Judge John O’Donnell (D) of the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, is running to unseat Justice Sharon Kennedy (R) on the Ohio Supreme Court. It is Judge O’Donnell’s second run for the Supreme Court, after having lost narrowly in 2016. In the current campaign, as in his last one, he is facing strong opposition from activists from the Black community who are displeased with O’Donnell’s verdict in 2015 regarding the shooting of two Black men by a Cleveland police officers. O’Donnell argues that he was following the law, and he has committed himself to making changes to improve the judicial system to ensure that there is more conformity in sentencing and to require Ohio judges to take implicit bias training. The community organizers arranged against him have argued that they need to send a message to all judges that acquittals in police shooting cases have consequences.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »