Blacks still being denied felony jury trials in Cleveland's Cuyahoga County as common pleas judges, led by Chief Judge Brendan Sheehan, try to coerce plea deals or guilty pleas for County Prosecutor Mike O'Malley's office while unconstitutionally denying people such right to a jury trial and using the coronavirus pandemic as an excuse.... And some Blacks and others remain in jail awaiting a jury trial as the coronavirus plagues the county jail where more than 10 inmates have died in the past three years, at least one of them murdered.... Community activists continue to demand that Judge Sheehan resign from the bench....By Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's Black digital news leaders
Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Presiding and Administrative Judge Brendan Sheehan
By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor-in-chief
CLEVELAND, Ohio - Led by presiding and administrative Judge Brendan Sheehan (pictured), the 34 largely White judges of the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas general division bench in Cleveland, Ohio are attempting to coerce defendants into taking plea deals or pleading guilty by denying them their statutory and constitutional right to a jury trial, even though the judges, who hear the felony cases at issue, have no authority whatsoever to vote to deny people jury trials, or speedy trials for that matter.
The judges, only three of them Black, have arbitrarily voted three times since the pandemic hit last year to postpone jury trials, using the coronavirus pandemic as an excuse, and have not cited a single authority in justification of such vote.
Research reveals that the Rules of Criminal Procedure, the Rules of Superintendence, and local common pleas rules do not give the judges any authority whatsoever to vote to stop holding jury trials and neither does any case law or state or federal law
The last extension of their illegal moratorium on jury trials was on Jan 19, the new date upon which the trials might resume set for March 1.
Community activists remain upset over the issue, and say it is illegal, and unconstitutional, if not racist.
Bench trials are not affected, and Judge Sheehan told Cleveland.com for an article published Jan 19 that he urges people to take plea deals or other legal measures to resolve cases while he and his judicial colleagues continue to use the denial of jury trial as an intimation tactic.
The right to a speedy trial in Ohio, unless waived by a defendant in writing, is a constitutional right under the 6th Amendment of the U.S. constitution, and a statutory right under state law.
In the absence of a speedy trial dismissal of the case with prejudice is a proper recourse.
And since Blacks are disproportionately impacted by the common pleas court's racist no-jury-trial policy, it raises the question of whether such obvious abuse of discretion and arrogance by the judges violates the equal protection clause of the 14 Amendment since Blacks are members of a protected class.
Meanwhile, Cuyahoga County Jail inmates who cannot afford to post bail and who refuse to agree to a bench trial and want a jury trial instead remain locked down in the Cuyahoga County Jail where at least 15 percent pf the inmates have been infected with the coronavirus, a jail where some 10 inmates have died in the last three years, at least one of them murdered.
In November 2018, U.S. Marshals issued a report deeming the county jail unconstitutional and inhumane. setting the stage for a host of indictments against administrative jail personnel, including the former jail warden and jail director.
Former Chief County Public Defender Mark Stanton, a former criminal defense attorney who regularly represented the Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association and cops prosecuted for alleged wrongdoing on the job against Black people, including excessive force killings by White Cleveland police officers, supported the denial of a timely jury trial to defendants.
His successor, Cullen Sweeney, is backing the no-jury-trial initiative too
Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Mike O'Malley is also in on it too, data show, as he and his largely White assistant county prosecutors are getting an avalanche of guilty pleas that they would not ordinarily get if the threat of a jury trial were looming
Some Cleveland activists are calling foul while the Cleveland NAACP says nothing on the issue.
Activists want Judge Sheehan to step down as presiding and administrative judge over the court, Sheehan selected as the court's chief judge by his judicial peers on the court.
"Activists call for Chief Common Pleas Judge Brendan Sheehan to step down for misusing his role in this instance," said activist Alfred Porter Jr., president of Black on Black Crime Inc.
Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish once called in the National Guard regarding the COVID-19 problem in the jails but has said he cannot let the inmates out who are being held illegally and denied a speedy trial and a jury trial.
Some 323,000 people in America have died from the deadly virus since it hit with a vengeance in early March, the U.S. leading all countries worldwide in the number of confirmed cases and deaths.
The virus for which there is finally a vaccine has spread to all 50 states and Washington, D.C., worldwide figures showing that there are 106 million cases globally, and roughly 2.3 million deaths.
Ohio has reported some 922,000 cases and 11,695 deaths with Cuyahoga County, the state's second largest county, accounting for 91, 318 of those cases, and 1, 226 deaths.
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. 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.
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