North Country Gazette



Commentary: Shirley Strickland Saffold—A Judge Gone Wild

Posted on Sunday, 20 of May , 2007 at 3:05 pm

CLEVELAND—A judge gone wild.

That’s how a former Cuyahoga County prosecutor, now a Lorain County prosecutor, has labeled Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court judge Shirley Strickland Safford.

You remember Saffold, she’s the one who sentenced former Oak Harbor attorney Elsebeth Baumgartner to eight years in prison for criticizing a judge, who agreed to release Baumgartner on appellate bond with such unconstitutional conditions as she couldn’t file any legal claims in any court, federal or state, without Saffold’s permission and she can’t comment publicity about her own case or any public officials without Saffold’s permission, conditions allegedly prepared by retired visiting judge Richard Markus, 76, the complainant in the Baumgartner case. How Saffold thinks she acquired jurisdiction in federal court is still puzzling.

Saffold said that she wasn’t sentencing Baumgartner for the content of her speech but rather for her act of exercising that speech.  Has Saffold read the First Amendment lately or did she forget to file her oath of office about upholding the Constitution of the United States? It’s known she didn’t file the requisite bond.

Saffold even issued an order that Baumgartner couldn’t review her own case file.

While Saffold is hot to trot in her efforts along with Cuyahoga County prosecutor Daniel Kasaris to silence a judicial whistleblower, one who has her finger on the pulse of government and judicial corruption in northern Ohio including in Safford’s court, Saffold is busy telling convicted killers to leave to the state, knowing full well it violates his probation conditions, conditions which she set. 

Perhaps Saffold is engaging in reverse discrimination. Seems like poor judicial judgment for convicted killers to get more consideration than a person exercising their right to criticize a public official—especially judges like her.  We would certainly hope it has nothing to do with the race card.

williamsraymond.jpgRaymond Williams, Ohio’s Mr. Football in 2003, was a Parade Magazine All-American.  He led Cleveland’s Benedictine High School to a state championship as a senior and was headed to West Virginia University on a football scholarship.

But three years ago in April, 2004, Williams and two of his teammates attempted to rob an alleged drug dealer who was sitting in his car on a Cleveland street. Williams had a fake handgun and when he pointed it at Rodney Roberts, Roberts pulled a real gun and fired nine shots. Four of them struck one of Williams’ teammates, killing him. Roberts was cleared by a Grand Jury for acting in self defense.

Williams pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and aggravated robbery, facing a prison term of up to 20 years.

But no prison time for Williams in Saffold’s court. Despite Williams being involved in causing the death of a 16-year-old boy, Saffold sentenced Williams and his teammate to five years of probation and required that they enroll in college within six months and maintain a C average. If they failed to comply with the conditions, they would be sentenced to three years in prison, so she said then.

Her rationale? “I don’t believe these young men acted as adults”, she said. “They acted as children”. Part of her reasoning was that the man they tried to rob was an alleged drug dealer so apparently in her mind that justified their behavior.  Strange thinking for a judge.  All life is sacred.

The prosecutor in the Williams case was Thomas Cahill—Saffold’s opponent in the primary last May 2. Cahill has been a prosecutor in Cuyahoga, Lake and Lorain counties, currently in Lorain. One of Cahill’s key issues in his campaign platform is ending the unscrupulous practice of judges steering assignments to particular attorneys—another one of Baumgartner’s allegations and which has been borne out over and over and over.

Despite Williams’ repeated brushes with the law, Saffold continues to give Williams a free pass, refusing to revoke his probation although in the Baumgartner case, Saffold told the former attorney if she violated her violation, she’d “wipe that smile right off your face”. Apparently in Saffold’s way of thinking, it’s more of a detriment to society to exercise your free speech rights than it is to attempt rob and kill an alleged drug dealer, especially if it’s a white upper class female vs. a black lower class male.

Saffold has long been known for making questionable rulings from the bench, in this case it appears that she’s using her black dress and gavel to carry forth her vendetta against Cahill, the prosecutor in the Williams’ case.

In endorsing Cahill over Saffold last year, the Cleveland Plain Dealer harshly criticized Saffold for “a troubling inability to take responsibility for her errors or shortcomings”.

“In 2003, when a Plain Dealer examination of court operations noted that she routinely assigned dozens of criminal cases to one attorney and authorized him to collect questionable fees, she tried to shift much of the blame to her bailiff. This January, she cited a series of procedural problems that, even if true, could not explain why a foreclosure case assigned to her lingered for eight years”, the Plain Dealer said about Saffold. The Plain Dealer labeled her with a reputation for being unpredictable and sometimes indiscreet.

Among the conditions of Williams’ probation was that he remain drug-free and stay enrolled in college.  Although he enrolled at the University of Toledo, he couldn’t maintain the grades need to play football.  In January, he was arrested for theft and trespassing, accused of stealing an electronic transmitter from the college bookstore. He was also charged with failure to confine and vaccinate a pit bull.

He got a soft deal that time too when prosecutors dismissed the theft and dog charges in exchange for restitution and he was banned from the University of Toledo campus which violated his probation condition that he remain enrolled in college.  But, in February, Saffold refused to violate him and send him to prison, instead she gave him 30 days to enroll in another college.

According to his attorney, Fernando Mack, Williams, now 21,  has been admitted to Shaw University in North Carolina, obviously out of state.  His probation prohibits him from leaving the state but Saffold heartily endorsed Williams leaving the state, even advising him to do so, accusing Cahill of working with police to harass Williams in order to cause a probation violation to cause his incarceration.

“You need to pack your things and leave Ohio, because Cahill is after you,” Saffold told Williams.Cahill said that was shocking, for a judge to encourage and even promote a probationer to move from the state become a fugitive.Saffold had called a hearing Friday, allegedly in such a way that the prosecutor’s office wouldn’t be represented at the hearing, after she had reportedly read a news article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer about Williams’ most recent brush with the law, an arrest on April 16 for driving while intoxicated.  She said she wouldn’t consider the drunk driving charges unless Williams is convicted and said the plea deal involving the theft and dog charges isn’t the same as being found guilty and so therefore it didn’t revoke his probation.  This judge has a strange perception of the law.She accused Cahill of running a “lynching party” in order to cause the incarceration of Williams and said Cahill, her former opponent, “was a prosecutor who has lost his way”.  She said that Williams’ recent arrests weren’t enough to revoke his probation on the manslaughter conviction although one of the probation conditions is that he obey all laws.In return, Cahill labeled Safford “a judge gone wild”.  Will Saffold now file a criminal complaint on Cahill for intimidation and retaliation such as Markus did to Baumgartner when she criticized him during a court proceeding?  Will Saffold cause Cahill to be indicted, prosecuted and sentenced to jail for having the audacity to have criticized her?What’s interesting is that although the Cuyahoga County prosecutor’s office prosecuted Williams, no one from that office was at Friday’s hearing for Williams. Instead of notifying the prosecutor’s office by fax or other written means, Saffold’s bailiff allegedly left phone messages for David Zimmerman, the prosecutor now in charge of the case who was reportedly on vacation.  Cuyahoga County prosecutor Bill Mason, allegedly the honorary chairman of Saffold’s election campaign, has said that Williams should go to prison.

Was the failure of the prosecution to be present at Friday’s hearing intentional or just unfeasible?

In 1996, Saffold, then 45, told a female defendant that she should get a better boyfriend that the one she had. “Men are easy. You can go sit in the bus stop, put on a short skirt, cross your legs and pick up 25. Ten of them will give you their money. If you don’t pick up the first 10, then all you got to do is open your legs a little bit and cross them at the bottom”. In 1998, she scored an F on the annual World AIDS Day Report Card issued by the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund after she ordered Tony Brown, a transgendered sex worker, to publicly disclose his HIV-positive status on local television. So much for privacy rights. Saffold has displayed egregious abuses of power in the Baumgartner case in addition to outright bias and prejudice. In November 2005, she revoked the bond of the former attorney and pharmacist for no stated reason after Baumgartner had filed a motion for Saffold’s disqualification.Baumgartner had also filed a written motion seeking a continuance in her matter which was arbitrarily denied by Safford. Safford had adjourned the matter until Nov. 22, 2005,  on the basis of a Supreme Court stay in place because of the disqualification motion and had left the bench. Court had been adjourned and as Baumgartner was speaking to supporters, Safford suddenly stopped, turned and returned to the microphone, calling for the deputy of the court. Safford then stated, “All right, we’re going back on the record—deputy, arrest her, I’m revoking her bond”.Saffold gave no cause on the record for revocation of the bond and incarceration and legally was precluded from taking any action against Baumgartner with the Supreme Court stay in effect, Saffold’s bias being the subject of the pending motion. After Baumgartner spent three days in jail, Saffold reinstated her bond and the record was altered.When the issue of Mason being her honorary campaign manager was raised in court by whistleblower Baumgartner at a time when Mason’s office was prosecuting Baumgartner in a case before Saffold, Saffold didn’t deny it.  But, she refused to recuse herself. It seems that Saffold and her court has a history of failing to serve notices of hearings as required by law as she has frequently failed to serve notice on Baumgartner.Saffold seems to be just what Cahill has labeled her, a “judge gone wild”.  Meanwhile, she’s granted immunity to a man convicted of robbery and manslaughter, clearly demonstrated to the public her unfitness for judicial office and made a mockery of the system. http://www.northcountrygazette.org/articles/110206DeniedReview.html

http://www.northcountrygazette.org/articles/111405Baumgartner.html http://www.northcountrygazette.org/articles/042206GlassHouse.html http://www.northcountrygazette.org/articles/100406QuidProQuo.html 

June Maxam This article may not be reprinted.  5-20-07  June Maxam This article may not be reprinted.  5-20-07 

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Category: Constitution, Courts, Crime, First Amendment, Ohio, Opinion, Police, Sports

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