CLEVELAND, Ohio-Subodh Chandra (www.chandraforprosecutor.com ), a candidate for next year's Democratic Primary for Cuyahoga County Prosecutor, yesterday got the unanimous endorsement of the Imperial Women, the Women's Federation, the Greater Cleveland Immigrant Support Network, the People's Forum, People for the Imperial Act, the Joaquin Hicks Real People's Movement, top affiliates in their individual capacity that are members of groups such as Occupy Cleveland, the Committee for a Renewed African-American Museum of Cleveland, the Carl Stokes Brigade, Black on Black Crime Inc., and the Cleveland Chapter of the New Black Panther Party, and a host of other grassroots participants.
"I am especially honored to receive the endorsement and support of these change agent organizations and individuals," said Chandra of the endorsement. "I am running to change our criminal justice system to one that is fairer and safer, while still respecting our Civil Rights. These organizations and individuals understand how important those changes are if the community is going to be a place in which our children want to live."
The former Cleveland law director, former state attorney general candidate, devoted husband, and father of 6-year-old triplets, said that he would bring "dedication, commitment and representation to the prosecutor's office."
A Cleveland area attorney and first Indian-American candidate for Cuyahoga County prosecutor, Chandra, 44, got his undergraduate degree in political science and sociology from Standford University and law degree form Yale University, where he was executive editor of the Yale Law and Policy Review. He is a former federal prosecutor in the U.S. District Attorney's Office in Cleveland who also served as law director under former Cleveland Mayor Jane Campbell from 2002 to 2005. There he led an 82-lawyer department in both the criminal and civil divisions. He lost a bid for Ohio Attorney General in 2006.
Community activists and grassroots leaders that voted unanimously to endorse Chandra include Imperial Women Leader Kathy Wray Coleman, Imperial Women Member and Carl Stokes Brigade Member Ada Averyhardt, Imperial Women Member and Greater Cleveland Immigrant Support Network and People's Forum Leader Don Bryant, Imperial Women Members Valerie and Stewart Robinson, Imperial Women Member and Occupy Cleveland Co-Leader Leatrice Tolls, Imperial Women Members, Carl Stokes Brigade Members and People for the Imperial Act Leaders Marva and David Patterson, the Joaquin Hicks Real People's Movement Leader, Imperial Women Member and Cleveland Chapter of the New Black Panther Party Member Denise Taylor, Carl Stokes Brigade Member and Imperial Women Member Amy Hurd , Bronaugh Sisters Advocate and Imperial Women Members Tina Bronaugh, Destini Bronaugh, DeAsia Bronaugh and Almisha Ward, Imperial Women Member and Women's Federation Leader Betty Mahone, Imperial Women Members Willie Stokes, Frances Caldwell, Jeane Whitte, Angelique Cunningham, Lakeisha Cunningham, Reketa Barringer and Cheryl Wilson (Editors Note: Don Bryant, Valerie and Stewart Robinson, Denise Taylor and Jean Whitte are also members of Black on Black Crime, a non-profit organization prohibited from endorsing political candidates. They voted on the endorsement solely as members of the Imperial Women).
"He'll [Sobodh Chandra] be a good prosecutor and fair to all people," said Ada Averyhart, an Imperial Woman who said that the Carl Stokes Brigade is screening candidates and will also make an endorsement for county prosecutor.
Other grassroots affiliates said that Chandra is the best choice and are urging the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party to endorse him at its endorsement meeting for county prosecutor next month. Since the county is overwhelmingly Democratic the primary winner wins all in a general election against the Republican challenger, absent a miracle.
"He has my vote," said Leatrice Tolls, an Imperial Woman and outspoken member of Occupy Cleveland before she boarded a plane to New York city to visit her 22-year-old son who was sprayed with tear gas and arrested last week at an Occupy Wall Street protest. Tolls is among the 11 protesters arrested last month during a peaceful protest against corporate greed and malfeasance on Public Square in Cleveland.
Per state law, the county prosecutor acts on behalf of the state in criminal proceedings and as Cuyahoga County's legal counsel.
The deadline for filing petitions for the seat is Dec 7.
Other Democrats that have either filed or announced their candidacy are Cleveland Ward 13 Councilman Kevin J. Kelley, Attorney James J. McDonnell, a former North Royalton city prosecutor and brother of Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Nancy McDonnell, and former Cuyahoga County Judge Tim McGinty, who resigned his judgeship last month to seek the prosecutor's seat.
The groups ruled out Triozzi saying that in his prior role as Jackson's law director he was incompetent, maliciously prosecuted Blacks and women, had conflict with labor unions, and failed to recommend the prosecution of since convicted serial killer Anthony Sowell, who was released from police custody in 2008 in spite of a rape complaint where six of the 11 Black murdered women of Imperial Ave. were murdered thereafter.
Few of the activists knew Kelley and those that did said he lacks the legal experience to be prosecutor, and McDonnell was seen by group members as a conflict as the brother of Judge Nancy McDonnell, a former administrative and presiding judge of the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas. They said that if James McDonnell were to win Blacks and others would be prosecuted by a county prosecutor, and judges too.
McGinty, a former assistant Cuyahoga County prosecutor before becoming judge, received the most criticism as too temperamental and hypocritical, and a former judge that many were glad to see leave the bench. Some criminal defense attorneys say that they resent him as an insensitive bully with a destructive judicial record who is accused of maliciously and illegally targeting Blacks, women, children, and community activists. Several of his rulings and orders have been overturned by the Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals for an abuse of discretion and complete disregard for the law and the constitutional and statutory rights of people that came before him.
"McGinty's record of injustice while in the prosecutor's office was frightening and as a common pleas judge he did not protect defenseless children but instead protected their abusers," said Nancy Rolfe, an Imperial Woman and leader of Govabuse.org, a national organization that challenges the mistreatment of innocent children by the courts and the abuse of them and their families by juvenile and other common pleas court judges and other governmental officials.
Community Activist Marva Patterson described Chandra as "an ethical, fair and by the book kind of guy."
Frances Caldwell said that as a community servant, Chandra has a broader understanding of the minority community and issues impacting Black people, a disproportionate number of whom are prosecuted and sentenced unlike their non-minority counterparts, research tabulated by the Cleveland NAACP shows.
"In talking with me Attorney Chandra spoke of necessary programs such as mediation prior to over zealous prosecutions and more counseling-in-lieu-of-prison for defendants facing jail time for non-violent drug abuse crimes," said Caldwell. "We need a county prosecutor that will prosecute people fairly, that understands the minority community, and one that will not target innocent people for prosecutions anxiously and just to get votes as being hard or crime."
Chandra and his wife Meena, a Civil Rights lawyer for the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights in Cleveland, live in the Abler Hts neighborhood on the border of Cleveland and Cleveland Hts.
To read more about Chandra's candidacy for county prosecutor go towww.chandraforprosecutor.com .
