Channel: Good Luck America

Category: Education

Description: CLEVELAND, Ohio -- In a scathing 58-page recommendation to the court’s justices, the board wrote that an investigation into Carr’s last few years on the bench showed that she acted “in a manner befitting a game show host rather than a judge of the Cleveland Municipal Court.” “She ruled her courtroom in a reckless and cavalier manner, unrestrained by the law or the court’s rules, and without any measure of probity or even common courtesy,” The board wrote. “Her actions could not help but seriously compromise the integrity of the court in the eyes of the public and all who had business there.” Issuing arrest warrants for people who failed to show up to court hearings that were supposed to be canceled at the outset of COVID-19 in March 2020; publicly lying about doing so , admitting to illegally issuing arrest warrants to force people to pay fines to raise money for the court; negotiating plea deals with defendants without city prosecutors present, waiving costs and fees for defendants whose birthdays were the same month as the court hearing, then filing false journal entries to cover-up her actions; sending people to jail on non-jailable offenses in what amounted to a “debtor’s prison.” The board’s director, Richard Dove, signed off on the report. The Ohio Supreme Court’s justices will review the filings and decide whether to punish Carr at a later date. Carr continued to hold in-person hearings and issued several arrest warrants for people who failed to show up to court. She set arrest bonds for many of the defendants. She granted WJW-Channel 8 an interview after cleveland.com reported on her actions. From her bench, she called cleveland.com’s reporting “absolutely untrue” and its reporter a “dumb dumb.” Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer then obtained courtroom video showing Carr issuing the arrest warrants. The Cuyahoga County Public Defender’s Office then filed a motion asking Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor to temporarily stop Carr from hearing criminal cases due to her misconduct. O’Connor ordered Carr to follow Earley’s order. The investigation into Carr then grew to cover her behavior dating back to 2019, and uncovered dozens of instances of misconduct, the filing says. Carr routinely would negotiate plea deals with defendants while prosecutors were not in the courtroom, then file journal entries that said prosecutors amended the charges -- which the filing said could be a first-degree misdemeanor of falsification. The complaint said Carr would routinely give a due date to defendants ordered to pay a fine, and then unilaterally schedule a hearing for a few days after the due date. She did not notify the defendant of the hearing, and when they failed to show up, she issued an arrest warrant with an arrest bond as a way to generate more money for the court. Carr admitted during testimony in her disciplinary case that she essentially created a “modern day debtor’s prison,” the complaint said. The complaint also details the overall decorum in Carr’s courtroom, including frequently holding court in T-shirts and above-the-knee spandex and having dozens of cups and trinkets on her bench. The board described her bench as being “littered with the detritus of an adolescent’s bedroom.” Carr referred to defendants in the arraignment room as “f--- boy” and joked about trading “hook-ups” for her staff in exchange for lenient sentences. She also berated and belittled defendants and attorneys and regularly joked about comparing her and her staff to the cast of a TV sitcom about a strip club in open court, the complaint says. Carr also jailed a woman after finding her in contempt because she rolled her eyes, the complaint said. The board did credit Carr for taking steps to seek diagnoses and treatment after the state filed its disciplinary complaint against her. Carr said she suffered from depression and anxiety that were caused by untreated sleep apnea and the effects of menopause. She also signed up for counseling through the Ohio Lawyer’s Assistance Program, a special service for attorneys struggling with mental health or substance abuse issues. Carr promised during the proceedings that she is “Pinkey 2.0″ and she is able to carry out her duties as a judge. The board however pointed out that he was troubled that Carr also said she was not aware of how inappropriate her actions on the bench were until the disciplinary case had begun, and that she said the misconduct characterized in the complaints was just how she ran her courtroom. They also accused Carr of misleading her character witnesses. Several of those who wrote letters attesting to her character outside of court believed that Carr was only facing discipline because she checked the wrong box on court papers after defendants failed to appear during the March 2020 hearings. Carr’s repeated lies “demonstrate a disturbing dishonesty that pervades [Carr’s] behavior in this case,” the board wrote.