3 minute read
FROM THE JUDGES DESK
By The Honorable Steven K. Dankof Sr. Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas steven.dankof@montcourt.oh.gov | 937. 225.4409
Advertisement
Greetings, Sisters and Brothers of the Bar. It’s been quite some time since we communed on these pages.
I am a “Military Brat”, the son of Col. Karl E. Dankof who died in May, 2009 and lies at Arlington, the plantation wrested from Bobby Lee, that traitor defeated by Ohio’s favorite son and Savior of the Union, U.S. Grant, of Pt. Pleasant, Ohio.
As opposed to the mutable and multiple versions1 of certain commandments in a Bronze Age compilation of writings known variously as The Torah or The Bible, the Colonel imparted to his young son commandments more succinct and certainly more valuable: don’t lie and keep your word, no matter the cost; don’t unnecessarily harm any living thing; and stand for something.
Simple enough, right?
Not necessarily within the halls of the Justice Complex where I gladly toil for the people.
But what of the oath of office that every Ohio judge takes upon assuming office:
“I do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of Ohio, will administer justice without respect to persons, and will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as (judge) according to the best of my ability.”2
Simply put, every Ohio judge solemnly promises to provide actual, authentic, real due process to the people appearing before them.
Do we?
A pack of lies told by a 12 year old boy, pressured by Cleveland Police, sent my friend Ricky Jackson to Ohio’s Death Row and prison for 39 years, 5 months and 27 days for a murder he didn’t commit.
In a case arising out of Huber Heights and Montgomery County, Ohio in 1984, two Defendants were wrongfully convicted and served more than 11 years in prison based on police and State misconduct.
Of the first 325 DNA exonerations3 , 235 or 72% involved mistaken eyewitness identification testimony. Several of those exonerations involved bogus and debunked forensic “evidence”4. In 88 of the exonerations, a demonstrably false confession was offered and 48 of the cases involved snitches and informants.
We needn’t Sherlock Holmes to find the culprit in these wrongful convictions: it’s the trial judges who, for one reason or another, haven’t done their job with the rigor demanded by our lofty oaths.
As but another example and as so eloquently detailed by Justice Stewart in Mohamed V. Eckelberry, Slip Opinion 2020Ohio-4585, it is the trial judges who misuse bond and bail to illegally detain, pretrial, citizens presumed innocent.
The point is this: do your job and make the trial judges do ours. Hold us to task, collegiality and congeniality be damned.
And as you journey forth, keep your word and tell the truth, no matter the cost. And stand for something. You’ll be well on your way to a satisfied mind and a principled life.
Until we meet again on these pages…. ENDNOTES:
1Exodus 20:2-17, 34:10-26; Deut. 5:6-21; Leviticus 19 (verses 3-4, 11-13, 15-16, 30, 32. 2ORC 3.23. 3Which is to say innocent people definitively proven by
DNA evidence to have been wrongfully convicted of crimes they could not possibly have committed. 4Arm yourselves with the 2016 Report to the President
– Forensic Science in Criminal Courts: Ensuring
Scientific Validity of Feature-Comparison
Methods, the so-called PCAST Report, and employ legitimate forensic experts in sifting and winnowing in a search for the truth.
Ad Index
