[Written by C. Ellen Connally]
As reported previously on CoolCleveland, Cleveland 19 News and the Plain Dealer, the law department of the City of Cleveland has paid nearly $900,000 for the defense of former Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Angela Stokes. With hearing in progress this week and future hearings scheduled well into 2016, Stokes’ legal fees are likely to top $1.5 million dollars in the immediate future.
The perplexing question that boggles the minds of court watchers and inquiring minds is why Stokes is receiving such preferential from the city, treatment not afforded other judges statewide.
Under the insurance policy currently provided to Ohio judges by the Ohio Supreme Court, the amount paid for legal fees in a disciplinary action is $10,000. After that, judges have to pay their own legal fees. So why are the cash-strapped taxpayers of Cleveland shelling out nearly a million dollars for legal fees for Stokes when other judges have to pay their own tab?
After years of complaints by lawyers, prosecutors, police officers, court staff and the public over her erratic behavior and court sessions that lasted late into the night, disciplinary action against Stokes began in 2013. These complaints resulted in 337 allegations of misconduct against her. With Stokes’ belief that she has done absolutely nothing wrong, she blew through her state insurance coverage in short order.
Rather than reach into her own pocket and hire a lawyer to continue her defense, like every other state court judge would be forced to do, Stokes sought the assistance of the Cleveland Law Department, claiming that she was entitled to free legal services as a city employee. Someone in the law department agreed and the meter began to run.
In the mid 1980s the Ohio Supreme Court began to provide liability insurance for judges. Although there is a long-standing legal doctrine of judicial immunity — meaning that you cannot recover against a judge for actions performed in the course of judicial duties — by the latter part of the 20th century, court systems began to incur litigation. As courts evolved, judges took on more and more non-judicial functions, such as employment of more staff, computer operations and the like, and in our litigious society, lawsuits against judges — some of which were successful — became more prevalent. To protect judges from the cost of contentious law suits, the Supreme Court, like high courts across the nation, instituted a program of insurance coverage for judges.
These programs also included coverage to assist judges with legal fees if charged with violations of the state’s disciplinary codes, which is where Stokes comes into the picture.
In a Report of the Supreme Court of Ohio Joint Task Force on Judicial Liability and Immunity, issued in November of 2006, task force members studied the issue of insurance for judges charged with violations of the canons of judicial ethics. Of the 23 states studied for the report, the task force found that at that time 17 states provided NO insurance coverage for judges charged in disciplinary actions. Which means that in those states, a judge accused of judicial misconduct must pay for his or her own defense.
Ohio was more generous. In 1999, coverage in disciplinary matters against judges was contingent on the judge being exonerated from all allegations of misconduct. So if the judge was charged with violating the canons and found not guilty, he or she could look to the Supreme Court to be reimbursed for legal fees. However, if found guilty, the judge paid — like Franklin County Common Pleas Court Judge Deborah O’Neill, who lost in a 2004 disciplinary action filed against her and was ultimately sued for $587,000 in legal fees – plus $47,000 in court cost.
In 2002, this plan to reimburse the judge for legal fees only if he or she won their case was abandoned in favor of a $20,000 cap on individual disciplinary claims and later changed to $25,000. Interestingly enough, under the most recent Professional Liability Self-Insurance Program for 2015- 2016, the Supreme Court capped the legal fees for judges in disciplinary actions at $10,000, again with the caveat that if the judge losses, he or she must reimburse the Supreme Court for money expended.
In considering the issue of providing legal fees for judges charged with disciplinary violations, the task force recognized the fact that the Supreme Court should not be responsible for the cost of defending a judge who is the subject of serious or potentially serious disciplinary allegations. What the task force did recommend was that in the preliminary stages of the disciplinary process, the court should conduct a periodic review of the various costs and expenses associated with defending judges to determine at what stage the judge charged with violations should assume the responsibility for the cost of defending the professional misconduct allegations filed against them.
Such an assessment by the Cleveland Law Department is long overdue. An evaluation of potential cost to the city should have been done long before Stokes hired and fired six sets of some of the most high-priced lawyers in the state and certainly before the city law department writes another check to Stokes’ lawyers.
Originally, the law department, through its outside counsel, undertook to defend Stokes against the 337 counts of alleged misconduct while she served as a judge. However, in December of last year, the Supreme Court imposed an interim suspension of Stokes’ law license, which removed her from the bench. That caused a substantial change in the tenor or the proceedings. Now the city is paying, not only to defend her against alleged acts of misconduct but also paying for a lawyer and/or lawyers to fight to get her law license back — which seems to me should be on Stokes’ dime, not the taxpayers.
City Council President Kevin Kelly recently told Cleveland 19 News that he is monitoring the expenditures but that there is no legislative oversight for these funds. If this is the case, who then is authorizing these expenditures and where is the money coming from?
It is time for Angela Stokes to start paying for her own defense. It time for the city to cancel the blank check that finances Stokes’ legal battles. The city should follow the precedent set by the Ohio Supreme Court and make it clear that if she loses, she will be treated like other judges across the state and be required to repay the taxpayers for what they spent.
As city council members cry out for more money for police during the current epidemic of gun violence, it’s time for them to start asking questions of the law department. If there is no money for these vital services, how can there be money for legal fees now reaching a million dollars? Taxpayers must demand an explanation, and someone in the law department should be held responsible for this waste of taxpayer money.
C. Ellen Connally is a retired judge of the Cleveland Municipal Court. From 2010 to 2014 she served as the President of the Cuyahoga County Council. An avid reader and student of American history, she serves on the Board of the Ohio History Connection and was recently appointed to the Soldiers and Sailors Monument Commission. She holds degrees from BGSU, CSU and is all but dissertation for a PhD from the University of Akron.