Judge Keough Sets Precedent For Black Banker To Apologize To Police In Reversing Plea Deal Of Warehouse District Prosecution Case NAACP Called Racist
Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Ann Keough
Cleveland NAACP President and Call and Post Newspaper General Counsel George Forbes
By Kathy Wray Coleman, Editor of the Determiner Weekly.Com and
the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com
Bowing to pressure, Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Ann Keough has reopened a closed plea deal and ordered a Black banker represented in the criminal proceedings before her by the law offices of Cleveland NAACP President George Forbes to apologize to the arresting police officer or face trial. (go to www.Cleveland.com. to read Plain Dealer Reporter Robert Smith's article on the matter and blog comments).
Jason Ruiz, 27, must appear before Keough today to apologize to a White Cleveland police officer that he and his friends said mistreated him after they, unlike their White counterparts, where kicked out of a West Sixth St. bar at closing.
Ruiz attorney Helen Forbes, a daughter of Cleveland NAACP President George Forbes, also general counsel for the Cleveland Call and Post Newspaper, reportedly said that the racial issue had now been inflamed into a larger one by Keough and others.
A debonair intern banker, who is a recent graduate of Morehouse College, the nation's most prestigious all male and predominantly Black institution of higher learning, Ruiz was arrested Aug. 21 by the officer in question and spent the weekend in jail.
In conjunction with the case Forbes, NAACP Executive Director Stanley Miller, Cleveland City Councilmen Jeff Johnson and Zack Reed, and a few other Black leaders, held a press conference and billed the incident, and others in the Warehouse District, as racist. That angered the police officer at issue and he demanded an apology from Ruiz as a condition of the plea deal, one that prosecutors took off the table as not usually, if ever, required, particularly given the fragile relationship between police and the Black community.
On Monday the parties, with Keough's approval, had settled misdemeanor charges of criminal trespass and resisting arrest that followed the dispute, a dispute that the Cleveland NAACP said was indicative of a racially hostile climate in the Warehouse District, particularly for young successful Black men . That plea deal, which had no requirement for an apology, called for six months successful probation and the dropping of the charges thereafter.
By law, prosecutors for the city , and not police or crime victims, agree to plea deals handed to judges for approval. But rarely does a judge , absent gross illegality, snatch it back days later, only to embarrass the NAACP, the nation's most respected Civil Rights organization, and to ingratiate herself with police.
Endorsed by the Cleveland Patrolman's Police Association and other law enforcement unions for her recent win for a seat on the Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals that commences next year, Keough did just that. And she is taking heat in response.
Keough, whose integrity as a judge has come under question by grassroots factions because she is arbitrarily taking criminal cases and targeting Blacks and women for malicious prosecutions, is criticized on the Cleveland Plain Dealer Newspaper's online blog at Cleveland.Com in response to Smith's article this week around her switch that Ruiz must apologize to police.
"This is politically motivated by the judge and I hope he sticks to his beliefs," wrote one blogger on Cleveland.com in urging Ruiz to ditch an apology and take the case to trial. "To apologize I say HELL NO! This is some crap set up by the PD and the judge proves she isn't fit by falling for this crap," wrote another.
Other bloggers said that Keough's courtroom has been plagued with impropriety for years and that her demand for an apology is unconstitutional.
"A person may not be coerced to incriminate themselves as a condition for a plea bargain," and "you're assuming that the Constitution applies in Keough's court," bloggers said.
Whether Keough's back tracking on a closed plea deal will be challenged by Helen Forbes in the Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals via the filing of a petition for a writ of prohibition remains clear since she told Keough and prosecutors last week that Ruiz would appear today to apologize.
A copy surveillance video of the incident is being requested from Cleveland Safety Director Robert Flask for review by the grassroots community and others.
Keough's slap in the face to Forbes came after he had endorsed her, as did Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, for her recent appellate court win, though the duo would not endorse any of the Black women seeking judgeship's and all three lost in the May Democratic Primary.
Cleveland NAACP President and Call and Post Newspaper General Counsel George Forbes
By Kathy Wray Coleman, Editor of the Determiner Weekly.Com and
the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com
Bowing to pressure, Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Ann Keough has reopened a closed plea deal and ordered a Black banker represented in the criminal proceedings before her by the law offices of Cleveland NAACP President George Forbes to apologize to the arresting police officer or face trial. (go to www.Cleveland.com. to read Plain Dealer Reporter Robert Smith's article on the matter and blog comments).
Jason Ruiz, 27, must appear before Keough today to apologize to a White Cleveland police officer that he and his friends said mistreated him after they, unlike their White counterparts, where kicked out of a West Sixth St. bar at closing.
Ruiz attorney Helen Forbes, a daughter of Cleveland NAACP President George Forbes, also general counsel for the Cleveland Call and Post Newspaper, reportedly said that the racial issue had now been inflamed into a larger one by Keough and others.
A debonair intern banker, who is a recent graduate of Morehouse College, the nation's most prestigious all male and predominantly Black institution of higher learning, Ruiz was arrested Aug. 21 by the officer in question and spent the weekend in jail.
In conjunction with the case Forbes, NAACP Executive Director Stanley Miller, Cleveland City Councilmen Jeff Johnson and Zack Reed, and a few other Black leaders, held a press conference and billed the incident, and others in the Warehouse District, as racist. That angered the police officer at issue and he demanded an apology from Ruiz as a condition of the plea deal, one that prosecutors took off the table as not usually, if ever, required, particularly given the fragile relationship between police and the Black community.
On Monday the parties, with Keough's approval, had settled misdemeanor charges of criminal trespass and resisting arrest that followed the dispute, a dispute that the Cleveland NAACP said was indicative of a racially hostile climate in the Warehouse District, particularly for young successful Black men . That plea deal, which had no requirement for an apology, called for six months successful probation and the dropping of the charges thereafter.
By law, prosecutors for the city , and not police or crime victims, agree to plea deals handed to judges for approval. But rarely does a judge , absent gross illegality, snatch it back days later, only to embarrass the NAACP, the nation's most respected Civil Rights organization, and to ingratiate herself with police.
Endorsed by the Cleveland Patrolman's Police Association and other law enforcement unions for her recent win for a seat on the Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals that commences next year, Keough did just that. And she is taking heat in response.
Keough, whose integrity as a judge has come under question by grassroots factions because she is arbitrarily taking criminal cases and targeting Blacks and women for malicious prosecutions, is criticized on the Cleveland Plain Dealer Newspaper's online blog at Cleveland.Com in response to Smith's article this week around her switch that Ruiz must apologize to police.
"This is politically motivated by the judge and I hope he sticks to his beliefs," wrote one blogger on Cleveland.com in urging Ruiz to ditch an apology and take the case to trial. "To apologize I say HELL NO! This is some crap set up by the PD and the judge proves she isn't fit by falling for this crap," wrote another.
Other bloggers said that Keough's courtroom has been plagued with impropriety for years and that her demand for an apology is unconstitutional.
"A person may not be coerced to incriminate themselves as a condition for a plea bargain," and "you're assuming that the Constitution applies in Keough's court," bloggers said.
Whether Keough's back tracking on a closed plea deal will be challenged by Helen Forbes in the Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals via the filing of a petition for a writ of prohibition remains clear since she told Keough and prosecutors last week that Ruiz would appear today to apologize.
A copy surveillance video of the incident is being requested from Cleveland Safety Director Robert Flask for review by the grassroots community and others.
Keough's slap in the face to Forbes came after he had endorsed her, as did Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, for her recent appellate court win, though the duo would not endorse any of the Black women seeking judgeship's and all three lost in the May Democratic Primary.
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