Joe Brown.

And hark! The Hollywood Reporter maintains in a new article that Brown “also is considering offers to get involved in politics, which could include a run for the U.S. Senate from Tennessee.”

Since Brown has, during the years of his TV judgeship, occasionally returned to Memphis to host fundraisers for various local Democratic candidates, it is to be presumed that his party label as a Senate candidate would also be Democratic. Which means that if he availed himself of his first opportunity at a U.S. Senate seat, challenger Brown could find himself trying to put Republican incumbent Senator Lamar Alexander in the dock of public opinion in 2014.

Alexander should be forewarned: Though journalists who covered Brown as a Criminal Court judge were often impressed with his habit of dramatizing his opinions, they also saw him as being relatively mild-mannered with the contending parties in his courtroom.

But not so the Joe Brown of that Hollywood studio courtroom, who perfected the art of being stern, hard-edged, and sometimes even abusive with those upon whom his adverse judgments fell.

But stay tuned. Maybe there won’t be an Alexander-Brown showdown. Surely it’s as practical to be a faux legislator as a make-believe judge. Is it possible that, sometime down the line, maybe in 2014, we could find ourselves watching a new “reality” show entitled Senator Joe Brown?