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 CUYAHOGA COUNTY, OHIO---Former attorney and pharmacist Elsebeth Baumgartner has been released from the Cuyahoga County Jail after being incarcerated three days.
Cuyahoga County Judge Shirley Strickland Saffold had arbitrarily jailed Baumgartner Monday, revoking her $25,000 bond, but stating no reason on the record for the incarceration.
Court officials later tried to claim it was because Baumgartner had "disrespected" the court but the court record fails to support that claim, especially since Saffold had adjourned court and left the bench.
Saffold's action against Baumgartner was particularly significant as the Ohio Supreme Court had imposed a stay in the Baumgartner case pending their ruling on Baumgartner's motion to disqualify Safford and other Ohio judges from hearing the charges against her saying that the extreme bias harbored against her by Saffold and the other judges denied her fair trial rights.
Baumgartner and Bryan DuBois are co-defendants in a case which evolves around the free speech right to criticize public officials. The duo was scheduled to begin trial Monday on charges that they intimidated and threatened visiting retired judge Richard Markus last fall based on a complaint made by Markus, albeit not until months after the alleged incident and after Markus had ruled against Baumgartner in a civil case, imposed a $175,000 judgment against her and then cited her for 34 counts of contempt for criticizing him.
The duo, publishers of Erie Voices, a blog which focuses on judicial and political corruption in northern Ohio, were charged this summer with multiple felonies in a secret indictment obtained by prosecutor Daniel Kasaris whose boss, Cuyahoga County prosecutor Bill Mason, has been the target of the blog's allegations of wrongdoing.
Kasaris indicted Baumgartner and DuBois in July, one day after DuBois filed a grievance against Kasaris and retired visiting judge Markus with the Cuyahoga County Bar Association. Kasaris is now prosecuting the Erie Voices writers and Markus is the complainant in the case, alleging that DuBois and Baumgartner intimidated him with an email on the eve of a civil trial last November in which Baumgartner was the defendant.
Veteran defense attorney Don O'Connor filed a writ of habeas corpus as well as a motion for reconsideration in regard to Saffold's order to arrest and jail Baumgartner. Following hearings on Thursday, Saffold released the former attorney and reinstated her $25,000 bond over the objections of Kasaris who unsuccessfully sought to have the amount of bond raised.
In a startling revelation and one that would appear to solidify allegations lack of impartiality against Saffold, bias and an improper relationship with the prosecutor's office, Kasaris revealed on the record that the prosecutor's office is preparing Judge Saffold's response to Baumgartner's motion for disqualification. In essence, the prosecution is serving as the personal attorney for the judge in the case.
Such a relationship between the prosecution and a judge is ethically prohibited. The relationship as disclosed on the record by Kasaris also raises substantial questions about the communications in the case between Kasaris and Saffold. Ex parte communications between a judge and parties in a case is expressly prohibited and constitutes misconduct.
It is expected that the Supreme Court will issue their decision on the bias motion by Nov. 22.
Baumgartner's affidavit of bias argues that since the complaining witness against her is Markus, a prominent judge who has served in Cuyahoga County and has close political ties with many Cuyahoga County officials, the entire Cuyahoga bench should be disqualified. Records show that Chief Justice Tom Moyer has ruled that when an appearance of unfairness exists because a jurist is involved in the case, the entire bench was disqualified.
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 on the basis of the Supreme Court stay and had left the bench. In a conversational tone to DuBois and others and not addressed to the judge, Baumgartner reportedly stated "I'll be amending the affidavit of bias…."
DuBois said that 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, DuBois and Baumgartner say. One cannot legally be jailed without cause.
Dr. Baumgartner has been a long-time critic of Ohioan government, both local and state, alleging massive federal and state grant fraud as well as abuses of power by public officials, particularly Erie County district attorney Kevin Baxter and numerous judges in northern Ohio, especially Markus and Chief Judge Moyer.
Richard Olivito, the attorney who was representing DuBois, is the subject of a disciplinary proceeding before the Supreme Court of Ohio's Board of Commissioners on Grievances Discipline which recommended Friday that Olivito be suspended from practicing law for two years with one year suspended.
Olivito withdrew from the case and DuBois requested a continuance to obtain new counsel. Saffold remarked that after the Supreme Court rules on the affidavit of bias, she would be proceeding to trial within 30 minutes of the decision, giving strong indication of prejudgment of the motion.
At the motion Thursday, Saffold's confidence that she would remain on the case appeared to be waning, with her commenting that if she remained on the case and Baumgartner did not sign her waiver of counsel that she would hold Baumgartner to the same rules of the attorney's professional code as are applicable to practicing attorneys. http://www.northcountrygazette.org/articles/111405Baumgartner.html
June Maxam 11-18-05
© 2005 North
Country Gazette
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