Cuyahoga County Judge Daniel Gaul suspended 1 year for misconduct

Justin Dennis
·3 min read
16

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WJW) — The state’s high court has suspended a longtime Cuyahoga County judge for one year, without pay, for dozens of ethical violations over the span of about five years.

1-year-old girl Choice Walters returned safe; Amber Alert canceled

The Ohio Supreme Court on Friday handed down its decision temporarily barring Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Daniel Gaul from practicing law — and taking him off the county court bench — after a three-member panel of the Ohio Board of Professional Conduct found he committed 31 conduct violations between 2015 and 2021, including:

  • Coercing pleas

  • Aggressively questioning and demeaning defendants

  • Abusing his office to advance others’ personal interests

  • Refusing to release defendants from confinement and disregarding orders from appellate courts

  • Abusing powers to punish others for contempt of court

Judge Gaul in 2015 gave a defendant in an attempted murder case an ultimatum: plead no contest and serve 14 years in prison, or go to trial and face consecutive sentencing on all the charges — possibly up to 42 years. The defendant pleaded no contest and Judge Gaul sentenced him to 14 years.

During sentencing, Judge Gaul “harped on the fact that [the defendant] had grown up without a father” and “alluded to the Black Lives Matter movement,” reads the opinion.

An appeals court found the defendant likely believed he wouldn’t get a fair trial or sentence and remanded his case to another judge. A jury then acquitted him of all charges.

In 2018, Judge Gaul coerced another defendant into a no-contest plea, justices wrote.

That defendant was sentenced in 2018 on multiple cases. Then, while on probation in 2019, he was arrested again on new charges, resulting in two separate cases: one at the state level — which included a probation violation for the prior case — and another at the federal level.

Much like in the 2015 case, Judge Gaul offered to hand the defendant a lesser sentence if he pleaded no contest. When the defendant declined to plead, Judge Gaul said:

“You either are going to resolve this case today with two years, or you’re going to be, in two minutes, a probation violator, and you’re going to be sent down for three years on the first probation violation.

“Now, you have reached the very limit of my patience. I don’t have to have this conversation with you,” he continued, according to the opinion. “I, right now, could sentence you to six years in a state penal institution and recuse myself from the new case, and send it to a different judge who could give you an additional six years.”

‘An incredible win’: Providers, LGBTQ community react to SAFE Act veto

Judge Gaul later “instructed” the man to plead no contest, which he did, but did not tell him how the plea would affect his second case, as required by criminal court rules, reads the opinion. Those pleas were later tossed out by an appeals court and the case was sent back to the lower court.

Judge Gaul later admitted during his disciplinary hearing that he had already decided for himself that defendant had violated his parole before allowing a hearing to move ahead, bringing his impartiality into doubt, justices wrote.

The high court previously suspended Gaul for six months in 2010, after he made “unnecessary and highly prejudicial remarks” against a criminal defendant and misused the state’s Amber Alert system to locate a witness who had gone missing. He was not made to serve that suspension, however.

Judge Gaul was first licensed to practice law in Ohio in 1981. He’s served on the county court bench since 1991.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Fox 8 Cleveland WJW.