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Judges steered two-thirds of cases involving kids accused of crimes to just 10 lawyers in one year, according to a Marshall Project - Cleveland analysis.Three attorneys collectively received more assignments from Judge Jennifer O’Malley, left, or her magistrates than the Juvenile Court’s other five judges combined. Judge Thomas F. O’Malley, left, has defended the use of appointed attorneys in public meetings. The two people are not related.
“Across the state, in too many places, the judiciary is more involved than they should be,” said Amy Borror, an expert in youth defense with The Gault Center, a national advocacy organization formerly known as the National Juvenile Defender Center. “And it sounds like Cuyahoga is kind of a shining example of that.”
However, in response to questions from The Marshall Project - Cleveland, the court said that it now plans to modify how cases are assigned by the end of the year and create a new position to implement and monitor the new process. The court did not detail the planned changes. Relying on the availability of attorneys who are already assigned to cases “means fewer continuances, which decreases time in detention and custody, and reduces ‘wasted’ docket time, which allows all cases to be resolved faster,” McDevitt, the court’s administrator, said.
“There’s harm that is happening. It is hard to pinpoint,” Krumm said. “We are calling attention to something that has long been like this, and we are trying to call attention to it and chip away at it. There’s a reason they are fighting to keep it the way it is … There are clear winners and losers. The assigned counsel are winning and the kids are losing.”has said court appointments should not be made by judges to ensure attorneys are loyal to their clients and not the people giving them work.
The state covered an unprecedented 100% of costs for indigent defense during the pandemic and currently covers 85%. The busiest attorneys said that they roam the halls or wait outside the courtrooms for a bailiff or clerk in desperate need of an attorney to represent a child in the detention center arrested hours earlier. Others said staff from certain courtrooms send out text message blasts or emails to groups of attorneys looking for assignments.
In response to The Marshall Project - Cleveland’s questions, court officials said that Beck is experienced, competent, reliable and, unlike most private attorneys and all of the public defender’s juvenile defense lawyers, African American. “For some cases and some families, his race is not a trivial consideration,” the court said.
When there are conflicts or all its attorneys are at capacity, the Public Defender’s office in Hamilton County assigns delinquency cases to the next name on a list of private lawyers qualified to handle the criminal charges. “It could be any number of things, but favoritism, nepotism and cronyism come to mind,” said one attorney who had received only a few appointments after a year on the list.
Funneling cases to a few attorneys deprives others of gaining experience, several attorneys said. Some questioned how attorneys who get hundreds of cases could possibly give each the attention it deserves.
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