Cuyahoga County Council is forming a committee to look into how the council can best support children in the juvenile justice system.
Council Member Michael Gallagher, who chairs the council’s Public Safety and Justice Affairs Committee, announced the plan for the new temporary committee on Tuesday.
Gallagher was tasked with finding a way for the council to address juvenile justice issues brought to them by community advocates and find a way to support the juvenile court, the public defender’s office and the prosecutor’s office.
During recent county budget hearings, community advocates raised concerns about the high rate of children being transferred to adult court in Cuyahoga County. They asked for support in shifting funds to the public defender’s office so that office can take on more juvenile cases. Gallagher said the committee will dig into those issues as well as suggest ways to support the juvenile court, public defender’s office and prosecutor’s office.
“Their charge is simple,” Gallagher said of the new committee. “Help us help the court, help us help our constituents with concerns, and help us, importantly, help the children of Cuyahoga County that are in unfortunate situations.”
Christine McMonagle, a retired judge from Ohio’s Eighth District Court of Appeals, will lead the committee. McMonagle worked for the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland before she was elected as a Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas judge.
Gallagher said he has given her a “blank canvas” to bring together a group of people who will ultimately make recommendations to County Council on what they can do or how to best budget funds to help children who go through the juvenile justice system.
There is no start date for the committee, but Gallagher said it will host meetings open to the public at the county administrative building.
Community advocates speak up
Community advocates with the Greater Cleveland Congregations (GCC) used public comment time to tell council members how Cuyahoga County transfers more children to adult court than Franklin and Hamilton counties combined. The advocates have spent more than two years researching the issue of youth bindovers to adult court. They have talked to members of the county administration, judges, the county prosecutor and the county public defender.
In his biennial budget, County Executive Chris Ronayne recommended moving $650,000 from the juvenile court’s budget to the public defender’s budget, essentially splitting in half money that goes toward paying for private attorneys appointed by judges to represent children in juvenile court. GCC members asked the council to support this funding shift so that the public defender’s office could be assigned to represent more children, especially those being charged with serious crimes that could land them in adult court or prison.
Council members ultimately did not shift the funds but said they would continue to look into the issues the group brought up.
For years, the public defender’s office has maintained that its attorneys are assigned to represent too few children, even though the office has resources and capacity. In other large Ohio counties, juvenile courts often automatically assign public defenders to represent children in delinquency cases unless there is a conflict.
‘Judges don’t have an open mic’
During the Tuesday council hearing, Juvenile Court Judge Jennifer O’Malley gave committee members a crash course on how bindovers work.
Council Member Sunny Simon asked the judge whether she has seen any differences in the outcome of a case when an appointed attorney represents a child vs. when a public defender does.
“I’ve never seen it happen in the five years I’ve been on the bench,” O’Malley said.
Children represented by a public defender remained in juvenile court more often than if they were represented by an attorney paid for by their family or by a private attorney a judge picked for them, according to a report published last week.
Some council members expressed that real change in how the court operates would have to happen in Columbus, where advocates can lobby state legislators to change current laws around bindovers.
“People seem to think we can just wave a magic wand and things would change,” Gallagher said.
But Council President Pernel Jones Jr. said the county does have some ability to reach children, especially with preventive programs before they go into the criminal justice system.
Council Member Cheryl Stephens said while the council can’t change state laws, it made sense for community members to come to them to discuss the issue of bindovers. She said it’s important for community activists to advocate for social change.
“Judges don’t have an open mic once a week,” Stephens said. “But county council does. Every time we have a county council meeting, … there’s public comment.”
