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Cleveland municipal judge suspended by Ohio Supreme Court

Judge suspended: The Ohio Supreme Court voted 5-2 to suspend Cleveland Municipal Judge Pinkey S. Carr indefinitely. (Ulrich Baumgarten via Getty Images)
(Ulrich Baumgarten via Getty Images)

CLEVELAND — The Ohio Supreme Court on Tuesday removed a longtime Cleveland judge from the bench and stripped her of her law license because she “conducted business in a manner benefiting a game show host rather than a judge.”

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Justices voted 5-2 to indefinitely suspend Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Pinkey S. Carr without pay and take away her law license for committing a level of misconduct the court characterized as “unprecedented,” The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported.

The Supreme Court said Carr “essentially created a modern-day debtors prison,” WOIO-TV reported.

Carr, a former assistant county prosecutor who was elevated to the bench in 2012, had helped send serial killer Anthony Sowell to death row, according to the newspaper.

Among the accusations leveled against Carr in a 126-page report, the judge was accused of requiring people to attend court in person during the COVID-19 pandemic, WKYC-TV reported. More than 30 people who did not show up for the hearings on March 16 and 17 were issued arrest warrants, according to court records. Their bail was set between $2,500 to $10,000, according to WOIO.

According to the Plain Dealer, an order had been in effect from Michelle Earley, the court’s administrative judge, that all in-person hearings were supposed to be postponed.

In a courtroom video from March 2020, Carr can be heard talking about a news article written about the arrest warrants.

“It’s a miracle people are here. You know what that article will do now that people have known, ‘Oh Judge Carr issued a warrant for your arrest,’” Carr said, according to the television station. “Is that going to make people come down here now? Brilliant.”

Carr said she simply checked a box on court filings that indicated that the defendants did not show up, according to the Plain Dealer.

“As far as issuing warrants for their arrest? Absolutely untrue,” Carr told the WJW-TV.

According to the report, justices found that Carr was sending people to jail to force them to pay fines to make money for the court, the Plain Dealer reported. The report also cited an instance where Carr ordered a woman to spend 15 days in jail because the defendant rolled her eyes and made disparaging remarks about the judge’s courtroom during a hearing, according to the newspaper.

Carr could not be reached for comment after the decision. Bore the decision was handed down, Carr said that menopause and sleep apnea caused a generalized anxiety disorder, WEWS-TV reported.

“We’re disappointed with the severity of the sanction,” Richard Koblentz, the attorney who represented Carr in her disciplinary case, told the Plain Dealer. “She was not being appropriately treated for (her) conditions.”

Carr is the first practicing judge in Cleveland to be removed from her seat since 2014, according to the newspaper. That is when the Ohio Supreme Court temporarily suspended Angela Stokes while her disciplinary case was pending.


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