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.
Pretel makes it official: Bodycam videos from shootings will be released in seven days
Following a Marshall Project - Cleveland and News 5 Cleveland investigation in February, the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Department changed its policy on publicly releasing body cam footage.
Sheriff Harold Pretel quietly updated the bodycam policy on Feb. 14 requiring the release of videos within seven business days. The policy change came without an announcement to the public, the media or the Cuyahoga County Council.
It also comes after Cuyahoga County officials refused for four months to release bodycam footage from an October shooting of a teenager. Hours before the news outlets were set to publish details of their investigation, a county official sent the bodycam video to a News 5 morning producer, but not to the reporters who had originally requested the footage.
– Mark Puente
Cuyahoga County Jail works toward medical grievance compliance amid ongoing reforms
The Cuyahoga County Jail underwent two inspections in 2024, revealing some improvements, while also noting other long-term problems inside the oft-criticized facility.
A November 2024 jail inspection by Donald Leach, a corrections consultant hired as part of a civil lawsuit settlement, found the facility continues to address longstanding issues such as officer training and food quality. However, the report illustrates other issues in the jail’s medical grievance procedures.
In January, The Marshall Project - Cleveland reported that the Ohio Bureau of Adult Detention placed the Cuyahoga County Jail on a corrective action plan in April 2024 after staff ignored an incarcerated person’s pleas for medical help for several days.
Leach found that paper grievance forms were not readily available, forcing incarcerated people to file grievances through electronic kiosks. The jail’s medical cart used outdated forms, according to the report.
The jail provided Leach with 893 grievances filed in October, though he noted that most were requests for services or court information rather than actual medical concerns.
In January, High Priest Aaron Pampley Jr. filed a handwritten civil rights lawsuit against the Cuyahoga County Jail alleging he was denied access to grievance kiosks while he was incarcerated at the jail.
Leach’s next visit is scheduled for May. Read his inspection here.
Meanwhile, Cuyahoga County’s 2024 jail inspection by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction shows the jail did not comply with seven standards, the lowest deficiency count in recent years.
In 2022 and 2023, the jail did not comply with 13 standards — notably, failures in training jail staff.
Cuyahoga County made national news in 2018 after a U.S. Marshal Services probe and state inspections identified 84 substandard citations.
On the day of the 2024 inspection, the ODRC found seven deficiencies, including improper security post staffing, poor jail lighting and access to sunlight, and insufficient shower space.
“This report reinforces our ongoing efforts to enhance operations at the current facility while we also plan for the new Central Services Campus,” Sheriff Harold Pretel said in a statement after the state inspection. You can read the report here.
– Brittany Hailer
Dark money groups dropped $7 million on Ohio Supreme Court races
Ambiguously named groups with unlisted donors spent nearly $7 million on 2024 Ohio Supreme Court races, according to Ohio Fair Courts Alliance, a nonpartisan organization that advocates for transparency and accountability of spending on judicial races.
In the run-up to the November election, where Democrats had a chance to win control of the Supreme Court for the first time since 1986, the organization sought to raise voter awareness — while also critiquing ads that, according to its analyses, often sought to deceive the public. The ads painted Republicans as corrupt, anti-abortion shills and Democrats as too weak on crime.
“Unfortunately, it is often difficult to tell who is behind political ads, including those for judges and justices. That is not an accident,” Ohio Fair Courts Alliance wrote in one critique of an ad.
Federal election filings and state business records uncovered about $6.7 million spent on 14 political ads not directly paid for by candidate campaigns.
Republicans benefitted from nearly 70% of the outside spending, or about $4.6 million. Ohioans for a Healthy Economy Action Fund, a super PAC affiliated with the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, accounted for about half of that. The organization received $1 million from a nonprofit run by Illinois megadonor Richard Uihlein, as well as contributions from gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and Cleveland Browns’ owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam, according to the research.
Much of the outside support for Democrats came from Ohioans for Judicial Integrity, an independent expenditure group backed by billionaire Michael Bloomberg, which spent just over $2 million on four ads supporting Democrat candidates.
Read the full report here.
– Doug Livingston
Event aims to help spread the word from small nonprofits
The Marshall Project - Cleveland is partnering with several local agencies to host a workshop advising small nonprofits on how to effectively promote their missions through various media channels.
The event is scheduled for Saturday, March 22 from 2 to 3:30 p.m. at Neighborhood Connections, 1971 E. 66th St., in Cleveland.
Longtime TV news anchor Sara Shookman, who now operates her own consulting firm Story Glow Studio, will lead the discussion. She will be joined by staff from The Marshall Project - Cleveland and local nonprofit leaders who will share their experience. A light lunch will be provided.
RSVPs are required. To register, or to receive more information, call 440-836-2066 or email The Marshall Project’s outreach manager Louis Fields at lfields@themarshallproject.org.
Around the 216
- People not charged with a crime will no longer be accepted into the Cuyahoga County Jail, ending a Cleveland police practice that saw roughly one-third of the 3,430 uncharged people jailed in 2023 being released without ever facing formal charges. Cleveland.com
- The Ohio Supreme Court is set to hear arguments this month over Columbus’ 2022 law that includes caps on high-capacity magazines. The city is seeking to lift an injunction won in a lower court by opponents to the law. Court News Ohio
- Action taken by U.S. immigration officials — from arrests to incarceration to court hearings — are largely shielded by laws and policies that mask the work from the public while providing fewer protections to those impacted. Cleveland.com
