While I’m not going to try to pretend to be an armchair legal scholar, I think there might be a way for the legal system to address the problem posed by Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Joseph Russo’s unfair and ridiculous behavior. For those of you that are not aware of what he’s been up to, it simply this: He’s basically telling the citizenry “fuck you.”
Not only does he cause people to languish in jail for inordinately long periods of time (much longer than any other judge on the bench), he even started using e-cigarettes while on the bench, that is, until a juror complained, and only then was he was forced to stop.
What we are witnessing is the “name game” at its worst. He carries the “Russo” moniker so the voters keep returning him to the bench in spite of him being a cold bum. But that’s how it goes in Cuyahoga County; the right name can keep someone in office no matter how badly they perform.
Nonetheless, there is potentially a way to try to rein this clown Russo in. There is a provision for a “speedy trial” in America, something that this so-called jurist totally ignores since he obviously has more important things to do than sit on the bench. His work ethic, as widely reported, is downright deplorable.
But if enough trial lawyers were to file motions to have cases reassigned to another judge as soon as they were informed their clients’ cases were to be heard in Russo’s courtroom, the hand of the State Supreme Court Disciplinary Counsel’s Office would eventually be forced to address the issue of his tardiness and work ethic. It’s certainly worth a try.
However, for this to happen, members of the bar would have to strap on their nuts and act in the manner in which they were taught in law school: To be zealous advocates for their clients. Unfortunately, law, as it’s usually practiced in this country, is still too much of an “old boy” network where the first consideration of most attorneys is to “not piss off the judge,” not the welfare of their clients.
So instead of vigorously doing their jobs, they allow Judge Russo to piss on their clients — for months, and sometimes years. Maybe these guys should go into other professions, where individuals’ rights and freedom are not on the line, something where professional courage is not required. Maybe pottery making — or trash collecting.
From CoolCleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author at http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.