Acting Ohio Chief Justice Removes Strickland Saffold From Sowell Murder Case Due Alledgely To Politics, Racism And Influence By The Plain Dealer
Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Dick Ambrose
Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Shirley Strickland Saffold
By Kathy Wray Coleman, Editor of the Determiner Weekly.com and the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog and Media Network
Ohio Supreme Court Acting Chief Justice Paul Pfeifer has granted an affidavit of prejudice filed by the attorneys for suspected serial killer Anthony Sowell, allowing for the replacement in the case of Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Shirley Strickland Saffold, who is Black, with Cuyahoga Judge Dick Ambrose, a moderate Republican and former Cleveland Browns football player. But some Blacks say Strickland Saffold's removal from the case may have been motivated by politics, racism, and undue influence of top officials of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Ohio's largest newspaper.
In addition to a host of other charges, Sowell is now in custody on charges of rape, aggravated murder, and kidnapping, after the remains of 11 Black women were found in and around his home in Cleveland's predominantly Black Mt. Pleasant neighborhood.
Via state law, the acting Chief Justice had the authority to either order that the proceeding be assigned to another judge of the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas of which Saffold is a member, to a judge of another court, or to a retired judge, though some lawyers have said that the latter is unconstitutional because Ohio's Constitution forces non-federal judges to retire either at age 70 or upon completion of a term, if the judge at issue is 70 or older.
Cuyahoga Presiding and Administrative Judge Nancy Fuerst is said to have selected Ambrose by a computer generated random draw process following an order from Pfeifer. But random draw selection in conjunction with replacing a judge previously selected by that process is not common place. In practically all instances in which a Cuyahoga County Common Pleas judge removes him or herself voluntarily from a case due to conflict or bias, unlike the Sowell controversy where Strickland Saffold was removed involuntarily, the administrative judge of that court personally selects a replacement judge and often times that replacement judge is accused of continuing the alleged harassment complained about as to the prior judge. That, among other amenities, makes the position of administrative judge, which Fuerst was selected to by her colleagues less than six months ago, a powerful position.
A low key judge, Ambrose, who is White, is described by Cleveland defense attorneys as relatively fair, nice, and unassuming. He takes the realm behind two controversial judges where Strickland Saffold is not new to news headlines and her predecessor in the Sowell case, Cuyahoga Judge Timothy McGinty, is constantly making headlines for, among other issues, criticizing his judicial colleagues as unfair and allegedly inept at times. He had been selected via random draw to hear the Sowell case but was replaced with Strickland Saffold by then acting Cuyahoga Administrative Judge Eileen A. Gallagher, now a candidate for a seat on the Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals, who assigned Strickland Saffold personally rather than by random draw. McGinty's voluntary withdrawal from the case came after what attorneys for Sowell say was his prejudicial release of Sowell's mental health records to a Plain Dealer Newspaper reporter, coupled with his having allegedly sent emails about Sowell to local newspaper affiliates that were designated as “off the record.”
Both Strickland Saffold and McGinty, a former assistant county prosecutor, have been categorized by some Cleveland defense attorneys as hard on crime, and sometimes unnecessarily hard on their clients in sentencing them, a disproportionate number of whom are Black, and poor. And Saffold is said to sometimes have a soft side, but clearly in rare instances, and usually only if the convicted defendant before her is young, whether Black or White, and does not have a lengthy criminal record.
Sowell's attorneys say Strickland Saffold showed prejudice via blog comments on cleveland.com, an online news venue of the Plain Dealer. Those comments inlcude a discussion of the Sowell murder case and were said to be critical of of Sowell attorney Rufus Sims, though the judge's daughter, Sydney Saffold, 23, says she wrote the satire, and prosecutors in the Sowell case filed a reply in Strickland Saffold's court saying Sowell's lawyers were simply trying to get the trial moved out of Cuyahoga County. Relevant case law does not support Ambrose vacating Strickland Saffold's previous denial of defense lawyer's motion for a change of venue to move the trial elsewhere, though new case law could be made if Ambrose grants any renewed motion by Sowell's attorneys for a change of venue and that decision is upheld on any appeal to the Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals.
In removing the judge from the case, Pfeifer said in his ruling that though not based upon any claim that Strickland Saffold posted the blog comments, whether subsequently proved or not proved, the fact that they were traced to her personal AOL account raises serious questions of bias.
“An objective observer who has read the online postings might reasonably question why comments about a defendant and defense counsel appearing before the judge were posted on the judge's personal online account, even if the judge did not make the comments herself," wrote the Republican Pfeifer in his order.
But some members of Cleveland's Black community say that Strickland Saffold is being targeted because she is Black and others have said, while speaking on condition of anonymity, that she is allegedly being harassed because the Plain Dealer has the power and the influence to help determine who will be the next Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court as to this year's election. Effective May 3, Franklin County Probate Judge Eric Brown will become the high court's Chief Justice to serve out the unexpired term left by the untimely death three weeks ago of long term Republican Supreme Court Chief Justice Thomas Moyer. Per state law, Brown was appointed last week by Gov. Ted Strickland, a fellow Democrat.
“I don't think that Judge Saffold has done anything to be taken off the case and the Plain Dealer has a vendetta against her,” Community Activist Ada Averyhart told the Determiner Weekly.com and the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog and Media Network prior to Pfeifer's ruling. “Why would they single her out to meddle with her email account, and I hope she wins the lawsuit against the Plain Dealer.”
Strickland Saffold and her daughter Sydney have sued the Plain Dealer in the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas seeking some $50 million in damages relative to a claim of alleged invasion of privacy around the snooping into the judge's AOL account.
Brown is currently running for Chief Justice against Ohio Supreme Court Justice Maureen O'Connor, of Parma. Oh., for the full term commencing in 2011 where had Moyer,70, lived he could not seek reelection to another term due to the mandatory retirement age of 70. Until Brown's appointment the seven-member Ohio Supreme Court was all Republican, and when Brown assumes power it will continue its tradition of being all White since no Blacks have ever won election to that court. Now deceased U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Cleveland, retired Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals Judge Sara J. Harper, also from the predominantly Black city of Cleveland, and retired Cleveland Municipal Court Judge C. Ellen Connally, are among the Blacks that tried unsuccessfully to convince Ohio voters to elect them to the high court,
Prior to Pfeifer's decision to remove Strickland Saffold from the Sowell case the Plain Dealer did numerous articles, with affiliated commentary, calling on her disqualification, another indication, some say, that the newspaper can make and break politicians, and also influence how the Ohio Supreme Court rules.
The Plain Dealer has been instrumental before in securing favorable rulings against Black judges. It was victorious in convincing the Ohio Supreme Court to rule that Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court Judge Alison Nelson Floyd erred when she refused the hearing required by state law prior to denying a request by newspaper officials to photograph Black juveniles in a case then before her. Thereafter, Nelson Floyd became, and still is, an ongoing target of Plain Dealer affiliates, including columnist Phillip Morris, who is also Black. Absent political demands White judges, however, can often do as they please, critics say, without risking bar complaints or the granting of affidavits of prejudice.
Averyhart has accused Plain Dealer officials of targeting Black judges like Strickland Saffold while leaving White judges such as McGinty, and controversial Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Ann Keough, alone, even in the midst of data that show that Keough has violated state law in harassing a local Black journalist in a bogus criminal case still before her. Community activists and the journalist herself have said that Keough's unprecedented harassment in that case is an effort to silence free speech in Cleveland's Black community on pertinent issues of public concern in alleged exchange for certain endorsements relative to her candidacy this year for a seat on the Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals.
Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Shirley Strickland Saffold
By Kathy Wray Coleman, Editor of the Determiner Weekly.com and the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog and Media Network
Ohio Supreme Court Acting Chief Justice Paul Pfeifer has granted an affidavit of prejudice filed by the attorneys for suspected serial killer Anthony Sowell, allowing for the replacement in the case of Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Shirley Strickland Saffold, who is Black, with Cuyahoga Judge Dick Ambrose, a moderate Republican and former Cleveland Browns football player. But some Blacks say Strickland Saffold's removal from the case may have been motivated by politics, racism, and undue influence of top officials of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Ohio's largest newspaper.
In addition to a host of other charges, Sowell is now in custody on charges of rape, aggravated murder, and kidnapping, after the remains of 11 Black women were found in and around his home in Cleveland's predominantly Black Mt. Pleasant neighborhood.
Via state law, the acting Chief Justice had the authority to either order that the proceeding be assigned to another judge of the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas of which Saffold is a member, to a judge of another court, or to a retired judge, though some lawyers have said that the latter is unconstitutional because Ohio's Constitution forces non-federal judges to retire either at age 70 or upon completion of a term, if the judge at issue is 70 or older.
Cuyahoga Presiding and Administrative Judge Nancy Fuerst is said to have selected Ambrose by a computer generated random draw process following an order from Pfeifer. But random draw selection in conjunction with replacing a judge previously selected by that process is not common place. In practically all instances in which a Cuyahoga County Common Pleas judge removes him or herself voluntarily from a case due to conflict or bias, unlike the Sowell controversy where Strickland Saffold was removed involuntarily, the administrative judge of that court personally selects a replacement judge and often times that replacement judge is accused of continuing the alleged harassment complained about as to the prior judge. That, among other amenities, makes the position of administrative judge, which Fuerst was selected to by her colleagues less than six months ago, a powerful position.
A low key judge, Ambrose, who is White, is described by Cleveland defense attorneys as relatively fair, nice, and unassuming. He takes the realm behind two controversial judges where Strickland Saffold is not new to news headlines and her predecessor in the Sowell case, Cuyahoga Judge Timothy McGinty, is constantly making headlines for, among other issues, criticizing his judicial colleagues as unfair and allegedly inept at times. He had been selected via random draw to hear the Sowell case but was replaced with Strickland Saffold by then acting Cuyahoga Administrative Judge Eileen A. Gallagher, now a candidate for a seat on the Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals, who assigned Strickland Saffold personally rather than by random draw. McGinty's voluntary withdrawal from the case came after what attorneys for Sowell say was his prejudicial release of Sowell's mental health records to a Plain Dealer Newspaper reporter, coupled with his having allegedly sent emails about Sowell to local newspaper affiliates that were designated as “off the record.”
Both Strickland Saffold and McGinty, a former assistant county prosecutor, have been categorized by some Cleveland defense attorneys as hard on crime, and sometimes unnecessarily hard on their clients in sentencing them, a disproportionate number of whom are Black, and poor. And Saffold is said to sometimes have a soft side, but clearly in rare instances, and usually only if the convicted defendant before her is young, whether Black or White, and does not have a lengthy criminal record.
Sowell's attorneys say Strickland Saffold showed prejudice via blog comments on cleveland.com, an online news venue of the Plain Dealer. Those comments inlcude a discussion of the Sowell murder case and were said to be critical of of Sowell attorney Rufus Sims, though the judge's daughter, Sydney Saffold, 23, says she wrote the satire, and prosecutors in the Sowell case filed a reply in Strickland Saffold's court saying Sowell's lawyers were simply trying to get the trial moved out of Cuyahoga County. Relevant case law does not support Ambrose vacating Strickland Saffold's previous denial of defense lawyer's motion for a change of venue to move the trial elsewhere, though new case law could be made if Ambrose grants any renewed motion by Sowell's attorneys for a change of venue and that decision is upheld on any appeal to the Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals.
In removing the judge from the case, Pfeifer said in his ruling that though not based upon any claim that Strickland Saffold posted the blog comments, whether subsequently proved or not proved, the fact that they were traced to her personal AOL account raises serious questions of bias.
“An objective observer who has read the online postings might reasonably question why comments about a defendant and defense counsel appearing before the judge were posted on the judge's personal online account, even if the judge did not make the comments herself," wrote the Republican Pfeifer in his order.
But some members of Cleveland's Black community say that Strickland Saffold is being targeted because she is Black and others have said, while speaking on condition of anonymity, that she is allegedly being harassed because the Plain Dealer has the power and the influence to help determine who will be the next Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court as to this year's election. Effective May 3, Franklin County Probate Judge Eric Brown will become the high court's Chief Justice to serve out the unexpired term left by the untimely death three weeks ago of long term Republican Supreme Court Chief Justice Thomas Moyer. Per state law, Brown was appointed last week by Gov. Ted Strickland, a fellow Democrat.
“I don't think that Judge Saffold has done anything to be taken off the case and the Plain Dealer has a vendetta against her,” Community Activist Ada Averyhart told the Determiner Weekly.com and the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog and Media Network prior to Pfeifer's ruling. “Why would they single her out to meddle with her email account, and I hope she wins the lawsuit against the Plain Dealer.”
Strickland Saffold and her daughter Sydney have sued the Plain Dealer in the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas seeking some $50 million in damages relative to a claim of alleged invasion of privacy around the snooping into the judge's AOL account.
Brown is currently running for Chief Justice against Ohio Supreme Court Justice Maureen O'Connor, of Parma. Oh., for the full term commencing in 2011 where had Moyer,70, lived he could not seek reelection to another term due to the mandatory retirement age of 70. Until Brown's appointment the seven-member Ohio Supreme Court was all Republican, and when Brown assumes power it will continue its tradition of being all White since no Blacks have ever won election to that court. Now deceased U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Cleveland, retired Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals Judge Sara J. Harper, also from the predominantly Black city of Cleveland, and retired Cleveland Municipal Court Judge C. Ellen Connally, are among the Blacks that tried unsuccessfully to convince Ohio voters to elect them to the high court,
Prior to Pfeifer's decision to remove Strickland Saffold from the Sowell case the Plain Dealer did numerous articles, with affiliated commentary, calling on her disqualification, another indication, some say, that the newspaper can make and break politicians, and also influence how the Ohio Supreme Court rules.
The Plain Dealer has been instrumental before in securing favorable rulings against Black judges. It was victorious in convincing the Ohio Supreme Court to rule that Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court Judge Alison Nelson Floyd erred when she refused the hearing required by state law prior to denying a request by newspaper officials to photograph Black juveniles in a case then before her. Thereafter, Nelson Floyd became, and still is, an ongoing target of Plain Dealer affiliates, including columnist Phillip Morris, who is also Black. Absent political demands White judges, however, can often do as they please, critics say, without risking bar complaints or the granting of affidavits of prejudice.
Averyhart has accused Plain Dealer officials of targeting Black judges like Strickland Saffold while leaving White judges such as McGinty, and controversial Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Ann Keough, alone, even in the midst of data that show that Keough has violated state law in harassing a local Black journalist in a bogus criminal case still before her. Community activists and the journalist herself have said that Keough's unprecedented harassment in that case is an effort to silence free speech in Cleveland's Black community on pertinent issues of public concern in alleged exchange for certain endorsements relative to her candidacy this year for a seat on the Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals.
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