Sowell Attorney Asks Judge Saffold To Voluntarily Step Down While The Plain Dealer Newspaper Is Accused Of Racism Against Black Female Judges
Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Shirley Strickland Saffold
Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Timothy McGinty
Suspected Serial Killer Of 11 Cleveland, Oh. Black Women Anthony Sowell
By Kathy Wray Coleman, Editor of the Determiner Weekly.Com and
the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog and Media Network
An attorney for suspected serial killer Anthony Sowell has filed a motion for the judge in the case to voluntarily step down due to what he claims was bias against him in an unrelated criminal case that she presided over last year where he represented a since convicted Cleveland RTA bus driver, an unlikely gesture since the sole vehicle under state law for seeking removal of an Ohio Common Pleas Court judge from a case is per the filing of an affidavit of prejudice for review and determination by Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Thomas Moyer. And, research reveals that Moyer rarely grants such affidavits of prejudice, even when it appears that the judge complained about has violated provisions of either the Ohio Judicial Code of Conduct or the Ohio Lawyer's Professional Code of Responsibility.
Attorney Rufus Sims, who is Black, filed the recusal motion on Friday with Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Shirley Strickland Saffold, who is also Black. Saffold took over as judge in the Sowell capital murder case, where the 50-year old Sowell is accused of raping, murdering and dismembering 11 Black women at his home on Imperial Ave. in Cleveland, after Cuyahoga Judge Timothy Mcginty, who had been selected by random draw, recused himself due to an alleged conflict.
According to news reports, McGinty had contacted reporters at the Plain Dealer, Ohio's largest newspaper, and gave information on Sowell that he said was off the record. But editor Susan Goldberg, a respected news icon who joined the Plain Dealer in 2007, squealed on him, reportedly saying that such activity was not off the record. Sims, however, has not filed any complaint with the Ohio Supreme Court's Office of Disciplinary Counsel or other related venues in Ohio for potential suspension or disbarment of McGinty, who is White, even though McGinty last week admitted to releasing Sowell's confidential mental health records to Plain Dealer Reporter Gabriel Baird last year, and though the newspaper published the data in an article on Nov 6.
"I think Sims is a good attorney who sometimes does not think things through and I have nothing negative to say about Judge Saffold whom I have known and supported as a judge for years," said Community Activist Ada Averyhart. "We will continue to support Judge Saffold and I hope that Attorney Sims and Judge Saffold resolve the conflict because both are Black and both are victims of a racist society, including our court system."
The conflict between Sims and Saffold unraveled after Plain Dealer officials violated the newspaper's anonymity policy and traced online emails from Cleveland.com that came under Saffold's personal AOL account and her court computer. Those emails, which Saffold's daughter Sydney Saffold, 23, said she wrote under the name of "lawmiss" on blogs that followed online news articles, include comments against Sims as an Amos 'n' Andy character and allegedly a mediocre lawyer.
The disparaging remarks, allegedly by the younger Saffold, followed Sims' passionate criticism to the Plain Dealer and other media regarding a criminal case, also before Saffold, in which the judge sentenced his client, former RTA bus driver Angela D. Williams, to the maximum of 6 months in jail, a sentenced that followed a jury verdict of vehicular homicide. Williams had been charged with aggravated vehicular homicide, which carries a maximum sentence of 5 years in prison, though the jury opted for the lesser offense. That case is currently on appeal before the Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals.
Sims had complained that Saffold was allegedly unreasonable in the sentencing of Williams, a Black woman who killed a pedestrian after allegedly talking on her cell phone while driving her assigned bus, though she testified at trial that the call may have been made by mistake.
"Mistakes happen," Sims said in that case at trial where RTA bus drivers testified that bus mirrors were irregular and contributed to otherwise avoidable traffic accidents.
Sims has said that if Saffold does not step down due to alleged prejudice as to the RTA case, allegedly shown via the subsequent email maneuvering of Plain Dealer officials, he will file an affidavit of prejudice against her for a determination by Moyer. But that venture might prove to be an uphill battle, not only because judges belong to a fraternity, but also because Moyer disciplines his colleagues with caution, though some Democrats like Cuyahoga Judge Daniel Gaul, who was recently recommended by the Ohio Supreme Court's Public Review Board for a year suspension from law with a stay pending retirement, say the process is unfair.
Gaul, who awaits his fate by Ohio's high court on the committee's recommendations, says that affiliates of the Ohio Supreme Court's Office of Disciplinary Counsel that are appointed by the Republican Moyer sometimes pick and choose the judges slated for discipline by Ohio's high court, and that those decisions are sometimes based on politics, and whether the judge at issue is outspoken on alleged judicial impropriety.
If he follows through on his threat to file an affidavit of prejudice in the proper forum Sims will, no doubt, have to climb a mountain to gain the removal of Saffold from the Sowell case by seeking to link it to alleged prejudice based upon the RTA case that ended in a conviction of his client late last year. Research does not reveal a single instance of removal by Moyer of a Common Pleas judge in a subsequent case where bias is not alleged in that case, based solely upon alleged bias pertaining to an unaffiliated and prior case. And bias affidavits generally pertain to conflict or prejudice purportedly by a judge against a party, rather than the party's attorney, probably since lawyers come a dime a dozen, at least in Ohio.
According to the Ohio Supreme Court's database, there are some 45 thousand registered attorneys in Ohio.
Sims has not indicated whether he will file a complaint with the bar against Saffold.
McGinty, however, appears to be a likely candidate for a complaint with the Ohio Supreme Court's Office of Disciplinary Counsel since he allegedly showed bias against Sowell and a disregard for the fair administration of justice in releasing Sowell's confidential mental health records to the Plain Dealer, a venue where he was allegedly an ongoing source regarding defendants data and sometimes even information about his judicial colleagues, whom he routinely criticizes publicly. At least two judges of the general division of the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas, where McGinty is a sitting judge, are under investigation relative to a pending FBI probe of alleged public corruption, an investigation championed by the Plain Dealer.
Saffold verbally denied a request by Sims to move the Sowell trial out of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County saying the information released to the media by her colleague, McGinty, does not deny him a fair trial, a decision that grassroots organizations hungry to protest at the Cuyahoga County Justice Center in support of the dead Black women during Sowell's upcoming trial welcomed. Two weeks ago Sims filed a motion for a change of venue, the official method by which lawyers seek to move a trial out of a particular city or county, and even though Saffold has said publicly that such request is denied the case docket in the Sowell case denotes that she has not yet ruled on the change of venue motion.
Some Blacks following the saga have said that Saffold is one of three Black female judges that have become a target of the Plain Dealer in recent years, while Whites like McGinty and Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Ann Keough, who is accused of orchestrating an illegal jury verdict of resisting arrest against a local Black journalist even though the arresting officer did not accuse her of it or testify at trial, are allegedly shielded from harsh media scrutiny. The other two judges branded as targets via articles published by the newspaper are Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Angela Stokes, a daughter of retired U.S. Rep Louis Stokes and niece of the late and former Cleveland Mayor Carl B. Stokes, and Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court Judge Alison Nelson Floyd.
Plain Dealer Columnist Phillip Morris, who is Black, regularly takes on Nelson Floyd for the newspaper, though he has yet to criticize the controversial McGinty, a former assistant county prosecutor. Angered by what they say is his harassment of Blacks, women, activists and others, grassroots organizations are scheduled to protest against McGinty at the Justice Center at 8 am on April 19.
"The Plain Dealer has shown something of a bias against Black female judges by overreacting to the incidents that they report on," said Bert Jennings, corresponding secretary for the local grassroots group dubbed the Carl Stokes Brigade. "They don't pursue the White judges with the same vigor and diligence that they do against Black judges. The Plain Dealer seems to always favor White judges over Black judges, both men and women."
Jennings said that he and others picketed the Plain Dealer years ago after an article on now retired Cuyahoga Judge Carl Character and a White female running against him showed their photographs in newspapers that went to the predominantly White suburbs of Cleveland to purportedly show Whites that a White was running against a Black incumbent. The photos, says Jennings, were excluded from newspapers circulated in Cleveland's Black community that ran the same story, allegedly to avoid showing Blacks that a White candidate was running against a sitting Black judge.
The Sowell trial is tentatively set to commence June, 2.
Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Timothy McGinty
Suspected Serial Killer Of 11 Cleveland, Oh. Black Women Anthony Sowell
By Kathy Wray Coleman, Editor of the Determiner Weekly.Com and
the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog and Media Network
An attorney for suspected serial killer Anthony Sowell has filed a motion for the judge in the case to voluntarily step down due to what he claims was bias against him in an unrelated criminal case that she presided over last year where he represented a since convicted Cleveland RTA bus driver, an unlikely gesture since the sole vehicle under state law for seeking removal of an Ohio Common Pleas Court judge from a case is per the filing of an affidavit of prejudice for review and determination by Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Thomas Moyer. And, research reveals that Moyer rarely grants such affidavits of prejudice, even when it appears that the judge complained about has violated provisions of either the Ohio Judicial Code of Conduct or the Ohio Lawyer's Professional Code of Responsibility.
Attorney Rufus Sims, who is Black, filed the recusal motion on Friday with Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Shirley Strickland Saffold, who is also Black. Saffold took over as judge in the Sowell capital murder case, where the 50-year old Sowell is accused of raping, murdering and dismembering 11 Black women at his home on Imperial Ave. in Cleveland, after Cuyahoga Judge Timothy Mcginty, who had been selected by random draw, recused himself due to an alleged conflict.
According to news reports, McGinty had contacted reporters at the Plain Dealer, Ohio's largest newspaper, and gave information on Sowell that he said was off the record. But editor Susan Goldberg, a respected news icon who joined the Plain Dealer in 2007, squealed on him, reportedly saying that such activity was not off the record. Sims, however, has not filed any complaint with the Ohio Supreme Court's Office of Disciplinary Counsel or other related venues in Ohio for potential suspension or disbarment of McGinty, who is White, even though McGinty last week admitted to releasing Sowell's confidential mental health records to Plain Dealer Reporter Gabriel Baird last year, and though the newspaper published the data in an article on Nov 6.
"I think Sims is a good attorney who sometimes does not think things through and I have nothing negative to say about Judge Saffold whom I have known and supported as a judge for years," said Community Activist Ada Averyhart. "We will continue to support Judge Saffold and I hope that Attorney Sims and Judge Saffold resolve the conflict because both are Black and both are victims of a racist society, including our court system."
The conflict between Sims and Saffold unraveled after Plain Dealer officials violated the newspaper's anonymity policy and traced online emails from Cleveland.com that came under Saffold's personal AOL account and her court computer. Those emails, which Saffold's daughter Sydney Saffold, 23, said she wrote under the name of "lawmiss" on blogs that followed online news articles, include comments against Sims as an Amos 'n' Andy character and allegedly a mediocre lawyer.
The disparaging remarks, allegedly by the younger Saffold, followed Sims' passionate criticism to the Plain Dealer and other media regarding a criminal case, also before Saffold, in which the judge sentenced his client, former RTA bus driver Angela D. Williams, to the maximum of 6 months in jail, a sentenced that followed a jury verdict of vehicular homicide. Williams had been charged with aggravated vehicular homicide, which carries a maximum sentence of 5 years in prison, though the jury opted for the lesser offense. That case is currently on appeal before the Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals.
Sims had complained that Saffold was allegedly unreasonable in the sentencing of Williams, a Black woman who killed a pedestrian after allegedly talking on her cell phone while driving her assigned bus, though she testified at trial that the call may have been made by mistake.
"Mistakes happen," Sims said in that case at trial where RTA bus drivers testified that bus mirrors were irregular and contributed to otherwise avoidable traffic accidents.
Sims has said that if Saffold does not step down due to alleged prejudice as to the RTA case, allegedly shown via the subsequent email maneuvering of Plain Dealer officials, he will file an affidavit of prejudice against her for a determination by Moyer. But that venture might prove to be an uphill battle, not only because judges belong to a fraternity, but also because Moyer disciplines his colleagues with caution, though some Democrats like Cuyahoga Judge Daniel Gaul, who was recently recommended by the Ohio Supreme Court's Public Review Board for a year suspension from law with a stay pending retirement, say the process is unfair.
Gaul, who awaits his fate by Ohio's high court on the committee's recommendations, says that affiliates of the Ohio Supreme Court's Office of Disciplinary Counsel that are appointed by the Republican Moyer sometimes pick and choose the judges slated for discipline by Ohio's high court, and that those decisions are sometimes based on politics, and whether the judge at issue is outspoken on alleged judicial impropriety.
If he follows through on his threat to file an affidavit of prejudice in the proper forum Sims will, no doubt, have to climb a mountain to gain the removal of Saffold from the Sowell case by seeking to link it to alleged prejudice based upon the RTA case that ended in a conviction of his client late last year. Research does not reveal a single instance of removal by Moyer of a Common Pleas judge in a subsequent case where bias is not alleged in that case, based solely upon alleged bias pertaining to an unaffiliated and prior case. And bias affidavits generally pertain to conflict or prejudice purportedly by a judge against a party, rather than the party's attorney, probably since lawyers come a dime a dozen, at least in Ohio.
According to the Ohio Supreme Court's database, there are some 45 thousand registered attorneys in Ohio.
Sims has not indicated whether he will file a complaint with the bar against Saffold.
McGinty, however, appears to be a likely candidate for a complaint with the Ohio Supreme Court's Office of Disciplinary Counsel since he allegedly showed bias against Sowell and a disregard for the fair administration of justice in releasing Sowell's confidential mental health records to the Plain Dealer, a venue where he was allegedly an ongoing source regarding defendants data and sometimes even information about his judicial colleagues, whom he routinely criticizes publicly. At least two judges of the general division of the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas, where McGinty is a sitting judge, are under investigation relative to a pending FBI probe of alleged public corruption, an investigation championed by the Plain Dealer.
Saffold verbally denied a request by Sims to move the Sowell trial out of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County saying the information released to the media by her colleague, McGinty, does not deny him a fair trial, a decision that grassroots organizations hungry to protest at the Cuyahoga County Justice Center in support of the dead Black women during Sowell's upcoming trial welcomed. Two weeks ago Sims filed a motion for a change of venue, the official method by which lawyers seek to move a trial out of a particular city or county, and even though Saffold has said publicly that such request is denied the case docket in the Sowell case denotes that she has not yet ruled on the change of venue motion.
Some Blacks following the saga have said that Saffold is one of three Black female judges that have become a target of the Plain Dealer in recent years, while Whites like McGinty and Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Ann Keough, who is accused of orchestrating an illegal jury verdict of resisting arrest against a local Black journalist even though the arresting officer did not accuse her of it or testify at trial, are allegedly shielded from harsh media scrutiny. The other two judges branded as targets via articles published by the newspaper are Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Angela Stokes, a daughter of retired U.S. Rep Louis Stokes and niece of the late and former Cleveland Mayor Carl B. Stokes, and Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court Judge Alison Nelson Floyd.
Plain Dealer Columnist Phillip Morris, who is Black, regularly takes on Nelson Floyd for the newspaper, though he has yet to criticize the controversial McGinty, a former assistant county prosecutor. Angered by what they say is his harassment of Blacks, women, activists and others, grassroots organizations are scheduled to protest against McGinty at the Justice Center at 8 am on April 19.
"The Plain Dealer has shown something of a bias against Black female judges by overreacting to the incidents that they report on," said Bert Jennings, corresponding secretary for the local grassroots group dubbed the Carl Stokes Brigade. "They don't pursue the White judges with the same vigor and diligence that they do against Black judges. The Plain Dealer seems to always favor White judges over Black judges, both men and women."
Jennings said that he and others picketed the Plain Dealer years ago after an article on now retired Cuyahoga Judge Carl Character and a White female running against him showed their photographs in newspapers that went to the predominantly White suburbs of Cleveland to purportedly show Whites that a White was running against a Black incumbent. The photos, says Jennings, were excluded from newspapers circulated in Cleveland's Black community that ran the same story, allegedly to avoid showing Blacks that a White candidate was running against a sitting Black judge.
The Sowell trial is tentatively set to commence June, 2.
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