"We Have Many Things In Common. Name Three:"

In keeping with trinitarian ideas, I thought I'd pry open the pupae on three issues clOse to MY HEART.

First: Governor John Kasich's decision to pull the plug on a new psychiatric hospital on the Euclid Corridor is a shameful one. As a public defender in the Poverty Capital of America, I stand next to dozens of people in court each month, mostly black, always poor, who are in desperate need of immediate psychiatric help. The resources available now - to evaluate, diagnose & treat severe mental disorders - are a coupla doctors working part-time who might get around to it in the next coupla weeks or not. Usually, not. Nothing offends me more than when a client languishes for days, weeks without proper mental health care. My hope that a new paradigm of mental health services for my clients hinged upon that new hospital.

Second:  I have always asserted that the quickest way out of the morass of corrupt decision-making at the county prosecutor's office is the preliminary hearing: a low-threshold evidential hearing held in municipal court to determine if there is probable cause to send the matter to common pleas court for further prosecution. My further elaborations on the point are found here, but suffice it to say that preliminary hearings require sworn testimony by witnesses at a time most contemporaneous with the crime alleged -  not months later. Preliminary  hearings also cast sunshine on the charging process so the public can see it. Contrast that with the corrupt, ham-fisted, racist, throw the kitchen sink, charging process of the Cuyahoga County Grand Jury process. Did I mention it's corrupt?

A few months ago, I called in to WCPN's Sound of Ideas (episode available in it's entirety here) to counter Judge Timothy McGinty's peculiar assertion that the County Public Defender's office was the problem.  I asserted, as above, that the most just tool to promote integrity and, yes, efficiency, in the criminal justice system was the preliminary hearing.  While Judge Timothy McGinty graciously avoided the sorts of ad hominem attacks on me that he reserved for Chief Public Defender Robert L. Tobik on that day, he declared that "the days of preliminary hearings are...over"  I'd like him to tell that to the lawyers representing these guys.  Perhaps he meant that preliminary hearings are only a thing of the past for poor, mostly black folks. For people who can afford the sterling representation of Bud Doyle, Henry Hilow, et cetera, the death of the preliminary hearing has been greatly exaggerated.

Third: Arbitration, Schmarbitration.  Reeling back to those pre-Issue 6 halcyon days of Plain Dealer-spoon-fed-Masonic-propaganda, those who actually read the proposed charter carefully, back then, knew that this current turf battle would ultimately require litigation. In courts. It would last for years. It was near top of the long list of intellectually fraudulent problems with the proposed charter.  It was a major reason to vote "no" on 6; "yes" on 5. Rememba?  It can't be swept under the arbitration rug, now.  And when the court case comes, look out for conflicts-a-go-go.

March Comes In Like A Lion Stuck On A Rock At The Flooded Cleveland Zoo Soundtrack

"Happy throngs take this joy wherever you go!!"
"We have many things in common: name three."