By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief

Kathy Wray Coleman is  a community activist and 20 year investigative journalist who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)

CLEVELAND, Ohio- Retired Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Ronald Suster has been assigned by the court's chief judge, John Russo, to handle the civil and criminal cases of Judge Lance Mason, his former colleague accused of beating his wife last weekend.

One of only three Black judges on the 34-member Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas General Division bench, Mason, 46, was charged last week by the city of Shaker Heights with second degree felonious assault after a violent altercation with his wife Aisha Mason that began in their car and ended when the judge allegedly dragged her out of it at the intersection of Ashbury Road and Van Aken Boulevard in Shaker Heights. The felony charge will only stick if a county grand jury indicts Mason, state law says.

Suster, who served with Mason on the county bench,  lost a Democratic primary in 2010 against then Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Ann Keough for a seat on the Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals.

Keough is now a state appellate judge, a seat she gained allegedly through favors, including allegedly fixing cases in Cleveland Municipal Court against the enemies of some of her fellow Democrats in exchange for endorsements.

But more importantly, data show that Suster is a $500-a-day rent-a-judge that Republican Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor handpicked and sends around the state as a visiting retired judge, often to allegedly do her bidding and harass her enemies, some Black, some women, and some Democrats.

Ohio State Representative Bill Patmon (D-10)

Cleveland area community activists want the state legislature to pass House Bill 216, proposed legislation sponsored by state Rep. Bill Patmon (D-10), a Cleveland Democrat, that would require that Ohio trial court judges in multi-judge courts are assigned and reassigned to cases by random draw at all times. The Imperial Women Coalition , a greater Cleveland grassroots organization, lobbied for the bill and say that the state law is sorely needed to seek to rid trial courts of judge shopping and case fixing by judges themselves.

Typically trial court judges are assigned by computer generated random draw. But when initially assigned judges cannot preside over a particular case or cases because of prejudice, conflict or outright corrupt maneuvers, their replacement judges, some retired, are often handpicked by Justice O'Connor at the Ohio Supreme Court level and others in authority, including by chief judge Russo in the Cuyahoga County common pleas court, and by Democratic Chief Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Ronald Adrine.

A Cleveland Urban News.Com investigation further reveals that Suster is also denying indigent Blacks counsel, such as in Bedford Municipal Court where pimp former Bedford court judge Harry Jacob allegedly ran a prostitution ring, among other alleged illegalities. Both the majority White cities of Bedford and Shaker Heights are suburbs of Cleveland, a largely Black major American city.

Now a suspended judge, Jacob, one of a few Republican judges in municipal courts of Cuyahoga County, a Democratic stronghold, is currently on trial in the county court for alleged bribery, theft, and solicitation, among a host of other felonies and misdemeanors.

Suster, data show, picked up where Jacob left off in Bedford court as to harassing Blacks and women, and with support from O'Connor and Russo, a Democrat who is both the administrative and presiding judge of the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas where Blacks are unfairly sentenced, a Cleveland NAACP commissioned study has found. That study is gaining dust with Cleveland NAACP officials allegedly on the take, the investigation also reveals, and in fear of speaking out.

The county court, a Cleveland Urban News.Com investigation reveals, is in complete disarray and rampant with public corruption and undemocratic processes that disproportionately impact the Black community.  The improprieties, research shows, include illegal foreclosures, case fixing, grand jury tampering by the judges, and case docket manipulation of public records by county clerk of courts Andrea Rocco, and others.

A special prosecutor could be assigned if Mason's case is heard before a county grand jury, since Mason and Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty, also a Democrat kike Mason, were on the bench together, Mason since 2008, and McGinty, 19 years before he retired in 2011 to run for county prosecutor.

(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)