Pictured are Cleveland Municipal Court Presiding and Administrative Judge Ron Adrine and Cleveland police fatal shooting victim Tamir Rice
By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Cleveland Urban News.Com Blog, Ohio's Most Read Online Black Newspaper and Newspaper Blog. Tel: 216-659-0473.
(Kathy Wray Coleman is a 22-year investigative and political journalist and legal reporter who trained for 17 years under five different editors at the Call and Post Newspaper, Ohio's most prominent Black press)
(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)
CLEVELAND, Ohio- Following the filing of an affidavit earlier this month under Ohio state law by a group of greater Cleveland community activists and Black clergy, Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Ron Adrine yesterday recommended that either the prosecutor for the city of Cleveland, via the filing of a complaint, or Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty , via directly to a county grand jury, seek possible criminal charges in the police shooting death last year of 12-year-old Tamir Rice. (Editor's note: The state law allows citizens to file affidavits in municipal courts to initiate the process for a potential criminal complaint and possible subsequent criminal charges, though citizens themselves cannot file criminal complaints).
The chief administrative and presiding judge of the 13-member largely Black Cleveland Municipal Court, Adrine recommended that rookie officer Tim Loehmann, who gunned the Black boy down at a public park on the city's west side for sporting a toy gun, be charged with murder, involuntary manslaughter, reckless homicide and dereliction of duty, and that Loehmann's partner, officer Frank Garmback, face charges of reckless homicide and dereliction of duty.
Adrine ruled that there is enough evidence for criminal charges against the police officers, and forwarded a copy of his ruling to both the city and county prosecutor.
Attorney Walter Madison, who represents the Rice family in a pending wrongful death lawsuit, along with Florida attorney Benjamin Crump, told Cleveland Urban News.Com last week that the officers should be charged and that coverage by the mainstream media that Rice allegedly grabbed for his toy gun when police zoomed in on him in seconds and shot and killed him, is erroneous and untrue, and not shown in the video of the unprecedented shooting.
"No, he did not grab for it and they do not have any evidence that he did," said Madison.
Both Loehman and Garback are White, and neither of them was arrested, and no warrant was issued by Adrine, essentially meaning that it is back to square one on whether the city or McGinty will seek charges.
Distrustful of McGinty, who is White and a former common pleas judge, and whom local and state police unions have endorsed for office, the citizen affidavit was filed by eight people, including the Rev Drs. Jawanza Colvin and R.A. Vernon , Dr. Rhonda Williams, a professor at Case Western University, and community activist Rachael Smith Erste.
City prosecutors have the authority on behalf of the city to file complaints of misdemeanor criminal charges for a possible probable cause finding by a judge, clerk or magistrate. If a felony is included and a judge finds probable cause, sometimes after a preliminary hearing, the case is bound over for review for possible charges by a grand jury under the jurisdiction of the court of common pleas. And in some instances the felony case is dismissed outright by a municipal judge, and before it is bound over.
Cases with only misdemeanor charges cannot be heard in courts of common pleas in Ohio, and are heard in municipal courts that also have jurisdiction over traffic cases and civil lawsuits with damages sought at or below $15,000. And sometimes mayor's courts have limited jurisdiction over traffic and misdemeanor cases.
If the felony case, which may or may not include an attached misdemeanor, is bound over, the county prosecutor presents it to the grand jury on behalf of the state. The other method is for the county prosecutor to present the case directly to the grand jury, independent of the municipal court.
But in the end only a county grand jury through an indictment, and in conjunction with the state of Ohio, can bring felony charges.
In Ohio grand jury indictments are required for felonies but not for misdemeanors.
The mainstream media in Ohio, however, and often in malicious prosecutions cases against Blacks, often confuse preliminary felony charges brought in municipal courts that may or may not be bound over by the judge for review of the grand jury and that may or may not result in official criminal charges, with the municipal level charges themselves. In turn, people are often defamed without subsequently being officially charged by a county grand jury with a felony. (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)
