► Cleveland Plain Dealer - 08/08/00 - Complaint against top justice dismissed Print E-mail

Cleveland Plain Dealer

 

Complaint against top justice dismissed
Tuesday, August 08, 2000
By T.C. BROWN
PLAIN DEALER REPORTER
 
COLUMBUS - A disciplinary panel dismissed complaints against Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Thomas J. Moyer for an alleged political endorsement.
The panel of three appellate judges determined that there was "no sufficient cause" to continue an investigation against Moyer, the high court announced yesterday.
 
The complaints were dismissed in court orders that said little else.
 
Moyer was accused of breaking judicial rules for appearing to endorse Judge Terrence O’Donnell, of the 8th District Ohio Court of Appeals, at a state GOP meeting in April.
 
O’Donnell, a Cleveland Republican, is running against incumbent Justice Alice Robie Resnick. The Toledo Democrat is seeking her third six-year term on the Ohio Supreme Court.
 
"It was not a public meeting, and even if it was, it was not an endorsement," a pleased Moyer said yesterday. "He shares my judicial philosophy. I was not urging them to go out and support him."
 
At the meeting, Moyer said he and O’Donnell were of like mind.
 
Moyer also criticized rulings by the court’s majority, which includes Resnick, though he did not mention her name.
 
Resnick has teamed with two Republican justices and another Democrat to form the majority that declared Ohio’s method of funding schools unconstitutional and that overturned legislative reforms aimed at limiting the money Ohioans can win in liability lawsuits.
 
Moyer later said he would not have made those remarks had he known reporters were present. Judicial canons prevent judges from making speeches or publicly denigrating or endorsing candidates.
 
Reached at home, Resnick said Moyer should clarify if it is proper for judges to make the sort of remarks he made.
 
"If the panel dismissed what the chief justice said, it must be all right for judges to say those things," Resnick said. "That appears to be contradictory to the [disciplinary] code."
 
Moyer said he did not see a contradiction. But, he said, "There are fine lines here."
 
Patrick R. Saunders, the Huron County Democratic chairman, and David Palmer of Maumee filed grievances against Moyer with the Ohio Supreme Court’s Office of Disciplinary Counsel, which investigates complaints involving lawyers and judges.
 
Palmer, a self-appointed legal watchdog, said he was not surprised by the ruling.
 
"I just find this absurd. He is the chief, and he is supposed to set the standard for the whole system," Palmer said. "Moyer knows the code of conduct. What more do you need?"
 
Saunders could not be reached for comment.
 

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