By Adam Ferrise
Advance Ohio Media, Cleveland
CLEVELAND, Ohio — Cuyahoga County’s top judge threatened contempt of court charges against the county jail staff for failing to bring inmates to court hearings, according to a letter sent to top jail officials.
Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Administrative Judge John Russo sent the email to Cuyahoga County’s Public Safety Director Brandy Carney on July 22, according to emails provided by the court. Carney said in a reply email that she was not aware of the issue and would be in touch with Russo, the emails show.
The issue is among a myriad of problems at the jail, including mistreatment of inmates, low morale among the understaffed jail officer roster, officers beating inmates and selling them drugs and several inmates being mistakenly released from the jail, including a man accused of murder.
“I have been made aware of a trend that is happening at the jail,” Russo wrote. “Not a good trend, and clearly something I have not experienced in my almost 16 years on the bench and almost 6 years as the Administrative Judge.”
Ohio Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association attorney Adam Chaloupka said the union was unaware of the complaints and questioned the inmates’ truthfulness.
“We have no evidence that a corrections officer ever lied about bringing an inmate up,” Chaloupka said. “I question any inmates who are telling judges about what corrections officers are saying. Contempt is probably not the way to go about this. This is a jail management problem and should be addressed by jail management.”
Russo said jail officials have in recent months repeatedly told court officials and deputies assigned to courts that inmates are refusing to come to court for hearings. Russo sent an email to all the county judges and their bailiffs on July 18 asking if they’ve had similar issues.
Sixteen judges responded to Russo by email saying they’ve all encountered similar issues. The responses say that after questioning inmates and their attorneys, many of the inmates said they never refused coming to court.
One unnamed judge said they were considering scheduling a contempt of court hearing for a corrections officer for telling the unnamed judge an inmate refused to come to court.
“Jailing one CO for this intentional obstruction of justice will put a quick stop to this practice,” that judge wrote in an email to Russo.
Judges wrote that they found corrections officers routinely telling judges that inmates refused to come to court when they had not.
Inmates told various judges that they were marked down as refusing to come to court after asking what their hearing was about or telling officers they needed to put on clothes or use the restroom, the emails say. The officers never returned for those inmates.
Another judge wrote that a corrections officer admitted telling the judge’s staff that an inmate refused to come to court when they actually went to the wrong cell, couldn’t find the inmate and never spoke to the inmate.
One judge wrote that inmate refusals happened every day for several consecutive weeks. Another judge wrote that nearly 100 percent of inmates who were marked down as “refusals” never refused to come to court.
Another judge wrote that defense attorneys are also falsely told that inmates refused meetings, an issue one judge called “unconstitutional.” Another said flatly the issues are the result of jail management issues and not the court, the emails say.
A judge in one specific case said a 31-year-old veteran accused of grand theft was marked down as refusing to come to court at least three times. The inmate never actually refused, the emails say.
“This trend is unacceptable and has to be addressed,” Russo wrote. “If not addressed, the next step could be the Court scheduling contempt hearings for jail staff.”
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