![]() A recent headline, "Woman Convicted in Murder Conspiracy Calls Judge Racist, Gets Life Sentence." The way he talks, the way he reacts instantaneously to stimuli, that's why the reporter sometimes parks himself in Judge Gaul's room on a slow news day. He's known around here as a TV judge, controversially entertaining. He hasn't lost an election since, and there have been four of them. Judge Gaul started out as a defense and civil attorney, and then ran for judge in 1992. Judge Gaul's own father was a Cleveland City Councilman, and later, County Treasurer. On his floor are two other judges whose fathers were also county judges. He's nestled into the building along with the sons of other prominent Clevelanders. And hang onto your hats America, Emmanuel went to high school and college in Ohio, but he sounds like an Englishman. He'll be reporting some of the series, so you'll hear from him throughout. He actually moved to Cleveland for us, went to the Justice Center almost every day. The shock factor alone is worth the price of admission, but also because his room, more than any we saw, laid bare this prodigious power that judges hold, and the many ways they can wield that power to try to get what they want.Įmmanuel is going to tell part of today's episode. And we chose his room-we is our producer Emmanuel Dzotsi and I-because frankly, it's sometimes thrilling in there. Today's episode, we're going to spend it all in one place, in Judge Gaul's courtroom. Leeway, discretion, that's power by another name. County judges in Ohio have a lot of leeway in sentencing, a lot of discretion to interpret what punishment consists of, what danger to the public looks like. And I'd assumed the guidelines meant that sentencing was fairly mechanical, a certain kind of charge would produce a certain kind of sentence plus or minus a little wiggly room in the margin to account for special circumstances, or whatever else.īut it's not like that. There are sentencing guidelines, of course, spelled out in excruciating detail in the Ohio Revised Code. The other, chin up but shamed, trying to mollify.Ī judge's job here, when it comes to sentencing, is, broadly speaking, to punish the offender and to protect the public. The man up on the bench, tight and small, acting the enraged parent. I had never heard a judge talk to a defendant quite like that, raw and brutal and confusingly intimate, as if these two men were locked in a personal argument rather than a legal one. I left the courtroom a little wigged out. The man says, I'm not going to let you down. Then the bullshit artist says to Judge Gaul, a liar, a cheater, that's not what I built my life on.ĭon't come in here and make these pretty speeches, Judge Gaul says, you've got what's called a mortal character flaw. You're a criminal and a liar, and you've used the system all your life. My father had a saying-I shouldn't say this in court, but I'm going to say it-You're a bullshit artist. You're pathetic, the judge was saying, you're pathetic, dude. ![]() I think it was four years the guy was about to get. Two are African American.Įarly on in my reporting here, I was on the 19th floor of the Justice Center, and I wandered into the courtroom of Judge Daniel Gaul just in time to hear him sentencing someone. In a courthouse where the majority of the defendants is black, out of the 34 felony judges, 32 are white. But she's actually Italian, married a Synenberg. At the end of the list is Judge Sutula, and her cousin, Judge Sutula. Russo, Judge Joseph Russo, Judge Michael Russo, and Judge Nancy Margaret Russo. Second to the Irish are the Italians, namely Russo, Russo, Russo, and Russo. There's Judge Corrigan, another Judge Corrigan, Judge Hollie Gallagher, Judge Shannon Gallagher, Judge Kelly Gallagher, Judge Shaughnessy, Judge Sheehan, Judge McClelland, Judge McCormick, Judge McDonnell, Judge O'Donnell, and Judge Donnelly. First thing I said was, where are all the Jews? Second thing, so many Irish. ![]() Well, truthfully, that was the second thing I said. I'm Sarah Koenig.įirst thing I said to myself when I looked at the list of felony judges in Cuyahoga County was, holy cow, that's a lot of Irish names. From This American Life and WBEZ Chicago, it's Serial, one courthouse told week by week.
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