Acting Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Pfeifer Assigns Retired Visiting Judge To Hear Judge Saffold's Lawsuit Againt The Plain Dealer
Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Shirley Strickland Saffold
By Kathy Wray Coleman, Editor of the DeterminerWeekly.Com and
the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog and Media Network
Outgoing Acting Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Pfeifer, on April 21, assigned retired Hardin County Common Pleas Judge David Faulkner to hear the lawsuit filed in the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas by Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Shirley Strickland Saffold and her daughter Sydney Saffold against the Cleveland Plain Dealer Newspaper, its editor Susan Goldberg, and a host of other defendants. Though state law permits a retired judge to replace an Ohio Common Pleas judge in a case of conflict or bias lawyers have said the process violates the Ohio Constitution, which mandates retirement of Ohio judges at either age 70 or upon completion of a term if 70 or older.
Former Ohio Supreme Court Republican Chief Justice Thomas Moyer, who died early last month, routinely assigned retired judges throughout the state in place of regular judges in cases of conflict or bias even in municipal court cases where it is illegal under state law whereby a sitting judge in the affiliated county must be assigned. And the judges assigned by Moyer, some with stipends that would cost taxpayers up to $500 a day, inclusive of travel expenses, have sometimes been accused of harassing targeted Democrats and outspoken lawyers with illegal rulings in both civil and criminal cases and then running back to their home towns without repercussions. Whether Strickland Saffold and her daughter Sydney, both of whom are Black, will be treated in a prejudicial fashion by the retired Faulkner because of influence by the Plain Dealer, Ohio's largest newspaper, remains to be seen.
Saffold and her daughter Sydney, 23, brought the suit, which seeks $50 million in damages and alleges web site privacy violations, after Plain Dealer officials snooped into the judge's personal email account to determine where comments written on the Plain Dealer's online news venue blogs that criticized an attorney for suspected serial killer Anthony Sowell and discussed the case came from. And last month Pfeifer removed Strickland Saffold from the case after Sowell attorney, Rufus Sims, following heated televised exchanges with Strickland Saffold, filed an affidavit of prejudice against her. The younger Saffold has said that it was she, and not her mother, who posted the blog comments.
Though saying in his order that no bias was shown, and removal required either a finding of a conflict or bias, Pfeifer removed Strickland Saffold from the case anyway and she was replaced with Republican Cuyahoga Judge Dick Ambrose. And because that removal followed editorials from the Plain Dealer that demanded it while other judges accused of impropriety who are White like Cuyahoga Judge Timothy McGinty and Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Ann Keough are shielded from harsh scrutiny by the Plain Dealer, some members of Cleveland's Black community say the judge was removed due to racism and undue influence at Ohio's high court level by Plain Dealer big wigs.
On Monday Franklin County Probate Judge Eric Brown took the realm of Chief Justice pursuant to an appointment last month by Ohio Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland, who by law had authority to appoint a replacement to finish out Moyer's unexpired term. Brown will compete against Republican Ohio Supreme Court Justice Maureen O'Connor in the November election for the full commencing in 2011 where Moyer, 70, could not seek another term because of the mandatory retirement age of 70.
In an article published today the Plain Dealer is accused of misleading the community into believing that the entire Ohio Supreme Court chooses whether to remove an Ohio Court of Common Pleas Court judge as to a conflict or bias when, pursuant to state law, that decision is left up to the Chief Justice. And in not clarifying that it was Pfeifer who assigned the retired judge to hear Strickland Saffold's lawsuit, and not Brown, who is now the only Democrat on the seven-member Ohio Supreme Court, some say the newspaper, in a disingenuous fashion, seeks to suggest that the Democrat Brown is carrying on the tradition of Moyer. That controversial tradition is the art of assigning retired judges with no accountability to voters and nothing to lose in doing in Black defendants and others in bogus criminal cases and disenfranchising plaintiffs like Strickland Saffold and her daughter that take on rich and powerful entities like the Plain Dealer.
Community Activist Ada Averyhart, who said last month that Strickland Saffold has been targeted by the Plain Dealer because she is Black and that newspaper officials were wrong for seemingly violating only her privacy rights and publishing the data, lost a race for precinct committeewoman in Cleveland's Ward 6 as to Tuesday's Democratic primary . This happened, says Averyhart, after Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, allegedly a source and friend to Plain Dealer affiliates, allegedly targeted her in that race.
Pfeifer returned to his regular post as Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court after Brown took over as Chief Justice.
By Kathy Wray Coleman, Editor of the DeterminerWeekly.Com and
the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog and Media Network
Outgoing Acting Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Pfeifer, on April 21, assigned retired Hardin County Common Pleas Judge David Faulkner to hear the lawsuit filed in the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas by Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Shirley Strickland Saffold and her daughter Sydney Saffold against the Cleveland Plain Dealer Newspaper, its editor Susan Goldberg, and a host of other defendants. Though state law permits a retired judge to replace an Ohio Common Pleas judge in a case of conflict or bias lawyers have said the process violates the Ohio Constitution, which mandates retirement of Ohio judges at either age 70 or upon completion of a term if 70 or older.
Former Ohio Supreme Court Republican Chief Justice Thomas Moyer, who died early last month, routinely assigned retired judges throughout the state in place of regular judges in cases of conflict or bias even in municipal court cases where it is illegal under state law whereby a sitting judge in the affiliated county must be assigned. And the judges assigned by Moyer, some with stipends that would cost taxpayers up to $500 a day, inclusive of travel expenses, have sometimes been accused of harassing targeted Democrats and outspoken lawyers with illegal rulings in both civil and criminal cases and then running back to their home towns without repercussions. Whether Strickland Saffold and her daughter Sydney, both of whom are Black, will be treated in a prejudicial fashion by the retired Faulkner because of influence by the Plain Dealer, Ohio's largest newspaper, remains to be seen.
Saffold and her daughter Sydney, 23, brought the suit, which seeks $50 million in damages and alleges web site privacy violations, after Plain Dealer officials snooped into the judge's personal email account to determine where comments written on the Plain Dealer's online news venue blogs that criticized an attorney for suspected serial killer Anthony Sowell and discussed the case came from. And last month Pfeifer removed Strickland Saffold from the case after Sowell attorney, Rufus Sims, following heated televised exchanges with Strickland Saffold, filed an affidavit of prejudice against her. The younger Saffold has said that it was she, and not her mother, who posted the blog comments.
Though saying in his order that no bias was shown, and removal required either a finding of a conflict or bias, Pfeifer removed Strickland Saffold from the case anyway and she was replaced with Republican Cuyahoga Judge Dick Ambrose. And because that removal followed editorials from the Plain Dealer that demanded it while other judges accused of impropriety who are White like Cuyahoga Judge Timothy McGinty and Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Ann Keough are shielded from harsh scrutiny by the Plain Dealer, some members of Cleveland's Black community say the judge was removed due to racism and undue influence at Ohio's high court level by Plain Dealer big wigs.
On Monday Franklin County Probate Judge Eric Brown took the realm of Chief Justice pursuant to an appointment last month by Ohio Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland, who by law had authority to appoint a replacement to finish out Moyer's unexpired term. Brown will compete against Republican Ohio Supreme Court Justice Maureen O'Connor in the November election for the full commencing in 2011 where Moyer, 70, could not seek another term because of the mandatory retirement age of 70.
In an article published today the Plain Dealer is accused of misleading the community into believing that the entire Ohio Supreme Court chooses whether to remove an Ohio Court of Common Pleas Court judge as to a conflict or bias when, pursuant to state law, that decision is left up to the Chief Justice. And in not clarifying that it was Pfeifer who assigned the retired judge to hear Strickland Saffold's lawsuit, and not Brown, who is now the only Democrat on the seven-member Ohio Supreme Court, some say the newspaper, in a disingenuous fashion, seeks to suggest that the Democrat Brown is carrying on the tradition of Moyer. That controversial tradition is the art of assigning retired judges with no accountability to voters and nothing to lose in doing in Black defendants and others in bogus criminal cases and disenfranchising plaintiffs like Strickland Saffold and her daughter that take on rich and powerful entities like the Plain Dealer.
Community Activist Ada Averyhart, who said last month that Strickland Saffold has been targeted by the Plain Dealer because she is Black and that newspaper officials were wrong for seemingly violating only her privacy rights and publishing the data, lost a race for precinct committeewoman in Cleveland's Ward 6 as to Tuesday's Democratic primary . This happened, says Averyhart, after Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, allegedly a source and friend to Plain Dealer affiliates, allegedly targeted her in that race.
Pfeifer returned to his regular post as Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court after Brown took over as Chief Justice.
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