Black Cleveland activists say the city of Cleveland's prosecution of former Judge Pinkey Carr is selective and racist and demand that corrupt White judges are prosecuted.... By Clevelandurbannews.com, Ohio's Black digital news leader
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Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com
By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor-in chief.....Investigative article below
CLEVELAND, Ohio — Black Cleveland activists are calling out the city of Cleveland for bringing misdemeanor falsification charges against former Cleveland Judge Pinkey Carr, whom the Ohio Supreme court disbarred and removed from the bench last year, and leaving corrupt White judges alone
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"it is symptomatic of the prejudice we routinely see against Blacks in our courts, whether the people they are after are politicians or ordinary people." said activist Alfred Porter Jr of Black on Black Crime Inc and the Black Man's Army .
Porter said that activists want White crooked judges prosecuted too, or the charges against Carr dropped.
Porter added that "we do not intend to permit a double standard in Cleveland where Black judges are prosecuted and crooked White judges are allowed to continue to do as they please to the detriment of Black people."
Community activists want the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Marshals to investigate the municipal and common pleas courts of Cuyahoga County, courts they say "are as a whole plagued with systemic racism and sexism, and public corruption."
The Ohio Supreme Court decided 5-2 last year to indefinitely suspend Carr's law license of Carr, a serious action undertaken by the state's majority White and largely Republican high court that operated to immediately remove the Black judge from the largely Black 13-member municipal court bench.
On the bench since 2012 before her suspension, Carr, a former assistant Cuyahoga County prosecutor who led the prosecution as to the convictions of the late serial killer Anthony Sowell, who strangled and murdered 11 Black women at his home on Imperial Avenue in Cleveland on the city's east side and later died on death row, can apply to the court for reinstatement of her law license in two years. Her attorney had requested progressive discipline that would have permitted Carr to stay on the bench and told the court that her client began having issues only in the past two years and that she accepted responsibility for her behavior.
Sources also say that the decision to remove Carr from the bench was "racist and sexist, and politically motivated."
Similarly situated White and male judges, data show , were not treated as harshly by the office of disciplinary counsel for the Supreme Court, which recommended a two year suspension rather than an indefinite suspension. Few of the white judges who get in trouble are later prosecuted, research shows.
Carr is accused by the city of Cleveland of alleged falsification crimes, all misdemeanors, relative to three cases that form in part the basis for her suspension from the bench, though her supporters say racism is the impetus overall for the action..
In at least one case she is accused of dismissing the case without the signature of the prosecutor, something she denies Her arraignment in the falsification case is Aug 8.
In getting disbarred, Carr was accused of violating the ethical and other provisions of the Judicial Code of Conduct and the Ohio Lawyer's Professional Code of Responsibility. In its 5-2 decision to strip Carr of her judgeship and law license, Republican Justices O'Connor and Fischer, and Justice Brunner, though a Democrat, voted to suspend her indefinitely as did the two stand-in judges for Democrats Johnb Donnelly and Melody Stewart, both former Cuyahoga County judges who recused themselves from the case for that reason, they claim.
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Justices DeWine and Kennedy, now the chief justice of the court, dissented with Kennedy writing in her dissent that it was unfair to suspend Carr indefinitely based on the data before the court, and particularly since the office of disciplinary counsel for the court only recommended a two year suspension of her law license.
It is the second time the state's high court has suspended a Cleveland judge from the bench since the removal in 2014 of former judge Angela Stokes, a daughter of the late 11th congressional district congressman Louis Stokes and a niece of former Cleveland mayor Carl B Stokes, a late Black mayor and a former Cleveland municipal court judge himself. But Angela Stokes, who is older than Carr, was allowed to continue practicing law, and to draw upon her retirement where applicable, and she was not prosecuted by the city of Cleveland.
Carr stood accused in several complaints before the bar in past years of issuing illegal capias warrants, which is routine for municipal and county judges, dismissing cases without the approval of city prosecutors, carrying on court when Cleveland Administrative and Presiding Judge Michelle Earley thought she had closed court due to the pandemic, and of mistreating and being rude to defendants and attorneys who came before her. Still, say her supporters, and on condition of anonymity, "she did what White and other judges traditionally do and her biggest problem was being strong, Black and female, and angering White men in power." Others say Carr's style was harsh at times and that she was abrasive and sometimes had a prosecutorial demeanor, and that O'Connor, the court's second female chief justice, is fed up with out-of-control judges.
The job of judge, whether a municipal or common pleas judge of Cuyahoga County, is no easy task as judges must juggle crowded case dockets, limited resources, unruly defendants who will literally curse you out, as well as anxious and sometimes arrogant criminal defense attorneys. Some of the judges are corrupt and unfair, data show, two of them formerly on the general division common pleas bench imprisoned and kicked off the bench via an ongoing county public corruption probe.
Carr had drawn the ire of Cleveland's mainstream media, which is routine when complaints are leveled against Black judges by prominent White men This time those of prominence who lodged complaints against her include then Chief Cuyahoga County Public Defender Mark Stanton, who has since retired, and well-known criminal defense attorney Ian Friedman, the former president of the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association.
White male judges brought up on disciplinary charges like Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Daniel Gaul, a judge who regularly hands Blacks excessive sentences, breaks the rues and often loses on appeal for murder convictions of Blacks that occur following suspect activity at trial in his courtroom, get off easy they are rarely even disciplined research shows.
A since removed Bedford Municipal Court judge, convicted Harry Jacob, who allegedly pimped women in his court, ran an outright brothel, and falsified court dockets and documents, and even after criminal convictions of crimes in office, still has his law license, compliments of the Ohio Supreme Court. Moreover, an investigation by Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com also reveals that Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge John O'Donnell has stolen homes for JPMorgan Chase Bank from Blacks in illegal foreclosure cases before him coupled with using his power and influence to have Blacks who complained maliciously prosecuted and stalked by police at their homes and otherwise, police routinely breaking into their homes and stealing personal property include high- priced cars.
A Democrat and three time loser as to three unsuccessful bids for a Supreme Court seat O'Donnell, however, like Gaul, remains free of any discipline from the state's highest court. And there are so many more White judges, both men and women alike, who do as they please in Ohio without consequences, and to the detriment of so many innocent and poor Black people, and others.
Municipal court judges in Ohio handle cases bound over to the common pleas court for possible felony indictments and cases involving traffic, non-traffic misdemeanors, evictions and small civil claims (in which the amount in controversy does not exceed $15,000.).
Cleveland is a largely Black major American city of some 372,000 people and a Democratic stronghold It is the largest city in Cuyahoga County, a 29 percent Black county, and also a Democratic stronghold.
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com the most read Black digital newspaper and blog 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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