Doubts still linger about a 27-year-old murder that led to an execution.

Buell was summarily arrested and eventually linked to a spree of abductions and rapes. He stood trial for only one murder, Krista’s, was found guilty and was executed in 2002. Though he admitted to the rapes, he continued to deny to the end that he had killed anyone.

In 2007, a minister Buell spoke with frequently while in prison gave me a box of his possessions and handwritten notes. Inside was evidence that implicates Ralph Ross Jr., Buell’s nephew, in Krista’s homicide (”The Serial Killer’s Disciple,” Cleveland Free Times, September 2007, freetimes.com/stories/15/21/the-serial-killers-disciple).

Ross, not Buell, was living in Buell’s home at the time of Krista’s abduction. The day Krista’s body was dumped, Ross took off work and appeared later that night with a bandaged arm. At the time, he was driving a van that was nearly identical to Buell’s. Ross had helped his uncle install the new van seats, and it had been Ross’s job to put the plastic in the garbage. A week after Krista’s body was found, Ross abruptly quit his job in Akron and moved back in with his parents in Mingo Junction. When a detective questioned him about his uncle in 1983, Ross refused a request for his fingerprints.

When Buell went to trial for Krista’s murder, Ross was the first witness called by the Wayne County prosecutor and he gave the most damaging testimony; his uncle, he said, had often talked about abducting girls. But assistant prosecutor Martin Frantz never told the jury about what had come up during Ross’ earlier testimony in front of the grand jury.

[…]

Records kept on microfilm in the basement of the county’s record room reference a single fingerprint found on the plastic that had been used to wrap Krista’s body. That fingerprint did not match Bob Buell’s.

[…]

The detectives who worked the case are no longer certain they got the right man.

[…]

While combing through the few reports still housed in Stark County, I discovered an unsettling connection to another murder. Herb Sefert, the man who found Tina’s body on that oil-well drive, worked at a butcher shop in Canton, next to a man named Don Maurer. Maurer confessed to police to the 1982 abduction and murder of seven-year-old Dawn Hendershot, whose body he had dumped on an oil-well drive. Tina’s body was found near property owned by the Seferts.

Apparently no one made that connection during the investigation of Tina’s murder. Whether it’s a weird coincidence or circumstantial evidence, the only thing it really proves is that there’s more work to be done in Tina’s case. It’s up to the Wayne County prosecutor to ensure that justice has been served.

A small group of ministers hostile to Cleveland’s new domestic partner registry aim to revoke the important gesture toward equal treatment.

This effort, headed by the Rev. C. Jay Matthews of Mt. Sinai Baptist Church, would force a vote aimed at repealing Cleveland City Council’s creation of a registry for same-sex and opposite-sex couples.

The registry — the third in Ohio and the 77th nationwide — merely provides these couples with the documentation they sometimes need to steer through public and private bureaucracies. It harms or offends no one of reason. It doesn’t conflict with Ohio’s same-sex marriage ban approved by voters in 2004. Upholding the legality of a similar registry in Cleveland Heights, former Judge Robert Glickman wrote that the registry “is tantamount to the city declaring a city bird or flower.”

Respecting diversity often leads to economic empowerment and new opportunities.

Cleveland’s future rests on its ability to retain what’s left of its declining population and attract new residents. By campaigning to eliminate the opportunity for gay, lesbian or unmarried couples to register their partnership status with the city of Cleveland, Rev. Matthews is not helping his community or Cleveland slow its economic free fall into a perilous abyss. He’s keeping Cleveland hopelessly positioned in the past by sending the wrong message about our city to the rest of the world - a world where gays have been quietly improving the quality of life of their neighborhoods and bolstering the local government tax rolls.

[…]

But perhaps Rev. Matthews and I can have a moral conversation about the economic realities facing his community and Cleveland. Perhaps we can agree that Cleveland remains one of America’s poorest cities with dwindling resources, high crime, poor education and few tools to rebuild. Perhaps he’ll keep an open mind about how same-sex (and unmarried) couples can improve our city, whether he, or his God, agrees with “that lifestyle.”

[…]

For Clevelanders weary of following trendy coastal cities, they can look to Detroit, which is working to become a “mecca for gay living,” hosting tours of five of its neighborhoods for gay couples. Columbus’ successful Short North neighborhood is another example of how the gay community can help a city’s economic expansion. I commend Mayor Frank Jackson for supporting Cleveland’s bid to host the Gay Games, potentially bringing millions of dollars to the city, and ultimately benefiting Rev. Matthews’ community.

Lima Police Department still has changes to make and questions to answer about lethal force policy.

Today marks a year since Lima police Sgt. Joe Chavalia shot and killed [Tarika] Wilson, 26, in her home as police conducted a drug raid against her boyfriend, Anthony Terry.

[…]

To its credit, the city put together community stakeholder meetings and a committee to oversee changes the Police Department should make.

[…]

But, outside of looking at chemicals to neutralize dogs, which would reduce the factor that led to Wilson’s death, none of the changes address the problems that happened Jan. 4, 2008.

[…]

What is the Lima Police Department doing to ensure it better knows the occupants of the homes it is raiding? How does the department intend to better protect the innocent when it is conducting a raid?

Such questions won’t be answered until [Lima Police Chief Greg Garlock] is willing to address publicly what changes, if any, his department has made in its SWAT team policy.

Studies show abstinence-only programs ineffective; wasting taxpayer dollars.

As President-Elect, Barack Obama, and his economic team begin a line-by-line review of the federal budget in their search for spending cuts, they can start with the $176 million spent annually on sexual abstinence-only programs aimed at teenagers.

[…]

The [Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health] study confirms that teens who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are just as likely to engage in premarital sex as those who don’t take the pledge. The difference between the two groups is that the pledgers are 10 percent less likely to use condoms or other forms of birth control during sex. Because of this, pledgers also are less likely to protect themselves or their partners from sexually transmitted diseases.

A response to Cuyahoga County’s deplorable medical conditions from ACLU of Ohio Communications Director Mike Brickner.

Sean Levert’s death in the Cuyahoga County Jail is heartbreaking and the factors that caused him to pass away while incarcerated are outrageous. The county should absolutely be taken to task for not having better policies and procedures implemented to prevent this type of tragedy. However, for anyone who has been in a Cuyahoga County prison or jail or knows someone who has, the revelation that people do not receive adequate health care and live in deplorable, overcrowded conditions is not earth shattering. The simple fact is that many people are leaving these facilities more ill than when they arrived.

[…]

The death of Sean Levert is a wake up call to local leaders that something must be done about the conditions in our detention centers. Officials in jails and prisons must immediately implement thorough reforms to their policies and procedures on how to treat people with mental or physical illness. They must also recommit to ensuring that all those they are entrusted to care for receive proper medical attention in a timely manner.

Finally, our state and local leaders must take increased action to alleviate prison overcrowding. While the passage of House Bill 130 is a tremendous step in the right direction, the problem requires extensive, aggressive reform to change course from the failed policies of the past. It is up to all of us to continue to press our state legislators to initiate reform to lessen the burden on our overextended prison system. Without progress on reducing the prison population, other solutions will only serve as short-term bandages for the true problem. And we have all seen that tragedy awaits when we do not treat the root problem immediately.

3 administrators in the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, including former director Helen Jones-Kelley, leave over concerns with the way they handled confidential information.

Helen Jones-Kelley, director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, resigned last night near the end of a monthlong, unpaid suspension for mining state computers for confidential information on “Joe the Plumber.”

[…]

The administration fired Doug Thompson, deputy director of child support. Fred Williams, assistant agency director, resigned effective Jan. 31.

The action came soon after the Republican-controlled General Assembly approved a measure cracking down on state workers who improperly conduct checks involving Ohioans’ personal information.

[…]

Inspector General Thomas P. Charles found that the database checks that Jones-Kelley approved on Toledo-area resident Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher were for no legitimate government purpose.

[…]

Charles found that Williams and Thompson participated in Jones-Kelley’s authorization of the checks and that Thompson directed an employee to lie about the checks. That staff member reported the incident to Charles.

In response to Charles’ report, Strickland suspended Jones-Kelley for a month without pay from her $141,980-a-year- job. Thompson also was suspended without pay for a month. Williams was suspended for a week without pay.

Jones-Kelley and Thompson had been scheduled to return to their jobs Monday. Williams recently returned to work after his suspension.

An Ohio judge who is promoting religious beliefs in a courtroom, needs to recognize his position as a government official.

Individually, Judge DeWeese, as every citizen, should and does have full First Amendment rights. As such he is entitled to express and practice his political and religious viewpoints at home, his church and in the public square, subject of course to constraints placed on him by the Code of Judicial Conduct.

What he has failed to recognize is that he is an elected official of one of the branches of government. The courtroom he temporarily occupies is in a government building owned by the people. He is not the owner.

[…]

I have no problem with Judge DeWeese believing and espousing individually whatever he likes. What is inappropriate and wrong is that he uses the people’s courtroom and his government position to promote his own personal religious agenda.

The U.S. Supreme Court will soon determine the fate of Ali Saleh Khalah al-Marri, a legal U.S. resident who has been held without charge for five years in a Navy brig.

Even if al-Marri is, as the administration alleges, an al-Qaida-trained operaative sent to the U.S. to disrupt the financial system, the president’s approach should be deeply troubling to Americans concerned about unchecked government power. The question at the heart of the case: Does the president have the power to imprison legal American residents indefinitely without filing any charges against them?

The Bush administration tells us we are at war, and only a handful of residents have been subjected to such treatment. But anyone concerned about liberty can see the problem. The only standard for detention is the government’s belief that one is an enemy of the nation. A person can be imprisoned, denied contact with family members and even tortured. There’s no due process, no chance to have a day in court to state one’s case. This is chilling. A government with such powers could round up its critics with impunity. Which is why it is crucial that the Supreme Court deny the government the power to do such things and to demand al-Marri be charged with whatever crimes he is suspected of committing and tried in a court of law, or released.

Public records requests apply to deleted emails that are recoverable, Ohio Supreme Court rules.

In a unanimous ruling, justices ordered commissioners in Seneca County to scour their computer hard drives for e-mail messages requested by a Toledo newspaper last year that had been deleted.

The decision was a rare legal victory for public-records advocates in Ohio.

[…]

In its ruling yesterday, the Supreme Court said e-mail messages dealing with government business are public records regardless of whether they come from a public or private account.

The court also said deleting messages doesn’t automatically take them out of the public realm, as long as they can be retrieved. The Seneca County board of commissioners didn’t say that the messages couldn’t be recovered.

[…]

“A government cannot evade accountability and scrutiny by deleting e-mails and then claiming that they cannot be recovered and produced for inspection,” [Fritz Byers, attorney for the newspaper] said.

Cleveland City Council passes a domestic partner registry.

Cleveland City Council voted Monday to create a domestic partner registry for same- and opposite-sex couples, ending weeks of emotional, behind-the-scenes lobbying on both sides of the controversial issue.

The registry, though nonbinding, could prompt employers, hospitals and other organizations to grant privileges typically reserved for married couples, advocates say. The registry also is a revenue booster and a symbolic gesture that Cleveland is gay-friendly.

[…]

The legislation next heads to Mayor Frank Jackson, who plans to sign the registry into law, a spokeswoman said late Monday. The registry will take effect 120 days after the mayor signs.

[…]

Councilman Joe Cimperman, who sponsored the legislation, said couples likely will have to pay $55 to register and declare that they are in a committed relationship and “share responsibility for each other’s common welfare.”

The couples would not have to live in Cleveland.

Bowling Green State University’s Organization for Women’s Issues asks Undergraduate Student Government to support effort to make birth control affordable for college women.

The contraceptive became more expensive after a bill Congress passed three years ago affecting college women across the country. And since then, many women have struggled to pay the steeper prices in order to have birth control pills,” [Krista Corwin, president of BGSU Organization for Women’s Issues] said.

“Birth control pills used to cost around $18 a month, but now they are more around the $50 - $60 price range here at the University and over time that equals the cost of textbooks,” she said.

[…]

“I have heard so many stories from women who are having a hard time affording birth control,” she said. “I even spoke to a woman who said she was paying around $130 a month for birth control.”

[…]

“Most insurance companies see birth control as a luxury item, but for most women it is a necessity-not a luxury,” she said.

Cleveland Council will soon vote on a domestic partner registry.

By approving a registry that will give both same-sex and opposite-sex couples documentation they can use to navigate public and private bureaucracies, Cleveland can declare that tolerance and openness are qualities that define this community. Given the importance of creativity in the modern knowledge economy, such a welcoming message has never been more important for a city and a region.

A registry is not — no matter what some critics may say — a circuitous way to enact civil unions; it is certainly not a de facto form of same-sex marriage. It is a recognition that couples — heterosexual and homosexual alike — have complex relationships that on a human level deserve acknowledgement and on a legal one may require some type of proof in order to receive benefits or even hospital visitation privileges.

A privacy bill is being discussed by the Ohio legislature.

[Vanessa Niekamp’s, a whistle-blower at the Department of Job and Family Services]  experience was plenty persuasive, especially recounting how the department’s deputy director, Doug Thompson, stood over her shoulder and dictated a phony e-mail for her to write in a clumsy effort to explain the search.

The bill did receive strong and direct backing from others, among them Rachel Hutzel, the Warren County prosecutor, and Carrie Davis of the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio. Both supported the idea of setting careful standards for searches of government databases, and tough punishment for violators. Many bills moving in the lame-duck session are lame. This one isn’t one of them.

[…]

The legislation deserves passage with protections for whistleblowers such as Vanessa Niekamp.

Cleveland is in the final stages of creating a domestic partner registry, after it passes out of council committee and is up for a full council vote on Monday.  Cleveland City Council also will likely pass a bill to include gender identity as a class of people protected from discrimination.

Mayor Frank Jackson is expected to sign both the registry and the measure to add gender identity to the city’s equal rights ordinances, said his spokesperson Maureen Harper. The equality ordinances have included “sexual orientation” since 1994.

Sixty-five people squeezed into council’s 44-seat hearing room for the committee session on both measures. Most wore rainbow stickers supporting them.

[…]

The proposal would allow unmarried couples over the age of 18, same-sex or opposite sex, to register their partnership with the city. It would be open to both residents and non-residents of Cleveland.

The registry confers no rights or benefits. However, registration will allow couples to access benefits offered by insurance companies, employers and health care providers.

There were 29 witnesses speaking for the registry, including clergy, attorneys, activists and Cleveland Heights officials.

Voters approved the Cleveland Heights registry in 2003. The Cleveland proposal, like the Toledo registry created in 2007, are modeled after it.

[…]

[ The Very Rev. Tracey Lind, Trinity Cathedral’s dean] presented members with a letter of support for the registry from the interfaith clergy organization We Believe Ohio. The message also called for adding “gender identity” to the equal rights ordinances and backed the Equal Housing and Employment Act currently in the Ohio legislature. The letter was signed by ten religious leaders, including Lind, Rev. Allen Harris of Franklin Circle Church and Rabbi Stephen Weiss of B’nai Jeshurun Congregation, who also testified.

[…]

“Small institutions might not want to open the can of worms of trying to figure out who qualifies as a family member,” said [David Caldwell]. “So the city putting its stamp on a family relationship is an easy way for a smaller institution not to have to bother who qualifies as a domestic partner.”

[…]

Tami Brown of Positively Cleveland, the convention and visitors bureau, told the committee the registry would help generate tourism to the city and new jobs.
[…]

Case Western Reserve history professor Lisa Hazirjan talked about how creating the registry could help relieve poverty by creating a “one-stop shop” and a single document for people who don’t have the ability to take off work or spend lots of money to draw up legal documents to benefit their families.

Attorney Tim Downing, a partner at Ulmer and Berne, said domestic partner benefits help his firm attract new talent, and said the registry can do the same for the city.

[…]

ACLU staff attorney Carrie Davis assured the committee that the registry would not conflict with the state constitution’s marriage ban amendment.

[…]

After a recess, the committee considered the second measure, to add gender identity as a protected class to every city ordinance where race, religion, sex and sexual orientation are now included. Offered by Ward 14 councilor Joe Santiago, the city’s first openly gay council member, it has five other sponsors.

[…]

“Law is slow to catch up with society,” said ACLU’s Davis. “Cleveland was one of earliest cities to embrace sexual orientation in its non-discrimination ordinance, and now it’s time that we add gender identity and expression to that as well.”

Davis told the story of retired Army Col. Diane Schroer, formerly David, who was hired in 2004 at the Library of Congress, then turned down once they learned she would be transitioning on the job.

Schroer is an insurgency and counterterrorism expert, and was hired by the library to work in the congressional research service.

With the help of the ACLU, Schroer successfully sued the library in federal court.

Davis read from the court’s September decision: “Imagine that an employee is fired because she converts from Christianity to Judaism. Imagine too, that his employer testified that he harbors no bias against either Christians or Jews, but only converts.”

Davis continued, “That would be a clear case of discrimination because of religion. No court would take seriously that converts are not covered by the statute.”

Ohio Highway Patrol Ashtabula Post gets warning that racial profiling and pulling over cars without probable cause will not be tolerated.

Jeffrey Gamso, ACLU of Ohio legal director, said his group has received numerous reports of Latinos who reside, work or travel through Ashtabula County being stopped, searched and detained without due cause.

Reports suggest the OHP also has called Immigration and Customs Enforcement and detained legal residents even if they produce proper documentation showing they are lawfully in the United States, Gamso said.

“This is a transparent attempt by the OHP to check the immigration status of Latinos in the area under the guise of investigating possible traffic violations,” he said. “They are flagrantly violating the rights of innocent people by detaining lawful immigrants and targeting anyone who appears to be of Hispanic origin.”

Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason is hiding emails that are public record, in what may be an attempt to cover up false statements to voters about his position on open-discovery.

County Prosecutor Bill Mason has two private e-mail accounts with which he sometimes conducts business, which should make their contents public records. But he’s figured out how to keep some of them secret.

Mason told The Plain Dealer before the election that he was not opposed to “open discovery,” or full disclosure of evidence against the accused. But now that he’s won and county judges are forcing his hand, he’s working on a plan to keep court records secret.

[…]

Miday says there are no records available from that account. And if there were, he apparently wouldn’t release them anyway. He cites a part of Ohio’s Revised Code that limits available records to those that “document the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, operations, or other activities of the office,” making Mason’s county office far more secretive than the state attorney general’s office, which has routinely fulfilled similar requests.

[…]

Police reports, witness statements, evidence lists, everything that can make or break a case, would be stored digitally in a program designed for the prosecutor. There appears to be little independent oversight in the development of this software.
[…]

Several criminals were granted new trials recently, after lawyers discovered that former star assistant prosecutor Carmen Marino had withheld evidence in trials dating back decades. Marino allowed one witness to lie under oath to get the conviction he needed. Mason used to hand out the Carmen Marino Award to his best prosecutors, until columnist Regina Brett made it public in The Plain Dealer.

During Mason’s recent re-election campaign, discovery - the process that grants defense attorneys access to all police reports and witness statements before trial - became an issue. Cuyahoga County’s policy on discovery is one of the most restrictive in the state. At the time, Mason indicated that he was willing to take some steps toward a more open discovery system. Now safely re-elected, he’s aggressively fighting an effort to grant open discovery here.

On November 12, when local judges agreed to adopt open discovery in their courtrooms, Mason had a meltdown. He doesn’t want to give defense attorneys copies of police reports - he wants them to come to his offices and read the reports on his computers. It’s a fight that is likely to end up in the Ohio Supreme Court. And it’s a fight Mason was preparing for even as he claimed to want open discovery.

Ohio GOP legislators are rushing to change election law before the end of the term, including a change in registration deadlines that would violate Federal election law.

The debate turned heated in the Ohio Senate yesterday over how, or even if, lawmakers should change Ohio’s election process during the waning lame-duck session.
Catherine Turcer of the Ohio Citizen Action government watchdog group urged the committee to slow down.”It takes time to analyze election administration and identify the best possible solutions,” she said. “The results of election 2008 have yet to be officially certified. It is time to be thoughtful and deliberate.”

[…]

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Bill Seitz (R., Cincinnati), would eliminate the “Golden Week” by requiring that voters register at least 30 days before they may cast an absentee ballot. Since current law allows voters to cast absentee ballots as early as 35 days before an election, this would effectively mean the deadline for registration for an absentee voter could be as early as 65 days before the election.

[…]

Carrie Davis, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, argued that the General Assembly could be entering choppy waters by extending the voter registration deadline.

“There are numerous federal laws that come into play here, including the Voting Rights Act, the National Voter Registration Act, as well as several decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court that set 30 days prior to Election Day as the maximum cutoff for voter registration,” she said.

[…]

Ms. Davis also argued that lawmakers should not require the state’s top elections official to send registration mismatches to local boards without first spelling out when a mismatch can justify red-flagging a would-be voter.

Mike Brickner discusses the upcoming Poems from Guantanamo event in Toledo.

More information and RSVP here.

This week, the ACLU of Ohio and the Northwest Ohio Peace Coalition team up to shine a light on the silent side of “The War on Terror” with a Wednesday, December 10 reading from “Poems from Guantanamo: The Detainees Speak,” at Sanger Branch Library at 7 p.m.

[…]

Most prisoners at Guantanamo have not been charged with any crimes, and suspicions of the validity of their detention has caught international attention, causing President-Elect Barack Obama to suggest closing the base.

[…]

The ACLU is attempting to put a human face on those [ all too familiar images of men in bright orange jump suits, shackled, and donning black hoods].

[…]

“Poems from Guantanamo: The Detainees Speak,” is just what the title suggests, a collection of poetry written by prisoners of Guantanamo’s Camp Delta. Mark Falkoff, an ACLU attorney who represents 17 of the camp’s detainees, edited the collection. Mike Brickner, Media Coordinator for the ACLU of Ohio says that Falkoff snuck the poems out of the prison in order to share the stories of these men whose voices have been otherwise unheard by the American public.

“They are all poems that talk about what the detainees are experiencing. A lot of them talk about their families. They are very touching, moving poems, I think,” said Brickner. “The ways the poems were written is absolutely heartbreaking. A lot of them were written in toothpaste, or scratched into a foam cup with pebbles. Many of them were not written on a notepad with a pen.”

Brickner says the poems in the book - which endured line-by-line scrutiny from The Pentagon before publication - offer a view of the detainees “as human beings, with families, [and] feelings.”

The ACLU of Ohio and the NWO Peace Coalition will present a symbolic reading of work from the collection on Wednesday - the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a 1948 declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that set international standard for rights to which all human beings should be entitled.

[…]

“What’s disturbing is that so many detainees have been released because they have not engaged in any type of terrorist activity,” Brickner said, “Many are, or were, normal, average, everyday people. We’ve [labeled] them ‘terrorists’ without actually having a trial to prove it.”

Brickner explained the ACLU’s goal, “The people housed there deserve basic human rights that we all should enjoy. That’s why we’re having this event on the 60th anniversary of the UDHR. This [is] a human rights issue,” he said, “The ACLU has been very active representing detainees, and advocating that torture shouldn’t be used,” he said, “All detainees should have a fair trial in the criminal justice system.”

Urged by the ACLU and the OCA to take action, Ohio legislators introduce HB 648.  The bill would put serious limits on state database record-checks and provide other privacy protections for Ohioans.

The next time a state employee or agency director makes an improper “Joe the Plumber”-type background search for political purposes, someone would be fired, under a GOP-crafted bill introduced today.

[…]

“Ohioans should not have to fear that by exercising their free speech rights that state government will turn its databases against them,” said Rep. Shannon Jones, R-Springboro, a sponsor of the bill. “The systematic misuse of government databases and the governor’s woeful under-reaction to state government workers engaging in this outrageous behavior make this bill necessary.”

[…]

The bill also would:

Set criteria for determining which employees may access or authorize access to confidential personal information.
Require a list of valid reasons for accessing personal information.
Require that a record is kept for each access of confidential personal information by agency employees.
Give notice to citizens whose confidential personal information has been improperly accessed.
Allow anyone who is harmed by an improper records search to sue.

Ohio Supreme Court will soon decide the fate of the provisional ballots of roughly a thousand voters.  An entire Ohio congressional race could be decided by the outcome.

Attorneys for the voters filed their arguments with the Supreme Court this morning, as did the Franklin County Board of Elections, Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, the Ohio Democratic Party and the ACLU of Ohio.

[…]

[Almost all] parties to the case say the disputed ballots should be counted rather than being dismissed for “hyper-technical” reasons.

Prosecutor Bill Mason tries to fight the Cuyahoga County judges’ order to share evidence with defense attorneys. The 22 states with open discovery laws provide many reasons why Cuyahoga County, and all of Ohio, should adopt the rules and procedures.

States that mandate open discovery argue that laying out the entire case against someone before taking a case to a jury ensures that trials are about reaching the truth rather than racking up convictions.

Perhaps the strongest argument in favor of open discovery is this: No place that has gone with the practice has ever reverted to the more secretive system.

[…]

The American Bar Association decided 14 years ago that a fair judicial system is worth the small risk of retaliation against witnesses. It recommended in 1994 that states adopt open discovery.

Prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges worked together to craft those open discovery standards for the American Bar Association.

[…]

Mason does not intend to comply with the judges’ requirement because, he said, it is more than he is required to turn over under state law. He has offered to let lawyers look at material on computer terminals but will not provide paper copies. The Ohio Supreme Court will probably decide the issue.

[…]

North Carolina expanded its discovery rules in 2004, after attorney James Cooney defended convicted murderer Alan Gell. When Gell was sentenced to death, he was given the right to open-file discovery. The new information led to his appeal and his acquittal, making Gell’s case the fifth exoneration since 1996.

[…]

“It’s an insane system in which the prosecutor decides who committed a crime and who’s going to be charged with a crime and . . . what evidence he gives to the defendant,” Cooney said. “I don’t think you can have a functioning system of justice without open-file discovery. Because you are convicting the innocent.

[…]

Joe D’Ambrosio has been on death row in Ohio since 1989 for killing Cleveland Heights teen Tony Klann, but a federal judge ruled in 2006 that Cuyahoga County prosecutors wrongfully withheld 10 pieces of evidence. If the evidence had been turned over, D’Ambrosio probably would have been acquitted, U.S. District Judge Kate O’Malley ruled.

[…]

Generally, prosecutors in every state can file a motion to withhold information for good cause.

The caveat is even spelled out in the new Cuyahoga County rules, which state that “any materials . . . may be redacted by the prosecutor to the extent necessary to protect the identity of any person if there is good reason to believe that disclosure could pose a risk of harm to such person or could threaten an ongoing criminal investigation.”

Prosecutors in Denver regularly use protective orders or don’t list a witness’ address to provide for his or her safety, said Deputy District Attorney Lamar Sims.

The benefits of open discovery far outweigh the risks, Sims said. The practice helps streamline the system, expedites the docket and eliminates pretrial hearings spent haggling over which records are fair game for discovery, he said.

Ohio Senate picks up medical marijuana legislation for hearing.

The act would give regulatory power over legal cultivation and use of medical marijuana to Ohio’s departments of health and agriculture.
The Act was first introduced on June 10 by state Sen. Tom Roberts and is also being sponsored by state Sen. Dale Miller, both Democrats.
Damian Hardy, legislative aide to Roberts, said the response to the bill Wednesday was “better than we were expecting.”

Hardy said the testimony for Richard Wyderski of Dayton was particularly helpful to arguments in favor of the bill. Wyderski, a doctor of geriatric and internal medicine, and a 2008 primary candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in Ohio’s 7th District, has been a longtime proponent for such a bill. As far back as October 2002, Wyderski advocated the use of medical marijuana on a weekly program on National Public Radio.

The City of Cleveland may soon have an ordinance establishing a domestic partner registry.

The ordinance would make Cleveland the third city in Ohio (Cleveland Heights and Toledo have similar registries) to provide an avenue for unmarried couples living together, both homosexual and heterosexual, to have access to rights of visitation, employee benefits, child pick-up authorization, and membership at recreational facilities.

[…]

“Many cities are adding LGBT protections to their existing anti-discrimination laws, and many are also looking to extend benefits to all families regardless of marital status. While the losses in California and elsewhere sting, on the whole we continue to move forward to a more inclusive society,” attorney Carrie Davis of the ACLU of Ohio said, referring to the timing of the ordinance in the context of national events.

Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason is going soft on a campaign promise to support open-discovery.

All but one of the county’s judges voted for a rule adopting open discovery in what is Ohio’s busiest criminal court. But Mason appears to be slinking away from a pre-election promise to support it.

[…]Many of the judges who voted for open discovery are former tough-on-crime prosecutors who know how important it is to put people who do bad things behind bars. But they also understand the concept of fairness.

Full discovery can make the court system more efficient by encouraging defendants to plead guilty when they see — with their own eyes — the evidence arrayed against them. And it can encourage prosecutors to drop or plea bargain weak cases.

Federal Disctrict Court Judge Richard Leon ruled that five Algerian men were held unlawfully for nearly seven years at Guantanamo Bay and ordered their release.

The hearings for the Algerian men, in which all of the evidence was heard in proceedings that were closed to the public, were the first in which the Justice Department presented its full justification for holding specific detainees since the Supreme Court ruling in June.

Judge Leon, in a ruling from the bench, said that the information gathered on the men had been sufficient to hold them for intelligence purposes, but was not strong enough in court.

“To rest on so thin a reed would be inconsistent with this court’s obligation,” he said. He directed that the five men be released “forthwith” and urged the government not to appeal.

[…]

“The decision by Judge Leon lays bare the scandalous basis on which Guantánamo has been based — slim evidence of dubious quality,” said Zachary Katznelson, legal director at Reprieve, a British legal group that represents many of the detainees.

Gregory Bryant-Bey was executed by the state Wednesday morning.

A few minutes after Gregory Bryant-Bey was executed yesterday, Jay Clark, the son-in-law of one of his victims, offered his perspective.

“This is a difficult day,” Clark said. “There aren’t any winners on either side.”

[…]

Bryant-Bey, 53, the second Ohioan executed in a little more than month, paid the ultimate penalty for killing Dale “Pinky” Pinkelman, 47, owner of a Toledo collectibles store, on Aug. 9, 1992. He also was convicted for the stabbing death of restaurant owner Pete Mihas, 61, three months later, but he received a life sentence in that case.

Helen Jones-Kelley, the director of Ohio’s Job and Family Services Department, confirms that database searches of Samuel Joseph - “Joe the Plumber” - Wurzelbacher inappropriate.  ACLU of Ohio calls for better standards and regulations.

Gov. Ted Strickland suspended Director Helen Jones-Kelley of the Job and Family Services Department for one month without pay after a state Inspector General’s report found Jones-Kelley improperly authorized the searches of state databases and used her state e-mail account for political fundraising.

“I accept the content the (of) Inspector General’s report and should not have allowed the Wurzelbacher searches to move forward,” Jones-Kelley said in a written statement. “While there is a disagreement as to whether those searches were done for legitimate business purposes, my only intent was to fulfill my agency’s fiduciary responsibilities to Ohio’s families. I am committed to implementing agency procedures which better protect confidential, personal information. In this case no confidential information was released.”

[…]

“…we determine that ODJFS director Helen-Jones Kelley’s authorization to search three confidential databases for information on Wurzelbacher was improper, and that the use of state e-mail resources to engage in political activity was also improper,” the report said.

[…]

The records check on Wurzelbacher prompted cries of outrage across the political spectrum. State Rep. Shannon Jones, R-Springboro, is preparing legislation aimed at cracking down on such record checks. Also, the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio has called on Strickland and other state officials to enact regulations protecting private information on state databases.

Key figures in Cleveland’s and Cuyahoga’s criminal justice system met Wednesday to seek solutions to disturbingly large racial inequalities.

All at the table agreed it is a systemic problem with severe consequences for a community. And all agreed that finding a solution to racial disparities in Cuyahoga County’s criminal justice system is a bigger undertaking than any one of their offices could handle alone.

[…]

The discussion, which took place during a City Council Public Safety Committee meeting, focused on the statistical findings of a Plain Dealer analysis that drew upon hundreds of low-level felony drug cases from 2004 to 2007. The review found that white defendants were 55 percent more likely to get a misdemeanor than black defendants charged with the same crime. And white defendants were 35 percent more likely to receive treatment as an alternative to conviction.

[…]

Stanley Miller, executive director of the NAACP, said the entire system shares the blame for the disparity and likewise should share the responsibility for finding a solution.

“The justice system is broken, and everyone’s trying to point the finger at someone else,” Miller said.

“These types of issues have a very short shelf life. If we don’t address it today, it will pass away from our consciousness.”

[…]

Common Pleas Judge Timothy McGinty said he and other judges have petitioned the Supreme Court for years for a method by which to keep demographic records of criminal cases on the county docket.

[…]

“But we’re not collecting the critical data that could level the playing field - length of sentences, age, gender, color and socioeconomic aspects. Transparency creates accountability.”

The passage of California’s Proposition 8 reminds the nation that we still have far to go towards equal rights for all.

Initially overshadowed by Barack Obama’s historic victory and the Democratic sweep of Congress on Election Night, Prop 8’s passage was a reminder that progress in civil rights and social justice always comes in fits and spurts. Two steps forward, one step back.

Even so, Prop 8 was narrowly approved by just more than 500,000 votes out of 12 million ballots cast — and even then only with massive amounts of cash pumped in by out-of-state groups like Focus on the Family and the Mormon Church, designed to scare people with outlandish tales of “what could happen next” if marriage of same-sex couples was allowed to stand.

Well, here’s what could happen next: Some couples would marry and live happily ever after, more or less. Some would cheat on each other. And some would grow apart and divorce. Gay or straight, there are no guarantees where the human heart is concerned.

Let’s face the truth: If your son or daughter or brother or sister is gay, a change in their legal options isn’t going to sway their sexual orientation or what gets them hot. What it might do, however, is make their lives a little easier.

Executive Director of the LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland expounds on the importance of a domestic partner registry in the city of Cleveland.

I was delighted to read that Cleveland City Council is considering passage of a domestic partner registry. While some people may see this as a trivial issue, those of us who are in committed relationships but not married know how much of an impact this initiative could make.

When a couple registers with the domestic partner registry, they receive an official government document stating that they are recognized by the city as a couple. This is important because there may be many situations where a person will need to produce some sort of documentation that they are in a relationship.

[…]

The countless benefits of a domestic partner registry should make this an easy decision for Cleveland City Council members. Let’s hope they act quickly so that all families will be equally recognized in the city.

Community leaders gathered in support of Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson’s decision to lower charges for drug paraphernalia cases from felonies to misdemeanors.

Drug abusers now face felony possession charges if caught with trace amounts of drugs in a crack pipe or heroin syringe. The new policy gives offenders a chance to treat their addiction, Jackson said last week.

Early next year, the city will adopt a progressive system. On the first offense, a user will be charged with having drug paraphernalia, a second-degree misdemeanor. A second offense will be charged as a first-degree misdemeanor. Defendants charged with either of these offenses could be eligible to have their cases diverted to Cleveland’s Drug Court.

Community activists have said for years that similar drug paraphernalia cases from the suburbs are charged as misdemeanors, leading to inequity in how justice is delivered.

Judges in Cuyahoga County voted last week to require prosecutors and defense attorneys to share all evidence. Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason does not intend to comply with the mandate.

Judges last week voted to require prosecutors to give defense attorneys a discovery “packet” that includes copies of police reports, statements by defendants and witnesses, names and addresses of witnesses, laboratory and hospital reports and criminal records of defendants and witnesses.  

[…]

Mason said his office already gives defense attorneys copies of everything they are required to provide, but maintained that police reports and witness statements are excluded. Prosecutors read police reports to attorneys but won’t provide copies because of concerns that defendants will use them to intimidate or threaten witnesses.

[…]

The American Bar Association standard is that defense attorneys be given copies of documents that they can inspect and keep.

[…]

Full discovery gives defense attorneys the information they need to best represent their clients and allows for quicker disposition of cases, [Common Pleas Judge Michael] Donnelly said. The ultimate goal for prosecutors is to achieve justice, regardless of whether that means they ultimately gain a conviction, Donnelly said.

The ACLU of Ohio urged Gov. Strickland to enact regulations protecting private information kept in state databases.

The ACLU first pressed for reform after it was revealed officials at Ohio’s Department of Job & Family Services conducted a search of private information on Joseph Wurzelbacher, also known as “Joe the Plumber,” and that such searches of those in news headlines were common protocol for the office.

[…]

“It is appalling that state officials believe they may violate a person’s private information simply because they appeared in a newspaper story,” said Christine Link, executive director of ACLU of Ohio. “This illustrates how woefully inadequate Ohio’s privacy protections are for its vast database of personal information.”

High turnout for early voting renews movement toward more early voting locations.

[Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner] is looking at another effort to expand the number of locations where voters can show up early to cast absentee ballots.

Brunner is on the right track. When the legislature dropped a requirement that absentee voters specify a reason for requesting ballots before Election Day, it was an invitation to expanded use. That in turn eased lines on Nov. 4, contributing to a smooth election.

Executive Director of the ACLU of Ohio addresses the need for judges to display their impartiality and to uphold the rulings of a higher court.

The recent column in the Mansfield News Journal about the posting of religious documents by Judge James DeWeese somewhat missed the mark (”Divisive poster isn’t fit for court,” Nov. 1, 2008). While I agree with many of the points raised by the article, I must take issue with his assertion that the ACLU should have higher priorities than protecting our religious liberty.

Judge DeWeese swore an oath to uphold the Constitution when he took office, yet he has repeatedly tried to undermine it. After being ordered to remove the Ten Commandments from his courtroom in 2002 by a federal appeals court, which was upheld on appeal, he reposted the Ten Commandments with some added text in an apparent attempt to circumvent the court’s decision.

By continuing to post documents on the county courtroom’s wall, Judge DeWeese sends a message that one religion is valued higher than others in his court. Those in Richland County who do not ascribe to his religious beliefs are not given the same opportunity to express their views and may fear that they will be treated differently in his courtroom because of their religious views. Courts should be a bastion of equality and fairness, yet Judge DeWeese continues to insist that his religious views should be given special treatment over others’.

This is completely unacceptable behavior from an official who is expected to follow the laws which he uses to pass judgment on others. While posting a religious document may seem trivial to some, the ability for all to feel equal in a court of law is central to our democracy. Moreover, Judge DeWeese’s blatant disregard for the Constitution and the rulings of other courts warrants intervention from the ACLU.

In Cuyahoga County, in a landmark decision,  prosecutors and defense attorneys will be required to share all evidence. Open discovery will allow the accused a fair chance of addressing the charges against them, for the first time in the county’s history.

Judges voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to adopt a controversial amendment to the rules governing criminal prosecution.

[…]

Until now, prosecutors were required only to turn over evidence they felt might help the defendant, arguing that withholding some information helped protect witnesses and victims of crime from retaliation.

But judges say the practice overloaded the system and was unfair to defendants who should know the evidence against them.

[…]

Within one week after the initial pretrial hearing, prosecutors must deliver to defense lawyers a discovery packet, which includes: All police reports, statements of defendants and witnesses, names and addresses of witnesses, lab and hospital reports and criminal records of defendants and witnesses.

Defense lawyers who receive the packets must reciprocate by turning over discovery as well. And the exchange must be completed no later than a week before the start of trial. Any attorney who violates the deadline will be subject to sanctions set by the judge hearing the case.

Under the new guidelines, prosecutors can exclude specific information that could jeopardize the safety of a victim or a witness. Defense lawyers can object to the redaction, leaving the matter for the judge to decide.

Optical scan ballots cast during early voting, created significant errors in Franklin County.  For early voting, Franklin used scanners that did not allow voters to fix errors.

Ohioans’ embrace of absentee voting means that many more people are using paper ballots, even in the 53 counties with electronic machines. In Franklin, 279,125 people voted electronically, while 245,072 used paper.

Because the paper votes in Franklin County were tabulated at a central location instead of using precinct-based counters, there was no opportunity for voters to know that they had overvoted.

David Kimball, a voting-systems specialist from the University of Missouri-St. Louis, said the pattern in Franklin County is similar to what he’s seen nationally. He told The Dispatch that Franklin County’s residual-vote totals — that is, undervotes and overvotes — were 1.4 percent in the presidential race. That percentage approaches the level of nonvotes in the now-discredited punch-card method, Kimball said.

The path to closing Guantanamo Bay includes determining how to prosecute the imprisoned at the detention facility. Evidence shows that our criminal court system is capable of prosecuting inmates at Guantanamo Bay.

According to a study by Human Rights First, of 257 terrorism defendants charged in federal courts between Sept. 12, 2001, and Dec. 31 of last year, 100 pleaded guilty, 45 were convicted at trial, 15 were acquitted or charges were dropped, and 97 still face charges.

A strong case can be made for the competence of civilian courts to deal with prosecutions that involve national security issues. And don’t forget the three defeats in the U.S. Supreme Court for the Bush administration’s alternative - military tribunals. We think the new president, a former professor of constitutional law, will find a clearer way forward for prosecution of these difficult cases. And it will be good to see a new administration approach the fight against terrorism with more confidence that the courts can be as much of a resource as our overburdened military.

Members of Cleveland City Council seeking to create domestic-partner registry. The non-binding registry would ease hospital visits, insurance forms, and many other tasks, for people in relationships not currently recognized by a government definition of marriage.

The registry would be nonbinding, meaning employers and other organizations would not be forced to extend health care benefits to unwed couples or allow visits with a hospitalized partner. But supporters hope the registry will encourage the granting of such rights.

[…]

“We are trying to show that we are a serious city when it comes to tolerance,” said [Councilman Joe Cimperman], who with other colleagues is expected to introduce legislation next week.

Cleveland Heights voters adopted a similar law in 2003.

[…]

According to a draft of the legislation provided by Cimperman, couples would have to share a common residence and file a declaration “that they have an intimate relationship and share responsibility for each other’s common welfare.” Both would have to be at least 18 years old, and neither could be married to someone else or be in a domestic partnership with another.

Couples would not have to live in Cleveland, but those who don’t probably would pay a higher fee. Costs have not been determined, Cimperman said, but one possibility has residents paying $75 to register, nonresidents $85.

[…]

In Cleveland Heights, the registry has been a success, officials say.

About 200 couples have registered, with some mailing in from California, New York and Pennsylvania. The cost is $50 for residents, $65 for nonresidents.

“Doing something like this helps us embrace our diversity,” Mayor Ed Kelley said. “People are really appreciative of it. I’m proud we did this.”