Judge Sutula Replaces Judge Friedman In Case Of Black Student Allegedly Beaten And Called "Nigger" By White Police Accusing Her Of Assault
College Student Rebecca Whitby 
Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Kathleen Sutula
Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Stuart Friedman
By Kathy Wray Coleman, Editor of the DeterminerWeekly.Com and
the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog and Media Network
After vowing on record last week that he is not a racist, Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Stuart Friedman stopped jury selection and recused himself from a controversial criminal case where a Black female Cuyahoga Community College student is on trial charged with assaulting two White male Cleveland police officers. The officers have been tagged by an elderly White neighbor, scheduled to testify for the defense at trial, as unnecessarily tasing and beating the girl, and calling her a "nigger" via an arrest last year at her parents then home in Cleveland's racially mixed Collinwood neighborhood where tensions with the majority White Fifth District police traditionally run high.
Among other charges, including the charge of assault on a peace officer, Rebecca Whitby, 24, is charged with resisting arrest and aggravated robbery where the police claim she single handedly robbed both of them of their guns during the incident in a female Jesse James type showdown. Her mother, also named Rebecca Whitby, is also charged with assault on the two White male police officers. Both Whitby's have pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Friedman came under fire from grassroots groups after he threatened to take their cell phones at a pretrial for no legitimate reason, criticized its members just for being activists and protesting around the Whitby case, and allegedly allowed without consequences the prosecution to make contact with witnesses for the defense in the absence of defense attorneys and without their permission.
The Whitby case arose when the younger Whitby's father, Timothy Walker, allegedly summoned police to the home to mediate his request that his daughter not drive her car while allegedly slightly inebriated. When police found things allegedly okay they allegedly took the position that somebody had to be arrested just because they were called, ultimately arresting the younger Whitby, who was allegedly jailed and released without charges after an alleged police beating.
After the Whitby's filed internal charges against police the charges were brought against the younger Whitby and her mother, 47, was subsequently charged. Grassroots activists say she merely put her body over her daughter's to allegedly minimize the beating. Several protests sponsored by Black on Black Crime, the Imperial Women, Bailout the People Movement, the Carl Stokes Brigade, the People's Forum, the Oppressed People's Nation and others have been held in support of the Black women, the last one a march from Cleveland City Hall where Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson's office is located to the Justice Center on Ontario Ave. in Cleveland. The neighbor at issue spoke at at least two of the rallies, reiterating her allegations of unnecessary police force against the younger Whitby and name calling of "nigger" that dark night on Cleveland's predominantly Black East Side of town.
A week and a half ago two White male Fifth District police officers arrested two Black female Collinwood High School students engaged in a student walkout to protest district wide teacher layoffs and school closings, erecting a firestorm of controversy around what members of Cleveland's Black and grassroots communities have deemed a brutal and anti-Black arrest of only Black girls. Grassroots groups await the dismissal of what they call erroneous charges, including resisting arrest and assault on a peace officer. They say the charges are in retaliation for Black Cleveland schools students exercising their constitutional right to free speech on issues of public concerned as embodied under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Cleveland Ward 8 Councilman Jeff Johnson allegedly sparred with Cleveland Ward 9 Councilman Kevin Conwell, who chairs City Council's Public Safety Committee, at a City Council meeting on Monday, with Johnson allegedly calling for the Public Safety Committee to take a stand in support of the arrested Collinwood High School students.
Nancy Fuerst, elected to the administrative position late last year by majority vote of her 33 colleagues in the general division of the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas, personally assigned Cuyahoga Judge Kathleen Sutula, who some brand a "hanging judge" for her harsh sentences, to hear the Whitby cases rather than having Friedman's replacement selected via the computer generated random draw process. Critics say that the process of personally assigning judges to replace colleagues who have recused themselves following allegations of bias is suspect and designed to permit the administrative judge in power an opportunity to judge shop on the part of the prosecution in criminal cases and for defendants in civil cases who represent rich corporate entities or city, county or state governments.
Two weeks ago Fuerst assigned Cuyahoga Judge Dick Ambrose by random draw to replace Cuyahoga Judge Shirley Strickland Saffold in the Anthony Sowell capital murder case, after she was removed following the granting of an affidavit of prejudice by then Acting Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Pfeifer. But some say it was all a show for the public relative to the high profile serial murder case since in practically all other instances in which Cuyahoga Court of Common Pleas judges have recused themselves from cases Fuerst has personally chosen replacement judges for her colleagues and has ignored the random draw due process mechanism. Fuerst, who also serves as presiding judge in that court, has also been accused of sitting on affidavits of prejudice filed by Blacks against White municipal court judges in Cuyahoga County in an alleged effort to protect them from necessary removal from bogus criminal cases where prejudice is obvious.
A trial date before Sutula has not yet been set and her assignment is not yet reflected on the docket in the Whitby cases, though she held a pretrial on May 20, less than a week after Friedman withdrew from the case.
The younger Whitby is paying Wendell Scott Ramsey to represent her in the controversial matter. A local Black attorney, Ramsey was sued last week in the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas by a Black local journalist and community activist for alleged improper representative activity in an unrelated criminal case of alleged malicious prosecution by the predominantly Black City of Cleveland. According to the case docket, the younger Whitby's mother, whom family members fondly call "Mother Rebecca," is represented by an unnamed public defender.
Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Kathleen Sutula
Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Stuart Friedman
By Kathy Wray Coleman, Editor of the DeterminerWeekly.Com and
the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog and Media Network
After vowing on record last week that he is not a racist, Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Stuart Friedman stopped jury selection and recused himself from a controversial criminal case where a Black female Cuyahoga Community College student is on trial charged with assaulting two White male Cleveland police officers. The officers have been tagged by an elderly White neighbor, scheduled to testify for the defense at trial, as unnecessarily tasing and beating the girl, and calling her a "nigger" via an arrest last year at her parents then home in Cleveland's racially mixed Collinwood neighborhood where tensions with the majority White Fifth District police traditionally run high.
Among other charges, including the charge of assault on a peace officer, Rebecca Whitby, 24, is charged with resisting arrest and aggravated robbery where the police claim she single handedly robbed both of them of their guns during the incident in a female Jesse James type showdown. Her mother, also named Rebecca Whitby, is also charged with assault on the two White male police officers. Both Whitby's have pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Friedman came under fire from grassroots groups after he threatened to take their cell phones at a pretrial for no legitimate reason, criticized its members just for being activists and protesting around the Whitby case, and allegedly allowed without consequences the prosecution to make contact with witnesses for the defense in the absence of defense attorneys and without their permission.
The Whitby case arose when the younger Whitby's father, Timothy Walker, allegedly summoned police to the home to mediate his request that his daughter not drive her car while allegedly slightly inebriated. When police found things allegedly okay they allegedly took the position that somebody had to be arrested just because they were called, ultimately arresting the younger Whitby, who was allegedly jailed and released without charges after an alleged police beating.
After the Whitby's filed internal charges against police the charges were brought against the younger Whitby and her mother, 47, was subsequently charged. Grassroots activists say she merely put her body over her daughter's to allegedly minimize the beating. Several protests sponsored by Black on Black Crime, the Imperial Women, Bailout the People Movement, the Carl Stokes Brigade, the People's Forum, the Oppressed People's Nation and others have been held in support of the Black women, the last one a march from Cleveland City Hall where Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson's office is located to the Justice Center on Ontario Ave. in Cleveland. The neighbor at issue spoke at at least two of the rallies, reiterating her allegations of unnecessary police force against the younger Whitby and name calling of "nigger" that dark night on Cleveland's predominantly Black East Side of town.
A week and a half ago two White male Fifth District police officers arrested two Black female Collinwood High School students engaged in a student walkout to protest district wide teacher layoffs and school closings, erecting a firestorm of controversy around what members of Cleveland's Black and grassroots communities have deemed a brutal and anti-Black arrest of only Black girls. Grassroots groups await the dismissal of what they call erroneous charges, including resisting arrest and assault on a peace officer. They say the charges are in retaliation for Black Cleveland schools students exercising their constitutional right to free speech on issues of public concerned as embodied under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Cleveland Ward 8 Councilman Jeff Johnson allegedly sparred with Cleveland Ward 9 Councilman Kevin Conwell, who chairs City Council's Public Safety Committee, at a City Council meeting on Monday, with Johnson allegedly calling for the Public Safety Committee to take a stand in support of the arrested Collinwood High School students.
Nancy Fuerst, elected to the administrative position late last year by majority vote of her 33 colleagues in the general division of the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas, personally assigned Cuyahoga Judge Kathleen Sutula, who some brand a "hanging judge" for her harsh sentences, to hear the Whitby cases rather than having Friedman's replacement selected via the computer generated random draw process. Critics say that the process of personally assigning judges to replace colleagues who have recused themselves following allegations of bias is suspect and designed to permit the administrative judge in power an opportunity to judge shop on the part of the prosecution in criminal cases and for defendants in civil cases who represent rich corporate entities or city, county or state governments.
Two weeks ago Fuerst assigned Cuyahoga Judge Dick Ambrose by random draw to replace Cuyahoga Judge Shirley Strickland Saffold in the Anthony Sowell capital murder case, after she was removed following the granting of an affidavit of prejudice by then Acting Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Pfeifer. But some say it was all a show for the public relative to the high profile serial murder case since in practically all other instances in which Cuyahoga Court of Common Pleas judges have recused themselves from cases Fuerst has personally chosen replacement judges for her colleagues and has ignored the random draw due process mechanism. Fuerst, who also serves as presiding judge in that court, has also been accused of sitting on affidavits of prejudice filed by Blacks against White municipal court judges in Cuyahoga County in an alleged effort to protect them from necessary removal from bogus criminal cases where prejudice is obvious.
A trial date before Sutula has not yet been set and her assignment is not yet reflected on the docket in the Whitby cases, though she held a pretrial on May 20, less than a week after Friedman withdrew from the case.
The younger Whitby is paying Wendell Scott Ramsey to represent her in the controversial matter. A local Black attorney, Ramsey was sued last week in the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas by a Black local journalist and community activist for alleged improper representative activity in an unrelated criminal case of alleged malicious prosecution by the predominantly Black City of Cleveland. According to the case docket, the younger Whitby's mother, whom family members fondly call "Mother Rebecca," is represented by an unnamed public defender.
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