[1]From the Metro Desk of the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com(www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com [2])
Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Daniel Gaul, on probation himself for 6 months after the Ohio Supreme Court found him guilty of ethics violations last Oct., has sentenced a Black college girl, who has a 4 month-old daughter, to 6 months in prison per the requests of White male Cleveland Fifth District police officers that White neighbors said beat her unnecessarily and called her nigger.
Gaul sentenced Rebecca Whitby, 25, March 8, a single parent, and sent her to prison though she has no prior criminal record.
Though charged in a 12-count indictment with robbing the police of their guns, child endangerment and numerous counts of assault on a peace officer and resisting arrest, the jury found her guilty last month of only one count of felony assault on a police officer in the fourth degree, and resisting arrest, a second degree misdemeanor. The girl's mother, also named Rebecca Whitby, was acquitted of two counts of felony assault against police but convicted of a fifth degree felony count of obstruction of justice for allegedly seeking to shield her daughter from an attack and beating by police the night the girl was arrested. Whitby faced 39 months in prison, and her mother, whom Gaul sentenced to two months probation, faced a year.
“We believe that the evidence supported acquittals on all charges for both women, but the jury saw otherwise," said Cleveland Attorney Terry Gilbert, who represents the older Whitby. Gilbert has since filed motions for a new trial and to dismiss the criminal charges on behalf of his client, both of which were required to be filed within 14 days after the jury verdict is journalized per the Ohio Rules of Criminal Procedure. He said that he will also appeal, which essentially means that he believes Gaul erred at some point during the trial.
The younger Whitby, now in the Cuyahoga County Jail, is represented by Cleveland Attorney Scott Ramsey, who filed no post verdict motions on behalf of his client as Gilbert did, leaving the younger Whitby to hope for an early release or to wait on any appellate ruling, unless he moves Gaul to release her on bond pending appeal, and the controversial judge agrees.
At sentencing Cleveland Police urged Gaul to jail the younger Whitby saying she had ruined their reputations and the judge, White and male like the police that told him what sentence to issue, obliged.
The jury issued the verdicts at issue after a week long trial that ended Feb 7. That trial drew testimony from the Whitby women and a host of others, including Cleveland police and Cuyahoga County Jail officials.
Activists, that say they plan to hold "Free Rebecca" protests, are angry saying Gaul was handpicked to jail the younger Whitby and that he was allegedly biased throughout the trial.
"I believe that Judge Gaul was chosen because he is a biased judge who got on the case to prejudice the jury and to keep out evidence, and to hurt this young innocent Black woman with a new baby by sending her to prison," said Community Activist Ada Averyhart. "He would not let the jury hear that she was called the n-word and said testimony could only say that police used racial slurs because he did not want the jury to get the full picture of the harassment of this woman."
Gaul was handpicked to hear the consolidated cases of Whitby and her mother by Cuyahoga Presiding and Administrative Judge Nancy Fuerst, after Cuyahoga Judge Kathleen Sutula rejected her assignment to step in for Cuyahoga Judge Stuart Friedman, who voluntarily quit the case following allegations of racism against the women by community activist groups such as the Lucasville Uprising Freedom Network, Black on Black Crime, the Oppressed People's Nation and the People's Forum.
Sutula said that she objects to personal assignments of cases by Fuerst, who reassigns cases by computer generated random draw if mainstream media are watching but handpicks judges when she gets the chance to do so out of public scrutiny.
The case unraveled almost two years ago when the younger Whitby was, according to an elderly White neighbor who said publicly and who testified at trial, beaten and subjected to racial slurs such as “nigger” by White Fifth District police officers one dark night in 2009 in Cleveland's Collinwood neighborhood where the family once lived. Court documents reveal that police were called to the home by her father who said she was too intoxicated to drive, but the family says that records reveal that she was only slightly intoxicated, and that charges were filed only after an internal complaint against police was filed.
The Whitbys say police harassed them because when they found nothing wrong after being summoned to the home they were determined to get something out of nothing for the inconvenience. Police said the then 130 lb Whitby grabbed their guns in a "Jesse James" type show down, though first review of the younger Whitby's case by the Cuyahoga County Grand Jury came as a "no bill," meaning no charges. But after Cuyahoga Judge Tim McGinty appointed Cleveland NAACP Executive Director Stanley Miller to the grand jury as a grand jury foreman, Miller then led the county grand jury as to an indictment of the criminal charges against the younger Whitby. He then blocked access by the Whitby family to the executive committee of the Cleveland NAACP.