Opinion: Trust, transparency must be restored at Hamilton County Courthouse

Whenever I walk into the Hamilton County Courthouse, I take a moment to read the words etched into its stone edifice:

"The pure and wise and equal administration of the laws forms the first end and blessing of social union."

Whoever came up with that back in 1865 clearly was not paying by the letter. But the sentiment remains inspiring and sobering in equal measure. What happens in that building matters to average citizens, and always has.

These days, however, I fear we will end up replacing that grand phrase with an engraved advertisement: (513) 444-4444.

As has been reported in this newspaper, personal injury attorney Blake Maislin − he of the aforementioned (and seemingly ubiquitous) 444 ads − has reshaped the bench with hundreds of thousands of dollars of potentially illegal political advertising. He continues to practice in front of these very judges, of course − and in so doing creates an ongoing appearance of impropriety.

But the impact of these dollars goes beyond questions of legal ethics.

The dangerous low bond movement which led to Ohio Issue 1 began with a Hamilton County case, as did the recent push to litigate politically-charged issues like abortion in our state courts. Ideology rubs shoulders with reasoned legal discourse. The effect on our community has been immediate: more violent crime, discouraged business owners and an increasingly checked-out citizenry.

A cynical person might proclaim this old news − that the sorry saga of "money in politics" has rendered shady electoral cash dumps the norm. But our courthouse should be held to a different standard. This is not the legislature, where different perspectives jockey for position and attention. No − our courthouse is where judges decide who will go to jail, who will go bankrupt, which businesses will survive. The public must have faith in its integrity and impartiality or civil society simply will not hold.

That’s why I’m running for Clerk of Courts.

Our campaign is a labor of love − an effort to restore a sense of trust and accountability to a troubled institution.

In our day and age, the only way to accomplish this is through radical transparency. The public needs an objective source of information about what happens in the courthouse − a way to tap into the primary sources and read the documents themselves. It will never get that from our interim clerk, who is one of Mr. Maislin ideological bedfellows and a staunch defender of the courthouse’s new status quo.

Since being appointed in January, Pavan Parikh has deleted more than 10,000 public records from the clerk’s website to date. He claims he was helping previously-evicted tenants find new housing. But all he did was shut out the mom-and-pop landlords who rely upon the website for background checks. And this bizarre policy opens the door to removing yet more records which don’t comport with his personal worldview.

He has also been openly hostile to law enforcement, imposing illegal and onerous new requirements upon police officers seeking to file arrest warrants. Don’t take my word for it: Look at the primary source. In Hamilton County Municipal Court Administrative Order 22-22, Parikh was rebuked by a bipartisan group of judges who found the situation an intolerable burden on our system of justice. Look it up, if you can fight your way through the confusing and antiquated interface on the clerk’s website.

And courthouse patronage has once again reared its ugly head. Parikh’s management team is a "who’s who" of the politically connected, including a judge’s spouse. Some transparency would clean up this mess, too.

Parikh has also lost sight of the clerk’s role in promoting public safety. Good luck easily finding bond or sex offender information on his website. But a simple Google search will reveal his accommodation of the Bail Project, a California-based non-profit which has released more than 250 local offenders with out-of-state bond money.

This is what happens when a county drifts into one-party rule. Ideology and cronyism rule the day; taxpayers are left outside looking in. As a Cincinnati City Council member, I continually reached across the aisle to work on ethics reforms and provide support for our demoralized police force. My policies were informed by data, common sense and a concern for the everyday citizens who look to City Hall to make their lives better.

City Hall, for all its imperfections, is now a more functional and transparent place thanks to our work. I ask for the chance to do the same for the Hamilton County Courthouse. We need to get back to the "pure and wise and equal administration of the laws," before it’s too late.

Steve Goodin is a candidate for Hamilton County Clerk of Courts. He is a also a partner at Graydon Law, former Cincinnati City Council member, assistant Hamilton County Prosecutor, Army officer and Peace Corps volunteer.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Opinion: Trust, transparency must be restored at Hamilton County Courthouse