East Cleveland serial killer's trial delayed until January over Prosecutor McGinty's objection, McGinty accused of getting the Cleveland Plain Dealer to do a negative article on Judge McDonnell, who refused his request for a trial this month, McDonnell had double lung transplant surgery in 2009 at the Cleveland Clinic

Suspected serial killer Michael Madison

 From left: Angela Deskins, Shirellda Terry and Shetisha Sheeley, the alleged victims of suspected serial killer Michael Madison 

By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Cleveland Urban News.Com Blog, Ohio's Most Read Online Black Newspaper and Newspaper Blog, Tel: (216) 659-0473 Kathy Wray Coleman is  a community activist and 21-year investigative journalist who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio.  (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)

Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty

CLEVELAND, Ohio-Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Nancy McDonnell last week set the trial date of accused serial killer Michael Madison for January 12, 2015, and over the objection of County Prosecutor Tim McGinty, who angrily told the judge that prosecutors were ready to go forward this month.

The lawyers for Madison told McDonnell, a former presiding and administrative judge of the 34-member Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas, a general division court, that they had other trials planned and needed to prepare over the upcoming holidays.

McDonnell had double lung transplant surgery at the Cleveland Clinic in 2009.

Research reveals that patients begin experiencing problems after three to five years, and the average life span of a lung transplant recipient is roughly seven years, with a fourth of them sometimes surviving for 10 years or more.

Still, McGinty was livid, and allegedly got the Plain Dealer, Ohio's largest Newspaper, to do a negative article on McDonnell and a Black Cleveland Municipal Court judge.

Both have been out ill with pay at one time or another, and for long periods of time over three months, along with Shaker Heights Municipal Judge K.J. Montgomery, though all three are currently on the job now, and the Plain Dealer never cared before.

State law requires that Ohio judges are suspended from the bench if they have a physical or mental disability that precludes then from performing duties, and a permanent disability mandates their removal from the bench, something the Plain Dealer article at issue on McDonnell, and the Black judge does not mention. Neither does the article, which was published on Oct 30 on the Plain  Dealer's website of Cleveland.Com,  mention that Montgomery was absent from work off and on for nearly a year.

Cuyahoga County
 Court of Common Pleas
Judge Nancy McDonnell

Madison, is accused of killing Shirellda Terry, 18, Angela Deskins, 38, and Shetisha Sheeley, 28 at the time. All three were Black, and so is Madison.

Terry's body was found in a garage leased to  Madison on July 19, 2013 at the intersection of Shaw and Hayden Avenues in East Cleveland, a neighboring largely Black impoverished suburb of Cleveland, and the remains of  Deskins and Sheeley were uncovered the following day in the same vicinity, one in a nearby vacant house and the other in the backyard.

All three bodies were found wrapped in plastic bags.

Madison, 36, is in custody on a $6 million bond He has pleaded not guilty and faces the death penalty.

McGinty, a Democrat and county prosecutor since 2012, has made violence against women his baby, and has pushed several cases through the courts rather quickly, including the rape and kidnapping case of Ariel Castro, whom he got to trial
in less that a month where Castro pleaded guilty and agreed to a  life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Ariel Castro, 53,  at sentencing on August 1, 2013 at the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas at the Justice Center in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. Next to him is one of Castro's court appointed attorney's, though demolition crews found $22,000 when his home on the city's west side was demolished about a week after sentencing. Castro was found dead in his prison cell in September of last year,  just over a month into his sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.   

Castro, who was Hispanic, held Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight captive for nearly a decade at his since demolished home on Cleveland's largely White west side. 

DeJesus is Hispanic and Knight and Berry are White.

From left, Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight

A former Cleveland schools bus driver who got fired from that job, Castro hanged  himself in prison last year, just over a month into his life sentence



While violence against women may seem to be a priority of McGinty, who is White, police brutality is obviously not as paramount. McGinty lobbied earlier this year before a county grand jury in support of 12 non- Black police officers that were not indicted on criminal charges after gunning down unarmed Blacks Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell following a high speed car chase on November 29, 2012 that began in downtown Cleveland and ended in a middle school parking lot in East Cleveland.

Cleveland Patrolman Michael Brelo

Michael Brelo, one of the 13 cops that did the shooting, replete with 137 shots, faces two counts of voluntary manslaughter for firing 49 shots into the car driven by Russell.

 Brelo has pleaded not guilty and awaits trial.

  (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)