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Stop-and-frisk laws have historic ties to Cleveland
The Cleveland Police Department reported making nearly 17,000 stops in 2023 — about 45 a day. The Marshall Project - Cleveland dug into that data and found that officers searched Black people more than three times as often as they searched White people during those stops.
More than 700 of those were “Terry stops,” encounters where officers briefly question a person they suspect might be involved in a crime. The term is based on a U.S. Supreme Court case, Terry v. Ohio, which provided guidelines on police interactions with the public. Under the law, officers can also pat people down for weapons. Nationally, this type of encounter has become known as a “stop-and-frisk.”
Terry stops have very specific rules for officers, rules that came about after the 1963 arrest of two men on Euclid Avenue.
Cleveland police Detective Martin McFadden saw three men looking into the window of a shop downtown. John W. Terry, who was convicted and later appealed his case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, was one of those men. That stop, search and arrest case would change the course of policing history and set a standard that allows officers to “stop and frisk” people on the street.
Side note: While reporting on the story, our reporters wanted to visit the downtown Cleveland historical marker that tells passersby more about the precedent-setting case. But the marker was missing. Turns out, the sign was mowed down during a police chase following — you guessed it — a traffic stop. Until it can be repaired or replaced, people will have to visit a different historical marker, located at the intersection of Euclid Avenue and Huron Road, noting McFadden’s role in the case.
You can learn more about the Terry case and how Cleveland police are supposed to handle these stops today here. It’s an issue the city and federal consent decree monitors are tracking.
If you have questions about the case, let us know. We’d also like to hear from folks who have been stopped, questioned or searched. You can reply to this email or drop us a note here.
– Brittany Hailer and Rachel Dissell
Good luck finding someone in the Cuyahoga County Jail
Have you ever tried locating a loved one or friend inside the Cuyahoga County Jail? It’s nearly impossible. While Cuyahoga County houses more than 1,400 people each day in its notorious jail, learning who is inside is often a frustrating struggle for those on the outside.
For years, many sheriff’s offices across Ohio have allowed the public to search an online database to determine who is behind bars. These databases are often a quick tool for families and friends searching for missing loved ones.
Cuyahoga County is the exception. There is no database available for the public to search.
In addition to families, the lack of access affects attorneys, bail bondsmen and even police detectives, who say they’ve often waited hours for a jail employee to answer a phone — if the call is answered at all — to learn whether someone is in jail.
They’ll all have to continue waiting as Cuyahoga County attempts to build a database, a process that could extend deep into 2025. The Marshall Project - Cleveland and Spectrum News 1 detailed how counties across Ohio have person locators on their sheriffs’ websites.
– Mark Puente
Appeals court says juvenile judges abused discretion in three bindover cases
Three times in the past year, 8th District Court of Appeals judges have ruled that Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court judges abused their discretion when deciding to transfer children accused of serious crimes to adult court.
The rulings involve a special type of juvenile court case called a discretionary bindover. Unlike mandatory bindovers, which require only evidence that a child likely committed a crime before their case is transferred to adult court, judges can deny the transfer of a discretionary bindover by determining that the child could be rehabilitated in the juvenile court system.
Since 2020, appellate judges have upheld at least eight discretionary bindover transfers, making three reversals in a year rare.
Each 2-1 ruling determined that juvenile court judges failed to weigh the time that remained for rehabilitation in a juvenile justice setting and blamed children for failed prior attempts at behavioral or mental health treatment.
In some cases, the appellate judges found overwhelmed mental health providers dropped the children as clients before treatment could begin, or parents would not commit to programs. And none of the children — each later convicted of aggravated robbery or attempted murder — had previously been sentenced to a youth prison, leaving that most intensive alternative available for juvenile judges to consider.
Forensic psychologist Daniel Hrinko, with 30 years of experience evaluating young people for prosecutors and defense attorneys, offered expert testimony in a seminal 2022 Ohio Supreme Court case that paved the way for the string of reversals in Cuyahoga County.
“I typically find that in most of the bindovers I do, there have probably been opportunities missed where the system, and I mean the whole system in the community, could have done more … to effect an opportunity for this kid to get their act together,” he told The Marshall Project - Cleveland.
Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley has asked the Ohio Supreme Court to reverse the two most recent appellate decisions. The court declined to take up the first case, which was sent back to the juvenile court where the boy’s sentence was reduced from years in adult prison to months in a youth detention facility. Now 18, he was released in October.
The other two boys, both 17, remain incarcerated at an adult prison in Pickaway County.
– Doug Livingston
Around the 216
- Emails show confusion among city of Cleveland leaders on crime statistics released to the public, most notably the number of arrests made in homicide cases. WJW Fox 8
- The Ohio Supreme Court has found drug companies can’t be sued under the state’s “public nuisance” laws, a move that throws into question litigation emerging from the opioid crisis. Ohio Capital Journal
- So-called “dark pleas” continue to draw scrutiny from reform advocates who say the courtroom practice favors prosecutors while harming people accused of a crime. WEWS News 5
- Cleveland police are reportedly conducting an internal investigation into allegations that officers were offered reward money by a supervisor as an incentive to arrest people connected to a robbery. WJW Fox 8
