This is The Marshall Project - Cleveland’s newsletter, a twice monthly digest of criminal justice news from around Ohio gathered by our staff of local journalists. Want this delivered to your inbox? Subscribe to future newsletters.
Cuyahoga County Jail to offer reentry services after a Marshall Project - Cleveland investigation
For years, Cuyahoga County has offered little help to people when releasing them from jail. That ends in December.
A new reentry program to assist people is being finalized by Cuyahoga County Sheriff Harold Pretel and other top leaders. The program is intended to connect people to resources and information about housing, employment, health care and other basic services to help them reacclimate and avoid a return to jail.
The new program comes a year after The Marshall Project - Cleveland detailed how Cuyahoga County offered no reentry assistance to men and women before they left the jail. Read more here.
– Mark Puente
Volunteers help dozens to vote inside Cuyahoga County Jail
Local officials continue to lament reduced voter turnout in Cleveland and Cuyahoga County for the presidential election earlier this month. But among the hardest-to-reach and most-often disenfranchised voters — people in jail — turnout held steady.
Northeast Ohio Voter Advocates, a nonpartisan nonprofit that focuses on registering hard-to-reach voters at places such as food pantries and correctional facilities, helped to register 115 voters at the Cuyahoga County Jail this fall and 51 of those people cast ballots in the general election, according to the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, which collects ballots from the facility. That’s a turnout of a little over 44%. To compare, voter turnout in the city of Cleveland, where the downtown jail is currently located, was 46%.
This year, under a new policy, trained NOVA volunteers worked to register people held in the jail. Individuals held in maximum security were excluded. Afterward, absentee ballots were delivered to the jail and then collected by elections board employees.
Meredith Hellmer, NOVA board president, said the jail’s population is fluid, so there’s always a chance some people who register will be released or transferred to a prison before the election.
About 18,000 people regain the right to vote when released from Ohio prisons each year. People convicted of misdemeanor crimes or awaiting trial can vote, even if they’re in jail. Often, people don’t know they have that right or fear repercussions if they use it. There can be logistical barriers, such as having proper identification. And in some cases, worries about a pending criminal case are more important.
This year, The Marshall Project surveyed 54,000 people behind bars about their views on the presidential election. Some didn’t know or didn’t believe they had the right to vote while in jail.
Of 150 people in the Cuyahoga County Jail who answered the survey question, about 40% said being incarcerated motivated them to vote, nearly twice the 21% who said being locked up decreased their desire to vote. The rest said incarceration did not affect their plans to cast a ballot.
– Rachel Dissell and Doug Livingston
Tamir Rice’s legacy lives on 10 years later
This week marks 10 years since a Cleveland police officer shot Tamir Rice, a Black boy playing with a toy gun in a city park. The 12-year-old died the following day and Cleveland became part of the national conversation about police violence.
Since then, Tamir’s mother, Samaria Rice, has been pushing for police accountability on the local and national stages — and grappling with the use of her son’s image without her permission.
She sued the department, which settled the lawsuit for $6 million. Rice then started a foundation in her son’s name and has continued to show up at community meetings, pushing for progress under the city’s consent decree.
Earlier this week, on Ideastream Public Media’s “The Sound of Ideas,” Rice talked about the anger and trauma she and her family still live with, and why she continues to push for Cleveland police to make changes required under the Department of Justice consent decree.
“What is the pushback of being accountable or showing responsibility in the community that you serve?” Rice asked. “That is a big problem, and that gives the community little hope.”
Rice is scheduled to be at the City Club of Cleveland with Subodh Chandra, a civil rights attorney who represented the family, to talk about Tamir’s legacy. Friday’s forum is slated to be available on a livestream.
– Rachel Dissell
Two bills. Thirteen minutes. Will Ohio decriminalize living with HIV?
Two bills with the potential to overhaul a set of laws that criminalize or increase sentences for certain acts for people living with HIV got hearings in front of the Ohio House’s Criminal Justice Committee earlier this week.
Republican state Rep. Sara Carruthers of Hamilton, who introduced the bills, answered questions from fellow lawmakers about House Bill 498, which would repeal a law that makes it a felony to donate blood while HIV-positive. The law is unnecessary, Carruthers said, because blood donations are screened for HIV. Carruthers also introduced HB 513, which would update laws that broadly criminalize people living with HIV, whether or not they can transmit the virus. Instead, people who intentionally transmit the virus would face penalties. In all, the hearings took 13 minutes.
If no action is taken on the bills by the end of the year, they’ll expire. Carruthers told The Buckeye Flame that she’s looking for a lawmaker to reintroduce the bills if that happens. Earlier this year, The Marshall Project - Cleveland and The Buckeye Flame highlighted one of the hundreds of Ohioans charged under the decades-old laws, which experts say are outdated and unscientific. The Buckeye Flame recently wrote about a Dayton man prosecuted under one of the laws.
– Rachel Dissell
Event to highlight plans, problems at Cuyahoga County Jail
The Marshall Project - Cleveland is hosting a community event focusing on conditions inside the Cuyahoga County Jail and plans for the new jail coming to Garfield Heights.
The free event includes a showing of an episode of The Marshall Project’s series “Inside Story” and a Q&A session with our investigative reporters. The discussion will also feature insights and updates on current jail conditions and what the future holds for the new jail.
The Dec. 13 community event starts at 6 p.m. at Miss Os, 12672 Rockside Road, in Garfield Heights. For more information and updates, and to connect with our reporters, join our Facebook group.
– Louis Fields
Around the 216
- “The Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Department made hundreds of thousands of dollars in unauthorized transactions, wasted thousands of dollars paying sales tax and lost out on over $8,000 in credit card rewards, according to the county’s watchdog agency.” WEWS News 5
- “Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost signaled he’d at least partially lift his political blockade against an effort to abolish qualified immunity — a legal doctrine that shields police officers who use lethal force.” Cleveland.com
- A review by Lorain County prosecutors has found that “two North Ridgeville police officers did not use unreasonable force” when they fatally shot a man during a May 8 confrontation. WEWS News 5
- A judge has dismissed felony charges against Lorain County Prosecutor J.D. Tomlinson and his chief of staff. The move comes after Tomlinson lost his reelection bid earlier this month. Cleveland.com
