Posted by Ed Nar

Pictured are Cleveland Mayoral Candidate Ken Lanci (in tie) and Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, who will square off for the November mayoral election due to no others in the race for a non-partisan September primary, which will also be held for 17 Cleveland City Council seats. Both Jackson and Lanci are Democrats. Jackson is a two-term mayor and Lanci is a millionaire businessman who grew up in a housing project on the city's majority Black east side).

CLEVELAND, Ohio-Ohio Communities United and the Greater Cleveland African American Chamber of Commerce are announcing the first mayoral debate for Cleveland Mayor. The debate will be at the Cleveland City Club on Monday, August 19 and is scheduled to begin at 11 am. The moderator will be Ronnie Duncan, a former Cleveland sportscaster.  Democratic Candidate for Cleveland Mayor, Ken Lanci has accepted the invitation and looks forward to attending, organizers said.Tickets for this City Club event are $20 and can be reserved by calling the City Club at 216.621.0082.

From the Metro Desk of Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com, Ohio's No 1 and No 2 online Black newspapers (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com) and (www.clevelandurbannews.com). Reach us by phone at 216-659-0473 and by email at editor@clevelandurbannews.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio- The Imperial Women, the Carl Stokes Brigade, Black on Black Crime Vice President Al Porter, the Greater Cleveland Immigrant Support Network, Stop Targeting Ohio's Poor, other activists groups and family members of Blacks murdered and raped will  hold  a press conference and public meeting on Thursday, August 22, 2013 at 4:45 pm at the Chateau Mansion, 13124 Euclid Avenue, to legally deal with Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty, inequities against the Black community on violence against women, and whether Black elected officials and other leaders have done all they can to help. For more information contact Imperial Women at 216-659-0473. Speakers include community activists, Black elected officials, clergy, and rape and murder victims families.

The groups will also deal with why the Rape Crisis and Domestic Violence Centers of the majority Black city of Cleveland are run by White women who rarely come into the ghettos of Cleveland and East Cleveland at all. And activists will assess whether Cleveland Ward 9 Councilman Kevin Conwell should be removed as chair of city council's safety committee for protecting negligent cops that ignore missing persons reports as well as his shielding of the 13 White police officers that gunned down unarmed Blacks Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell late last year with 137 bullets.

Additionally at the meeting, activists will address actions by Federal District Court Judge Donald Nugent in dismissing the lawsuit claims filed by the families of some of the 11 women murdered on Imperial Avenue by serial killer Anthony Sowell and his branding the suits frivolous as a means to prejudice an appeal to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, a venue that has overturned lawsuit dismissals by Nugent that he has deemed frivolous. And activists will address Republican Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O' Connor as to her handpicking visiting out-of-Cuyahoga County judges to come into Cleveland in violation of state law to target Blacks like Cleveland Councilman Zack Reed, whose DUI case is underway where Cleveland Municipal Court judges arbitrarily refused to hear the case. This, say some community activists, was to help O' Connor do her handpicking of a retired, out-of-town judge to hand down the sentence she wants for her political friends if Reed is convicted. (Note: The Councilman Zack Reed DUI case is a traffic case that Cleveland Municipal Court judges routinely hear, even involving city employees. If Black judges like Cleveland Municipal Judge Pinkey Carr will not stay on cases to do the right thing, rather than to withdraw to permit a handpicked out-of-the county retired White judge to come in to Cleveland to sentence Blacks in a prejudicial manner for political and other reasons when they get convicted, then why elect judges. In other situations like in Berea, Ohio these visiting retired judges are fixing cases, data show, and with protection by the Old Black Political Guard of Cleveland, Ohio and the prior leadership team of the Cleveland NAACP).

Community activists urge the state legislature to pass House Bill 216, which was pushed by Imperial Women and is sponsored by state Rep. Bill Patmon (D-10). If passed into law, HB216 requires that Ohio trial court judges in multi-judge courts are assigned and reassigned to civil and criminal cases at random.

By Kathy Wray Coleman, Editor, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com, Ohio's No 1 and No 2 online Black newspapers (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com) and (www.clevelandurbannews.com). Reach us by phone at 216-659-0473 and by email at editor@clevelandurbannews.com

WASHINGTON, D.C.-Former U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL) (pictured) and his wife Sandra, a former Chicago City councilwoman, were sentenced  on Wednesday to 30 months and a year in federal prison respectively after Jackson, a son of former presidential candidate and Civil Rights icon the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr, pleaded guilty earlier this year to misuse of $750,000 in campaign funds and his wife to filing false tax returns.

The couple, who arrived in court yesterday morning arm and arm, has two children. He resigned his congressional seat last year, and she, her seat on city council.

Jesse Jackson Jr,. 48,  spent the money on a high priced lifestyle,  fancy clothes, lavish vacations and a $43,000 Rolex watch, court documents reveal. He will serve his sentence first, and was remorseful at sentencing.

"Today I manned up and tried to accept responsibility for the errors of my ways and I still believe in resurrection " said Jackson , the son of a Baptist preacher.

Jackson Jr. pleaded with federal district court Judge Amy Berman to let him serve his wife's sentence in addition to his own, an emotional courtroom scene before his father and others,  but to no avail.

The judge did not take into account his claim of bi-polar disease as a reason for his behavior, though the former lawmaker, who wept noticeably before the judge, spent four months in the hospital for it, his lawyers said.

President Barack Obama, a former U.S. senator from Illinois and friend to Jesse Jackson Jr., who was his 2008 presidential campaign national co-chairperson, did not immediately release a statement.

The fall from grace of  a son of one of the nation's most prominent Civil Rights activist next to the Rev. Al Sharpton has stunned America's Black community.

Rev. Jackson did not release a statement after sentencing  or even speak  but so much to reporters after watching his son get sentenced to prison but did say to reporters that it was an "extraordinarily difficult time."

The elder Jackson said last year when Jesse Jackson Jr. entered the hospital for bi-polar disorder that his family stands by him.

"We are with him and we hope that he'll be fully restored to his health," Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. told NBC Chicago’s Stefan Holt. "Right now he is going through a tremendous challenge."

From the Metro Desk of Cleveland Urban News.Com

CLEVELAND, Ohio- The DUI trial of Democratic Cleveland Ward 2 Councilman Zack Reed (pictured) began today in Cleveland Municipal Court before retired visiting Willoughby, Oh. Judge Larry Allen and Reed, 51, will take the stand in his own defense Friday morning, his lawyer Kevin Spellacy told the judge at the onset of the jury trial.

Spellacy argued at trial today that city lawmaker was set up by Cleveland police, who allegedly waited for him in downtown Cleveland hours after a Monday evening city council meeting  just to hope to pull his Black BMW over.

Reed, debonair,  Black, and single, would, the day of the incident earlier this year, and at other times, frequent downtown nightclubs. If convicted a third time of DUI, he faces up to six months in jail, a $350 fine, and a licence suspension. He was ticketed, say police, for running a red light and making an improper turn, citations in addition to the DUI that he also pleaded not guilty too.

Prosecutors paraded police witnesses before the judge at trial today and said that Reed failed a sobriety test, though Spellacy argues that the police stop and all that happened afterwards will prove that his client must be cleared.

Willoughby Judge Larry Allen was handpicked to sit in Cleveland to hear the current case by Republican Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor, something community activists say potentially deters from a necessary due process, random draw procedure and that opens the door to potential judicial case fixing and unfair case outcomes.

"This out-of-the area retired visiting  judge, who could, with all due respect,  have age- related case assessment problems, was handpicked out of  Lake County and not Cuyahoga County for a reason and it could very well be to make sure that this Black male Cleveland city lawmaker is railroaded into prison for political reasons, and as community activists we are tired of the impropriety that plagues Ohio's legal system to the detriment of women, poor people and the Black community" said Community Activist Kathy Wray Coleman, who leads the grassroots group Imperial Women. "We again call on Ohio state legislators, Black leaders, and the Cleveland NAACP to join us in supporting House Bill 216 and urging the Ohio General Assembly in adopting it into state law."

A bill sponsored by state Rep. Bill Patmon (D-10), HB 216, still in committee though introduced over two years ago, would require that all Ohio trial court judges in multi-judge courts are at all times assigned and reassigned to both civil and criminal cases at random.

Community activists say that a random draw judicial case assignment bill would serve to minimize public corruption in the judicial arena by judges in Ohio trial courts.

How HB 216, which Patmon drafted at the request of Imperial Women and some other community activists groups, would stop chief judges of municipal courts like Judge Ron Adrine in Cleveland, and of common pleas courts, like Chief Judge Nancy Russo of the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas, from handpicking judges.  Ordinarily the judge is assigned initially by random draw computer but when the judge withdraws or is disqualified from hearing  a civil or criminal case Adrine and Fuerst would often  handpick a replacement at will, data show.

At other times the Ohio Supreme Court chief justice, now O' Connor, will do the handpicking reassignment technique. While the Ohio Constitution gives authority to the chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court to reassign judges to cases, and to initially assign them too, the former usually occurs when the initial judge is disqualified or voluntarily withdraws from hearing the matter.

The Ohio Constitution does not explicitly say one way or another that  the judicial replacement assignment can be by personal choice of the chief justice, and O'Connor is enjoying picking and choosing retired judges up a storm, some of whom are selected all the time by favoritism, an investigation reveals. And they can make $500 or more daily to sit in on a case, a hefty sum to supplement a  decent public pension.

Why Chief Justice O'Connor did not assign Reed a sitting judge from a suburban municipal court of greater Cleveland such as in Shaker Hts or Lyndhurst also lends credence to the suggestion by community activists that the fix might be in against the Black brother.

Sometimes O' Connor handpicks sitting judges to replace judges disqualified from hearing cases, rather than assigning a retired insisting judge like she usually does, a process used interchangeably,  also potentially for political reasons, data will show.

In addition to HB 216 that,  if it becomes state law, would mandate that chief municipal and common pleas trial judges assign and reassign all judges at random Imperial Women and some other community activist groups such as Black on Black Crime and Stop Targeting Ohio's Poor want a constitutional amendment too that mandates random draw assignments and reassignments to cases when the chief justice assigns them, or reassigns them. This, say activists, would serve to help put an end to the handpicking  process by O' Connor and her successor chief justices, though regardless, state law does require that retired visiting judges assigned by O' Connor or anyone else come from the territory of the court.

Willoughby, Ohio is a Lake County municipality unlike Cleveland, a city of Cuyahoga County, and it is not within the territory  defined by statute or state law . Hence,  Judge Allen by the chief justice violates state law, some might argue.

"We would urge Reed's attorney to demand a judge assigned at random that is within the territory of the court as state law demands, unless he has waived that challenge for one reason or another by failing to do so for his client Councilman Reed prior to trial" said Coleman, who is also a longtime investigative journalist who publishes Cleveland Urban News/Com, Ohio's most read online Black newspaper.

The original judge in the current DUI case, Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Pinkey Carr, withdrew saying Reed had contributed money to her campaign for judge, and the 11 other regular judges of that court, led by Chief Judge Adrine, refused to hear the case too, all of them saying, through Adrine, that because city council approves the municipal court budget that that it is a conflict.

But data suggest that that move to keep from hearing the controversial DUI case, aside from Carr who may have sought to deter critics since she won her seat by unseating former Cleveland Municipal Court Judge  Lynn McLaughlin Murray, may have been premature, if not unconstitutional.

Had Reed sought their recusal or withdrawal by filing an affidavit of prejudice under state law (Ohio Revised Code 2701.031) with Chief Cuyahoga County Judge Nancy Russo, she would have likely denied it, research suggest.  Moreover, case law rulings by the Ohio Supreme Court on affidavits of prejudice filed to remove judges gives them a presumption of fairness to impartially preside over cases absent a legitimate conflict.

While affidavits of prejudice filed under state law to seek disqualification of Ohio municipal court judges are heard by the chief or presiding judges of common pleas courts, which in Cuyahoga County is Judge Fuerst, the affidavits filed with respect to seeking the disqualification of common pleas judges that hear felony and other matters rest with the chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, also under state law (Ohio Revised Code 2701.03).

Coleman says that data show that the retired visiting judges often do try to fix cases and are sent throughout the state to various courts such as Berea Municipal Court to help Berea Judge Mark Comstock harass Blacks, outspoken community activists and others that some politicians or dishonest judges may not like.

Reed is facing his third DUI case. The first case, under then Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Joan Synenburg, now a common pleas judge, did not get him jail time but the second case did. His attorney the second time around, well  known Black Cleveland lawyer George Forbes, did not object to prosecutors charging Reed with DUI when he was not driving his car, nor did police witness him driving, court documents denote.  That guilty plea got Reed 10 days in jail by  retired visiting judge Mary Trimboli, who was sent in by the Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Eric Brown, who lost the seat to O' Connor, a former Ohio Lt. governor.

And Triboli is not even a retired judge as dictated by the Ohio Constitution because she was too young at then 51 to not seek reelection to the Toledo Municipal Court bench. Data show also that she is an alleged henchman assigned to municipal courts throughout Ohio, sometimes to manipulate case outcomes and to harass defendants in some maliciously prosecuted over free speech issues.

One of nine Black councilman on the 19-member Cleveland City Council, absent the recent retirement of Councilman Jay Westbook, Reed represents the impoverished predominantly Black Mount Pleasant and Kinsman neighborhoods on Cleveland's largely Black east side. He is seeking reelection this year.

Reed fired his previous lawyer in his latest DUI case, Cleveland Attorney Anthony Jordan , a former Chief  City Prosecutor who supervised the current one, Victor Perez.

Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, up for reelection this year too, has no appointed Blacks as law director, safety director, chief of police, chief city prosecutor or EMS Commissioner in the major American city where Blacks, Black men in particular,  are disproportionately prosecuted and sentenced.

How the lack of diversity of the Black mayor's law enforcement leadership team impacts plea deals involving Blacks and other people of color has not been publicized.