Pictured is Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Nancy Fuerst, whom activists want out of office for alleged malfeasance and the harassment of maliciously prosecuted Blacks and activists, the judge doing such things as denying indigent Blacks and community activists representative counsel after arbitrarily removing already appointed counsel of record from their cases, and issuing warrants for missing trials not journalized or docketed as required. Public records also show that the judge is refusing to docket when Black defendants and maliciously prosecuted activists appear for trial and White cops falsely accusing them of crimes do not show for trial when subpoenaed by the prosecution. Moreover, data show that the runaway judge is denying Blacks and activists dismissal of cases after the speedy trial time has passed in cooperation with Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Mike O'Malley and his assistant county prosecutors, and is issuing orders that poor and indigent Blacks and activists who come before her will be jailed if they insult or take up too much time of White attorneys she handpicks and appoints to frivolous criminal cases. And she is allegedly covering up indictment fixing by prosecutors and the clerk's office, according to Chief Cuyahoga County Public Defender Mark Stanton, who has unsuccessfully sought dismissal of cases of Black defendants and activists on the grounds of indictment fixing. Community activists want the judge investigated by authorities for possible public corruption, obstruction of justice and hate crimes against Black people
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, -CLEVELAND, Ohio-Greater Cleveland community activists, Black on Black Crime Inc, Imperial Women Coalition, Fathers Lives Matter, the Carl Stokes Brigade and other Cleveland area activist groups will again picket the embattled Cuyahoga County Jail at the Justice Center in downtown Cleveland on Aug 15, 2019 at 11 am to protest jail conditions, nine inmate deaths in roughly a year, and for Common Pleas Judge Nancy Fuerst to resign for harassing Blacks and activists. CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE FACEBOOK EVENT PAGE FOR THIS PROTEST
Organizers said that issues also include bail reform, malicious prosecutions, grand jury tampering, indictment fixing, and excessive sentences by the 34 largely White general division common pleas judges, including that of Sheila McFarland, who is Black and serving a sentence of life without the possibility of parole after calling Judge Daniel Gaul a racist in open court, McFarland accused of conspiracy to commit murder with no real proof, public records reveal.
Her case is currently before the Ohio Supreme Court with oral argument set for December, and her family members, among others subjected to excessive sentences, will speak at the rally.
The aforementioned activist groups are part of a larger group of more than 17 organizations that have formed a county jail coalition, Black Cleveland activists saying that while they belong to the larger group of mainly suburban activists, they reserve the right to act independently on issues impacting greater Cleveland's Black community.
Cleveland is a largely Black city led by four-term mayor Frank Jackson, the city's third Black mayor, and Cuyahoga County, the second largest of 88 counties statewide, is 29 percent Black, and a Democratic stronghold.
The Black vote is crucial in local, regional, statewide and national elections as Ohio is, no doubt, a pivotal state.
The upcoming protest follows several pickets by community activists over the county jail, the last protest held on May 23, also at the Justice Center, a protest held a week before Sheriff Cliff Pinkney, the county's first Black sheriff, announced he will resign, effective Aug. 2, for "person reasons."
"At the rally we will be calling out judges for excessive sentences and we want Judge Nancy Fuerst removed from the bench, her last venture being her refusal to assign indigent Blacks and activists legal counsel in serious cases where they are falsely accused of crimes against White police officers who have harassed them, and this occurs after this runaway judge removes their appointed attorneys from the cases," said activist Alfred Porter Jr., president of Black on Black Crime Inc.
Also at the rally, activists will take on County Prosecutor Mike O'Malley for overcrowding the jail with some innocent people, prosecuting Blacks and activists beyond the speedy trial time to get erroneous convictions, and a host of other concerns, including his push for excessive sentences by common pleas judges against young Black men and juveniles tried as adults, most of them Black too.
After ousting fellow Democrat Tim McGinty, O'Malley has been county prosecutor since 2017, and absolutely nothing has changed for the betterment of the Black community, in spite of his campaign promises to do right by Black people.
A noted fool who regularly shielded cops who shot and killed innocent Blacks from indictments, McGinty fell into dispute with his own Democratic party after fraternizing with Republicans and snitching to the Ohio Supreme Court on common pleas judges though McGinty, a common pleas judge turned county prosecutor, was just as crooked, data show,
He lost reelection by roughly 10 percentage points to O'Malley, a former Parma safety director and chief deputy under former county prosecutor Bill Mason, now the chief of staff to embattled County Executive Armond Budish.
Activists took on Judge Fuerst, 66, a former presiding and administrative judge of the common pleas general division bench, at the May 23 rally at the Justice Center in Cleveland and urged voters to oust her if and when she runs for reelection in 2020 for another six-year term, the last term of which she is eligible because of age limitations.
Fuerst is under fire by activists and others for allegedly harassing Black activists via racist and malicious prosecutions at the hands of prosecutors and White cops who have allegedly stalked them for standing up.against excessive force by Cleveland police, public corruption and the theft of homes of county residents via illegal foreclosures led by crooked Common Pleas Judge John O'Donnell, the sheriff's office, and big banks and mortgage companies, including JP-Morgan Chase Bank and its foreclosure law firms of Bricker and Eckler, Thompson Hine, and Lerner, Sampson and Rothfuss.
Protesters held protest signs at the May 23 rally calling for Fuerst's ouster, saying she has it in for Black activists who have fought for court-monitored jail reforms and against racism, sexism, police misconduct and excessive force, and county public corruption by her judicial peers, and others.
Activists say Fuerst has refused to dismiss malicious cases involving Black activists falsely accused of assaulting but not touching White KKK-type University Heights cops, even though the speedy trial time has passed, and that she is arbitrarily jailing them for missing trials without formal notice of trial that they know nothing about. And she is refusing to put trial dates in writing by journal entries or record as required by Ohio Supreme Court case law, and then issuing illegal arrest warrants if defendants fail to appear for her secret off-the-record- trials for Black people that are unconstitutional at best.
Her behavior, say activists, and other sources, appears irrational, and borders on violating the Ohio Judicial Code of Conduct and the Ohio Lawyer's Professional Code of Responsibility, and she could care less, sources say.
Public records also reveal that Judge Fuerst will not journalize or docket when some Blacks and activists appear for trial and the White cops maliciously accusing them of crimes against them do not show, and is issuing orders, data show, saying she will jail indigent Black activists in cases before her if they insult or take up too much time of White attorneys she handpicks and appoints to felony cases.
Her reason, says sources, for refusing to journalize or docket trial dates, is so if police fail to respond to subpoenas in malicious prosecution cases involving Black activists she can justify not penalizing them or not holding them in contempt of court. Speedy trial rights, unless waived, are also at issue when cops fail to show for trial as purported witnesses. All of this, say activists, and legal pundits, seems unethical, and commensurate to obstruction of justice, and is enough of an incentive to merit the judge's resignation from the bench.
And the judge's purported malfeasance, backed up by public records, is supported by unethical White criminal defense attorneys she appoints to indigent cases such as Brian McGraw, who, public records show, is misrepresenting his indigent clients for cops and prosecutors and helps Judge Fuerst and prosecutors get erroneous plea deals against them beyond the constitutionally mandated speedy trial time, and in the absence of required preliminary hearings.
McGraw, public records show, is literally helping the judge jail his own clients illegally, mostly Blacks, and is threatening them for Fuerst, prosecutors, cops, and others, often bragging that he is the judge's close friend, sources say.
McGraw was appointed by Fuerst in a high profile case even though he represents the city of the University Heights cops that are accusing his particular indigent Black client of alleged crimes against them, the client saying on condition of anonymity that McGraw has repeatedly said that he, the prosecution and the judge will collude and keep the public corruption surrounding the malicious prosecution of his client out of trial and away from any jury.
This type of case fixing with judicial and prosecutorial assistance is routine in the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas, McGraw allegedly told the client at issue.
Judge Fuerst's alleged malfeasance simply will not stop, and is intrinsic, say activists who want her off the bench and out of office in a legal fashion as soon as possible.
Some activists say Fuerst needs to be either disbarred or indicted for alleged obstruction of justice and hate crimes against Black people before her reelection campaign in 2020, her latest ploy of which is removing indigent counsel like McGraw from felony cases and then refusing to appoint new counsel, and with his support, both state law and the 6th Amendment of the U.S. constitution of which mandate representative counsel to indigent defendants at all stages leading up to trial, and at trial in serious criminal cases.
Sheriff Pinkney's departure follows indictments this year of some five jail guards, one for allegedly contributing to an inmate's death, as well as former jail director Ken Mills and former warden Eric Ivey, who is Black and was demoted to associate warden shortly before he was indicted in April.
Appointed rather than elected due to a voter-adopted change in county governance implemented in 2011 that replaced three county commissioners and the county elected offices, all but the still-elected judges and county prosecutor, with a county executive and 11-member county council, Pinkney, as sheriff, reports to County Executive Budish.
County Council has put a charter amendment on the ballot for next year to give voters the option of giving it more direct authority over the sheriff, council members saying such ballot initiative takes care of too much power under the county executive while at the same time not returning to an elected sheriff who can perpetuate more corruption as was the case under disgraced former sheriff McFaul.
And Budish, who ousted former sheriff Bova but seemed to protect Pinkney, who was also shielded from the scrutiny partly with help from Black leaders, is in hot water too, and after the FBI and other authorities raided his office twice this year, even confiscating his cell phone.
That FBI's raid on the county executive, a Democrat in a county where the Dems are a stronghold, was multi-faceted, sources say, with authorities searching for evidence relative to an ongoing county public corruption probe, and for answers as to why Budish and jail administrators allegedly ignored the inmate deaths until gaining the spotlight, the county jail now in the news as one of the nation's most notorious jail's.
Budish is fighting back as the probe broadens, an extensive probe that has seen two former common pleas judges, former county commissioner Jimmy Dimora , and former county auditor Frank Russo imprisoned, among others, Russo and Dimora among some 65 county affiliates, mainly Democratic businessmen, who have either been convicted, or have pleaded guilty to public corruption related crimes in the last decade. .
The county executive, a former speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives and a trained lawyer, does have friends in high places, and has hired as his attorney to fight the FEDS, Steve Dettelbach, a fellow Democrat and former district attorney for the Northern District of Ohio in Cleveland who lost a close election for Ohio attorney general last year to Dave Yost, a Republican. who succeeds Mike DeWine into office, DeWine Ohio's new GOP governor, and a former U.S. senator.
The Cuyahoga County Jail is the state's second most populated jail behind Franklin County, which includes Columbus and is the largest of Ohio's 88 counties.
A damning report released last November by U.S. Marshals on county jail conditions generated local and national news, a dreadful look at how inmates are mistreated such as withholding food for punishment, jailing juveniles with adults, rat and roach infested jail facilities, and a paramilitary jail corrections officers unit dubbed "The Men in Black" that intimidates and harasses inmates.
The FBI and other authorities have been swarming the jail since last year after inmates began popping up dead.
The Cleveland jail merged with the county in 2017 and the jail, now one jail run solely by the county, is overcrowded with inmates stacked on top of each other, an ongoing investigation by Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com reveals.
Cleveland community activists picketed in front of the Cuyahoga County Justice Center last summer over judicial and prosecutorial malfeasance, police misconduct, and the overcrowding of the county jail.
Activists have been picketing regularly over jail conditions at the Justice Center, in front of Budish' gated home in affluent Beachwood, where they called for his resignation, and at county administrative headquarters in downtown Cleveland before county council meetings.
Inhumane and unconstitutional jail conditions are at the heart of the investigation by federal officials, prompting an impending lawsuit seeking a court injunction and a federal takeover of the jail.
Pregnant women are jailed on the floor, and health care is inadequate, investigators found.
This is coupled with malicious prosecutions, excessive bonds and heightened criminal sentences that disproportionately target the Black community, Black men in particular, the ongoing investigation by .Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com found.
Indictment fixing by prosecutors, judges and the office of the county clerk of courts is routine, public records reveal, and in the absence of a county grand jury. And this indictment fixing, usually against Blacks falsely accused of assaulting White cops where the counts of criminal charges by a county grand jury are arbitrarily doubled, has been covered up by some common pleas judges, including Judge Fuerst, and the four judges Russo, namely Judges Joe, Michael, Nancy Margaret, and John Russo, the administrative and presiding judge.
Chief Cuyahoga County Public Defender Mark Stanton has moved to dismiss cases on behalf of his Black clients for indictment fixing by prosecutors and the clerk's office in the last four years, but the judges, including Nancy Margret Russo, and Judge Fuerst, have ignored him to cover the impropriety, Fuerst saying on record that indictment fixing is an issue only for trial, which is an outright lie, several cases in Ohio dismissed prior to trial when indictments have been illegally manipulated in violation of applicable rules of the Ohio Rules of Criminal Procedure and the Ohio Constitution, which only allows a county grand jury to indict in Ohio.
Simply put, prosecutors, with the aid of the clerk's office, would simply add new charges to an indictment in the absence of a county grand jury, and some common pleas judges would help them cover up this malfeasance. .
Chief Judge John Russo also perpetuates removing indigent counsel from cases illegally and says that if the attorneys seek indigent fees and he grants payment as the administrative judge such fee payment serves to leave poor and indigent people without counsel until who knows when.
Though no local or other rule, or other authority supports this seemingly unconstitutional practice, he says he supports such measure, an indication that the problems in the county jail are widespread and across the spectrum, from the courts, to judges, attorneys, prosecutors, and even corrupt officials of mortgage companies and banks involved in foreclosure fraud who use their powers to get county residents who complain of the theft of their homes maliciously prosecuted.
Fuerst and her 33 judicial colleagues on the common pleas bench, most of them Democrats like she is, follow his lead, often leaving indigent defendants without counsel when their attorneys of record seek and are granted indigent legal fees by the chief judge, the constitutional and statutory right to indigent counsel in serious cases be damned.
A pending warrant, legal or not, denies indigent defendants counsel if their indigent attorneys, who often work harder for the prosecution than their own client's, go beg Chief Judge Russo to grant them indigent fees, he and his fellow judge's say, and only because the judges themselves are collectively racist and corrupt, their critics say.
A hungry indigent lawyer is a dangerous lawyer if the public buys their self-serving analysis of the problem with finding indigent attorneys for cases, a problem that has obviously caused the chief judge and the 33 other common pleas judges to deny poor people indigent counsel, greed and arrogance aside.
Data further show that Blacks in particular, and others, are often jailed illegally, sometimes to appease the prosecution, other times for political favors, and generally to perpetrate a money enterprise that centers around resources the county gets for jailing people.
Those fiscal jail resources, which further greed and public corruption, investigators have said, include a per diem rate to the county for each inmate, a jail shopping store that delivers food and other goods weekly to inmates, and expensive phone calls simply for inmates to talk locally to family members, and sometimes even to their own lawyers
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog with some 5 million views on Google Plus alone.Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, and who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.
