Cleveland NAACP, activists to host community hearing today on Cuyahoga County Jail following 7 recent jail deaths, an FBI investigation, and a finding by U.S. Marshals of unconstitutional jail violations, including inadequate health care, withholding food from inmates for punishment, juveniles housed with adults, pregnant women housed on the floor, harassment of inmates by management and jail staff, and roach and rat infested jail facilities....Cleveland Judge Michael Nelson Sr, who made national news for refusing to send low level offenders to the jail due to the deaths, will be in attendance, his personal bailiff told Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog with some 5 million views on Google Plus alone.Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, and who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.

By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor

CLEVELANDURBANNEWS.COM-CLEVELAND, Ohio-The Cleveland Chapter NAACP, in cooperation with area community activist groups, will host a community hearing on the Cuyahoga County Jail on Thursday Dec. 6 from 6 pm-8pm  at Mount Sinai Baptist Church on Cleveland's  largely Black east side.

The overcrowded county jail last year merged with the Cleveland jail, which paid the county $5.6 million during the transition and merger period and is now paying the per diem rate.
Cleveland Judge Michael Nelson Sr. 

Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Michael Nelson Sr., the former Cleveland NAACP president  and criminal defense attorney who is refusing to send low level offenders to the jail until things are straightened out, will be in attendance, his personal bailiff told Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com.

"I do not know that he will speak but Judge Nelson will be there," said David Fann, Nelson's bailiff.

Last week Chief Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge John Russo, via a letter to his judicial colleges, urged the other 33 judges on the general division bench to clear their dockets of people they have illegally jailed, a demand or gesture in response to an ongoing FBI investigation over seven county jail deaths in the last six months, inhumane and unconstitutional jail conditions, and an impending lawsuit seeking a federal takeover of the jail.

The city of Cleveland is currently under a court monitored consent decree for police reforms with the U.S. Department of Justice over its police department and questionable killings by police of Black people, including 12-year-old Tamir Rice, Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell, who were gunned down by police shooting 137 bullets in 2012, Tanisha Anderson, rapper Kenneth Smith, and  Brandon Jones, whose family reached a million dollar settlement with the city last week.

What role the federal government will play, other than the federal court  itself, in any oversight of the jail, is not clear.

Community activists have been picketing the county jail over its conditions.

They want both jail and court reforms via consent decrees with the federal government that are monitored by a federal judge.

A damning report released last month by U.S. Marshals on county jail conditions generated local and national news, a dreadful look at how inmates are mistreated such as withholding food for punishment, jailing juveniles with adults, rat and roach infested jail facilities, and a paramilitary jail corrections officers unit dubbed "The Men in Black" that intimidate and harass inmates.

Pregnant women are jailed on the floor, heath care is inadequate, and the jail is one of the worst nationwide, data show.  This is coupled with malicious prosecutions, excessive bonds and heightened criminal sentences that disproportionately target the Black community.

Indictment fixing by prosecutors, judges and the office of the county clerk of courts is routine, public records reveal.

Data show that Blacks in particular, and others, are often jailed illegally, sometimes to appease the prosecution, other times for political favors, and generally to perpetrate a money enterprise that centers around resources the county gets for jailing people.

Those fiscal jail resources, which further greed and public corruption, investigators have said, include a per diem rate to the county for each inmate, a jail shopping store that delivers food and other goods weekly to inmates, and expensive phone calls simply for inmates to talk locally to family members, and sometimes even to their lawyers.

According to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, Ohio incarcerates roughly 50,440 people at an average cost of $67.84 per inmate per day. 

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog with some 5 million views on Google Plus alone.Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, and who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Former WOIO 19 Action News Anchor in Cleveland Sharon Reed lands new anchor job, her lawyer says rumors about LeBron James fathering her baby are false, had threatened to sue on her behalf, Reed is famous for posing nude for Spenser Tunick's nude group photo shoot

Corrupt and racist University Heights Mayor Susan Infeld is booted from office by voters following claims of spending irregularities of taxpayers money, racism against Black residents, police abuse of Blacks as city safety director, and of running a theft ring of county residents homes via illegal foreclosure activity led by JPMorgan Chase Bank.....University Heights is a Cleveland suburb....Others involved in the theft ring or retaliation against homeowners who complain include corrupt common pleas judges such as Judges John O'Donnell and Carolyn Friedland, Chief County Foreclosure Magistrate and University Heights Resident Stephen Bucha, and his wife, an attorney with the law firm of Lerner Sampson and Rothfuss, who represents corrupt mortgage companies and banks, including JP Morgan Chase Bank... Others involved include racist and corrupt University Hts Police Sgt Dale Orians, former county prosecutor Bill Mason, who is a partner with Bricker and Eckler, which represents JPMorgan Chase Bank, and current County Prosecutor Mike O'Malley, who was Mason's deputy....Drunken Shaker Heights Judge KJ Montgomery, who also hears criminal cases for University Hts, has Blacks illegally prosecuted who complain of the theft of their homes, as does O'Malley..... Judge Montgomery is top in issuing excessive and illegal warrants against the Black community....All of the aforementioned are corrupt and activists want them indicted and prosecuted....This is Part 1 of a multi-part series on Cuyahoga County public corruption by Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog with some 5 million views on Google Plus alone.Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com

Chief and unfair Cuyahoga County Judge John Russo loses authority-Part 2 of a multi-part series on Cuyahoga County public corruption: New Ohio law on seeking possible removal of a municipal court judge in a case for bias or conflict via the filing of an affidavit of prejudice takes authority to decide from chief Cuyahoga County Presiding Judge John Russo, other chief common pleas judges in Ohio, and hands it to the chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, who also determines affidavits of prejudice filed against common pleas, probate, juvenile, domestic relations, and state appellate court judges....Most affidavits of prejudice are denied regardless of the merits and some judges complained of will retaliate, data show... Community activists, led by Cleveland activist Kathy Wray Coleman of the Imperial Women Coalition, lobbied the Cleveland NAACP for support and asked state legislators via state Rep Bill Patmon (D-10) of Cleveland to change the law but wanted a panel of judges and others to decide when a judge in Ohio is disqualified from hearing a case for bias or conflict....Coleman says she has since been further harassed by Chief Cuyahoga County Judge John Russo, who is White and leads a racist and sexist common pleas court fueled with corruption, malicious prosecutions, excessive criminal bonds, ineffective assistance of counsel to poor and Black defendants, and the mass incarceration of the Black community....By www.clevelandurbannews.com and www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read digital Black newspapers....This is part 2 of a multi-part series on Cuyahoga County public corruption