Sutula Rejects Judge Fuerst's Personal Assignment To Replace Friedman Where Black Woman Is Accused Of Assault On Police Accused Of Calling Her Nigger
Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Administrative and Presiding Judge Nancy Fuerst
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
Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Kathleen Sutula has rejected a personal assignment by Cuyahoga Administrative Judge Nancy Fuerst to replace Cuyahoga Judge Stuart Friedman in a controversial case involving a Black young woman on trial for allegedly assaulting two White male Cleveland police officers accused of beating the girl and calling her a "nigger." Friedman stepped down from the case last month in the middle of jury selection after vowing that he is not a racist and in response to criticism from members of local activists organizations that he was allegedly harassing them and permitting prosecutors in the case to telephone witnesses for the defense without permission from defense counsel in alleged violation of discovery rules.
After reading on the record parts of an article by the Determiner Weekly.Com and the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog and Media Network where Fuerst is accused of ignoring the due process computer generated assignment method to personally select Sutula, who is dubbed by some as a "hanging judge" because of her harsh sentences, Sutula recused herself saying she does not believe in the manual assignment of judges in place of random draw selection by computer, a slap in the face to Fuerst.
"And I have never hanged anyone," Sutula said last week on what was to be jury selection on beginning trial day for 24 year old Black Cuyahoga Community College student Rebecca Whitby. Whitby's mother, also named Rebecca Whitby, is also set to go on trial and like her daughter is accused of assaulting the police officers, though the younger Whitby is facing additional charges including single handedly robbing the policemen of their guns in a female "Jesse James" type showdown. Both women have pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Before recusing herself from the case last week Sutula told the Whitby women that she was sorry and denied a motion by the prosecution to keep out allegations by an elderly White neighbor who says she witnessed police beat the younger Whitby after allegedly calling her a "nigger," the night of the incident last year in Cleveland's Collinwood neighborhood.
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 minimize the alleged 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.
A new judge in the case has not yet been selected. Fuerst, who is also the presiding judge of that court who, among other duties, hears affidavits of prejudice filed against county municipal court judges, was selected last year as administrative judge by a majority of her 33 colleagues in the general division of the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas. She replaced acting Cuyahoga Administrative and Presiding Judge Eileen A. Gallagher, who was standing in for then Administrative and Presiding Judge Nancy McDonnell, out on sick leave following double lung transplant surgery undertaken last year at the Cleveland Clinic. Fuerst, Gallagher and McDonnell have all been accused of unfairly and arbitrarily denying affidavits of prejudice filed against White judges in municipal courts in Cuyahoga County like Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Ann Keough and Berea Municipal Court Judge Mark Comstock that properly allege bias against Blacks in purported malicious criminal proceedings before them.
Fuerst is also accused of assigning Sutula to replace Friedman to take the heat relative to the Whitby cases because she is a Republican while Fuerst, Gallagher, McDonnell, Friedman, Keough and Comstock are all Democrats, though the actions of the Democratic judges in question do little to convince the Black community that the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party is any better relative to the pursuit of fair judges for the bench in the county and municipal courts than the judges of the county's Republican Party.
Last month Fuerst replaced Cuyahoga Judge Shirley Strickland Saffold, who is Black, with Cuyahoga Judge Dick Ambrose via the computer generated random draw process after then Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Pfiefer removed Strickland Saffold from the case via the granting of an affidavit of prejudice filed by the attorneys for alleged serial killer Anthony Sowell. Critics have said that the random draw assignment of Ambrose was simply a show by Fuerst for the public relative to the high profile Sowell capital murder case where she routinely replaces judges who are either removed or who voluntarily step down from cases due to conflict or bias with her personal selections. That process, some say, is designed to aid the prosecution in criminal cases and to allegedly assist defendants representing rich entities and municipal, county and state governments relative to civil litigation.
Sowell is in custody and awaiting trial that is scheduled for Sept 7. The sex offender and former marine who served 15 years in prison for attempted rape is accused of raping, kidnapping and murdering 11 Black women whose remains were found late last year at his home on Imperial Ave. in Cleveland's Mt. Pleasant neighborhood.
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
Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Kathleen Sutula has rejected a personal assignment by Cuyahoga Administrative Judge Nancy Fuerst to replace Cuyahoga Judge Stuart Friedman in a controversial case involving a Black young woman on trial for allegedly assaulting two White male Cleveland police officers accused of beating the girl and calling her a "nigger." Friedman stepped down from the case last month in the middle of jury selection after vowing that he is not a racist and in response to criticism from members of local activists organizations that he was allegedly harassing them and permitting prosecutors in the case to telephone witnesses for the defense without permission from defense counsel in alleged violation of discovery rules.
After reading on the record parts of an article by the Determiner Weekly.Com and the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog and Media Network where Fuerst is accused of ignoring the due process computer generated assignment method to personally select Sutula, who is dubbed by some as a "hanging judge" because of her harsh sentences, Sutula recused herself saying she does not believe in the manual assignment of judges in place of random draw selection by computer, a slap in the face to Fuerst.
"And I have never hanged anyone," Sutula said last week on what was to be jury selection on beginning trial day for 24 year old Black Cuyahoga Community College student Rebecca Whitby. Whitby's mother, also named Rebecca Whitby, is also set to go on trial and like her daughter is accused of assaulting the police officers, though the younger Whitby is facing additional charges including single handedly robbing the policemen of their guns in a female "Jesse James" type showdown. Both women have pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Before recusing herself from the case last week Sutula told the Whitby women that she was sorry and denied a motion by the prosecution to keep out allegations by an elderly White neighbor who says she witnessed police beat the younger Whitby after allegedly calling her a "nigger," the night of the incident last year in Cleveland's Collinwood neighborhood.
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 minimize the alleged 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.
A new judge in the case has not yet been selected. Fuerst, who is also the presiding judge of that court who, among other duties, hears affidavits of prejudice filed against county municipal court judges, was selected last year as administrative judge by a majority of her 33 colleagues in the general division of the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas. She replaced acting Cuyahoga Administrative and Presiding Judge Eileen A. Gallagher, who was standing in for then Administrative and Presiding Judge Nancy McDonnell, out on sick leave following double lung transplant surgery undertaken last year at the Cleveland Clinic. Fuerst, Gallagher and McDonnell have all been accused of unfairly and arbitrarily denying affidavits of prejudice filed against White judges in municipal courts in Cuyahoga County like Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Ann Keough and Berea Municipal Court Judge Mark Comstock that properly allege bias against Blacks in purported malicious criminal proceedings before them.
Fuerst is also accused of assigning Sutula to replace Friedman to take the heat relative to the Whitby cases because she is a Republican while Fuerst, Gallagher, McDonnell, Friedman, Keough and Comstock are all Democrats, though the actions of the Democratic judges in question do little to convince the Black community that the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party is any better relative to the pursuit of fair judges for the bench in the county and municipal courts than the judges of the county's Republican Party.
Last month Fuerst replaced Cuyahoga Judge Shirley Strickland Saffold, who is Black, with Cuyahoga Judge Dick Ambrose via the computer generated random draw process after then Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Pfiefer removed Strickland Saffold from the case via the granting of an affidavit of prejudice filed by the attorneys for alleged serial killer Anthony Sowell. Critics have said that the random draw assignment of Ambrose was simply a show by Fuerst for the public relative to the high profile Sowell capital murder case where she routinely replaces judges who are either removed or who voluntarily step down from cases due to conflict or bias with her personal selections. That process, some say, is designed to aid the prosecution in criminal cases and to allegedly assist defendants representing rich entities and municipal, county and state governments relative to civil litigation.
Sowell is in custody and awaiting trial that is scheduled for Sept 7. The sex offender and former marine who served 15 years in prison for attempted rape is accused of raping, kidnapping and murdering 11 Black women whose remains were found late last year at his home on Imperial Ave. in Cleveland's Mt. Pleasant neighborhood.
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