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Municipal Courts:

A Stage for Humor,

Pathos-and Yawns

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ན་གནས་ཅང་མ་ཤང་

Raffer

By B. Vivian Aplin Comedy, pathos, sarcasm and grief each play a role in municipal court.

Proceedings are often tinged with high tragedy or black humor, dramas the average citizen seldom hears of.

Some court officials worry about respect for the lower courts, which include minicipal courts. In the 1969 report of the Judicial Research Foundation, Inc., judges expressed real concern about public attitudes toward the courts.

Among problems listed was the feeling of being 'looked down upon' by the public, by the bar, by higher court judges only for the reason that they were processing, presumably, less important cases.

JUDGES ALSO perceived "neglect of the needs of the lower courts by the public and governmental officials, and the resulting feeling upon the part of the lower court judges that they are inferior a state of mind not conducive to conduct of dignified, orderly procedures."

The report added that judges were concerned with "failure of the public to understand the functions of these courts and the problems of the judges, and the resulting deterioration in the public respect for law and courts generally."

An example of what the judges were talking about is shown in a 1968 amendment to the state constitution, later upheld by the Ohio Supreme Court, allowing raises to common pleas and appeals judges during their term on the bench but not to municipal judges.

In fact municipal judges may have to return any raises they received during their term. Last week the Ohio Municipal Judges Association asked U.S. District Court to allow the pay increases. At least one local judge has said he would seriously consider leaving the bench if he were requested to reimburse a portion of his salary.

MUNICIPAL COURT districts are established by the Ohio Revised Code, with the court usually in the largest city within the district. One judge is elected to a sixyear term for the first 100,000 people in the district, with a second judge added for each additional 70,000.

Minimum salaries for the judges are set by state law according to the population

of the district. Local councils may increase the salary to a maximum of $23,000. The presiding judge, the one whose term expires next, when there is more than one makes an additional $500. Sixty per cent of the judges' salaries is paid by the local communities and the remainder by the county.

Cuyahoga County has 13 municipal courts. The more populous eastern suburbs have eight; the western suburbs four. Cleveland has the remaining court.

Courts differ as much as the sentences for misdemeanors (given the bounds of $1,000 and one year), which are made by the judge to fit the crime as he sees it. One of his peers in a neighboring court may see it differently.

Recently, East Cleveland Judge James M. DeVinne dismissed a case involving a man clocked by radar at 56 miles an hour in a 35 mph zone. DeVinne first determined that no children were in the area, the roads were dry, traffic was light and the driver appeared to be in control of his Porsche.

FOLLOWING HIS questions, including some to determine the manageability and quality of a Porsche, DeVinne ruled the speeding was not unreasonable for a Porsche given the road conditions.

That day about 40 students from nearby Shaw High School were visiting the court.

Cleveland Heights Judge Kenneth S. Nash, during one session, severely admonished a woman accused of shoplifting

whose case was dismissed, but whose story was singularly unconvincing.

Having listened to nearly an hour of conflicting testimony from a nervous, shaken sales clerk, the accused, and her theatrical lawyer (whom the judge chided for watching Perry Mason too much), Nash lost his patience.

"Young lady, I don't believe your story," he lashed out, "but I'm dismissing the case because he (pointing to the prosecutor) failed to show this court guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

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NEVER RETURN to this courtroom because I'll remember you" he warned".

When court was dismissed, Nash told the prosecutor what he did wrong and asked a bystander if she had not realized the guilt of the defendant even though the case was not proved.

Another East Side judge, who asked not to be identified, said he often pays the fines for indigent defendants.

"You can see why I can't let this be known," he said. “Everyone before my bench would claim he was unable to pay his fine."

"I have to follow the letter of the law," he explained, “but it is often clear that the person just doesn't have the money to pay a fine. It puts me in an awkward position, having to fine people who I know can't pay."

IN ANOTHER COURT a beautiful, well-dressed male homosexual on his second shoplifting charge in less than a year

was fined and sentenced to the workhouse. Tears sprang into his eyes as he pleaded with the judge to suspend the jail sentence since he faced certain multiple rape there.

The judge suspended ail but five days of a 90-day sentence, explaining later that he left the remaining days because the young man knew what he was getting into when he committed theft.

A day in court can produce the bizarre, the obscene and the quirky.

Bizarre like the self-proclaimed warlock from Brecksville bound over to the grand jury after a hearing on blackmail and sodomy charges involving an 18-yearold girl. He threatened to cast a spell over the girl and her family if she did not submit to unusual sex acts.

Obscenity enters municipal courtrooms as evidence to get adult movie houses closed in various areas.

AND QUIRKY? THERE'S something every day.

There was the 72-year-old not-so-gentlemanly husband who was charged with assault and battery by his youthful looking 50-year-old wife. On his appearance in court, the husband explained that she needed "knocking around" once in a while to keep her in line. He was found guilty and fined.

Then there was the ex-husband living with his former wife to help with the sitter's fees. When hauled into jail on an assault and battery charge he pleaded guilty

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