CLEVELAND, Ohio – President Trump’s tariffs are hurting Ohio farmers. In most years, China would have already pre-booked billions of dollars in soybean orders from the United States, but this year, China hasn’t purchased a single bushel.
We’re talking about the fall-out on Today in Ohio.
Listen online here.
Editor Chris Quinn hosts our daily half-hour news podcast, with editorial board member Lisa Garvin, impact editor Leila Atassi and content director Laura Johnston.
You’ve been sending Chris lots of thoughts and suggestions on our from-the-newsroom text account, in which he shares what we’re thinking about at cleveland.com. You can sign up here: https://joinsubtext.com/chrisquinn.
Here’s what we’re asking about today:
Let’s start with another big ramification of President Donald Trump’s policies for Ohio. What is going on with the soybean crop?
Are Ohio Republicans violating the state constitution by openly dragging their feet on drawing maps for congressional districts?
Cleveland voters could not have spoken more clearly a decade ago in voting to pretty much outlaw automated speeding and red light cameras. Are Democrats on Cleveland City Council taking a page from Republicans in the Ohio Legislature in seeking to force their belief system down the throats of voters and bring back the cameras anyway?
As we’ve discussed a good bit, reckless chases by the Cuyahoga Sheriff’s office have resulted in three deaths this year, including two innocent bystanders. Many, including us, have called for disbanding the sheriff’s unit responsible for the deaths. Instead, the county has issued new rules for chases. What are they?
We all know that the names for Ohio property tax increases are confusing. Renewals. Replacements. Emergencies. It all seemed designed to fool voters into complacency, and approvals. The Legislature has abolished some of them, overriding Gov. Mike DeWine’s veto to do it. So what will voters see in future tax proposals on the ballot?
The Geauga County Commission seems to have taken a step toward more open government. How so?
What happened with abortion rates in Ohio after voters enshrined the right to the procedure in the state constitution? What do the 2024 numbers show us?
A trio of appeals court judges appointed by Republican presidents has given permission to FirstEnergy to keep hiding some its dastardly deeds. What is the ruling that does that?
Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Mike O’Malley launched another attack on Juvenile Court last week, this time over a probation sentence for a kid facing his 18th felony case. What did he say, and how did the court respond?
More Today in Ohio
Ohio GOP gave billions in taxes to the rich but refuse to admit that caused our tax crisis
A quarter of Ohio students are chronically absent? Unpacking the state’s education crisis
Ohio’s e-bike explosion creates dangerous convergence on sidewalks. Should they be licensed?
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Read the automated transcript below. Because it’s a computer-generated transcript, it contains many errors and misspellings.
Chris Quinn (00:00.975)
Donald Trump is having a devastating effect on a group of farmers in Ohio. So first story we’re talking about on Today in Ohio, the news podcast discussion from Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer. I’m Chris Quinn here with Layla Tassi, Lisa Garvin and Laura Johnston. Lisa, let’s start with that big ramification of President Donald Trump’s policies for Ohio. What’s going on with our soybean crop?
Lisa (00:28.306)
So China usually buys about 25 to 30 % of the total U.S. soybean crop. Here in Ohio, we’re at either number five or number seven in soybean production, depending on the harvest year, and most of these farms are in Northwest Ohio. So this year, China hasn’t bought any soybeans from the U.S. at all, not one bushel, and they typically pre-book billions of dollars in soybean orders. So Ohio Soybean Associations,
Kirk Merritt says, they’re just using this as a bargaining chip in the ongoing tariff wars with China. China has slapped a 35 % retaliatory tariff on US soybean imports. So that’s making soybeans less competitive with Brazil and Argentina. And actually China has turned to Brazil for these soybeans. So Merritt says, they just made it too expensive to buy our US beans. Now in Argentina,
You know, they temporarily waived taxes on soybean exports and now Trump is talking about giving 20 billion in financial aid to Argentina. And know, Merritt says that’s pretty hard for Ohio soybean farmers to swallow. Also, the drought is affecting the yield. There are lower crop yields this year. Farmers are talking to politicians about improving export demand, but some are talking about storing their soybeans and hoping for better prices next year, but that’s a real big if.
and they may need a federal bailout.
Chris Quinn (01:58.009)
Look, there’s no doubt this is a direct result of Donald Trump. We can’t sell our soybeans. People said up front tariffs are bad for the country. They’re bad for business. And the war that we’ve created, the danger is that China will permanently find other suppliers of soybeans. Argentina would love to supplant Ohio in the U.S. And we’re helping them do that. And that’s bad. So now the U.S. talks about, maybe we’ll have to subsidize the farmers.
It’s crazy. Let the free market roll. But the Republicans who used to always be about the free market are collapsing it. It’s amazing to me that they don’t have a single soybean going to China after years and years and years of sending huge amounts of the crop there. I was surprised to see that the late summer weather hurt the yield. The last time we checked in was what about a month and a half ago.
Lisa (02:50.932)
Mm-hmm.
Lisa (02:54.451)
Mm-hmm.
Chris Quinn (02:55.011)
where do we stand on fruits and vegetables and everything was good. But I guess since then we had so little rain that that things were affected. We might have to go back and revisit all the crops.
Lisa (03:06.45)
And I know that a lot of farmers, because we bailed out the farmers a few years ago. I don’t remember what for. The price of something fell to the floor. they don’t really, farmers don’t want to be subsidized really. They want to be able to sell their crop. They don’t want to bail out from the government, a lot of them.
Chris Quinn (03:24.803)
Right. And if the market was free, China would buy the soybeans, they’d make a lot of money, and Ohio’s agriculture would be protected. This, look, we’ve been talking all year about the ramifications of Trump’s often reckless policies. Here’s a big one. Our soybean industry, which is a big industry in our agriculture, is being crippled by what’s happened here. You’re listening to Today in Ohio.
Laura, are Ohio Republicans violating the state constitution by openly dragging their feet on drawing maps for congressional districts?
Laura (04:01.646)
Well, it’s iffy on whether they’re technically breaking the law. It depends on how you define the word shall and what a court would find. But in spirit of the law, basically, because it benefits Republicans to wait out the clock when it comes to redistricting. If they wait till November, they can pass a redistricting plan that gives their party two or maybe three additional seats in Congress. After next year, they already have 10 of Ohio’s 15 seats.
And that’s because the way that these redistricting rules, which were passed overwhelmingly by Ohioans in 2018, basically sets three steps. In September, the General Assembly is supposed to pass a congressional district plan that’s backed by at least 60 % of the House and Senate and half of the minority party. If that doesn’t happen, they move on to step two, where the Ohio Redistricting Commission adopts a congressional plan no later than the last day of October. It’s supposed to have the support of the two Democrats on the commission.
Whoops, if you missed that, then the General Assembly shall pass a congressional district plan in the form of a bill not later than the last day of November. And that requires absolutely no buy-in from the Democrats. So while the Democrats are saying you’re breaking the law by not even talking to us in these months of September and October, the Republicans have almost said the quiet part out loud. That’s like, this is all processed. We have plenty of time. We’re in no rush. Yeah.
Chris Quinn (05:23.803)
They have said it out loud. They’re not going to do it. They’re not even pretending to participate. They haven’t produced a map. We talk about this system and how broken it is every day. The Republicans in the legislature are completely failing Ohioans in their duty to work toward a consensus on fair maps. The Republicans in the legislature are failing in their duty to provide for Ohio education.
Laura (05:33.858)
Mm-hmm.
Chris Quinn (05:47.247)
They’ve crippled it and the property tax crisis is the result of it. They’ve shifted the big tax burden on the homeowners and now claim it’s not their fault, but they’re failing them that way. And they fail them by constantly putting up laws that the rest of the population doesn’t want that fit their dog whistling culture wars like pushing for abortion. People should notice the Republican legislators of Ohio are not doing their jobs. They’re not serving Ohio.
And this is one of the many examples that we keep talking about.
Laura (06:20.206)
What’s really interesting is that it was considered a punishment. That was the idea that if you don’t get the buy-in from both parties, if it’s not bipartisan, these maps only last four years and you have to do it again. then, because it was supposed to last 10 years, right? That’s why we’re talking about this now. That’s why they’re doing this, because they couldn’t get buy-in from the Democrats four years ago. Well, that’s not really a punishment if you’re just trying to make your maps as partisan as possible, because they had 10 seats.
Now they’re going to go for 12 or 13 of the 15. So what was supposed to be the stick of the punishment is actually an inducement to keep doing this.
Chris Quinn (07:02.691)
Right. They just keep gerrymandering. They keep cooking the books. It flies in the face of what voters went to the polls about and changed the Constitution.
Laura (07:11.49)
And the last time we did this, we had a Supreme Court that kept saying, this is unconstitutional, mostly because of Jennifer Brunner, was the Chief Justice at the time. sorry. I’m sorry, Maureen O’Connor. Sorry. Thank you. And now we’ve got an almost nearly full Republican majority. And even the experts say, hey, this court’s going to be really lenient when it comes to that. we don’t even, not that the court could stop anything, but they could at least say what you’re doing is illegal and unconstitutional. We don’t even have that.
Chris Quinn (07:18.659)
No, Jennifer Bruner, Maureen O’Connor.
Chris Quinn (07:39.331)
No, that won’t happen this time. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Cleveland voters could not have spoken more clearly a decade ago in voting to pretty much outlaw automated speeding and red light cameras. Laila Democrats in Cleveland City Council taking a page from Republicans in the Ohio legislature in seeking to force their belief system down the throats of voters and bring back those cameras anyway.
Leila (08:03.698)
That really feels like that is what is happening here because like you said, Chris, voters overwhelmingly rejected these traffic cameras years ago, calling them nothing more than a cash grab. And city council is exploring how to potentially bring them back. Council president Blaine Griffin and several colleagues say they’re hearing constant complaints from residents about reckless drivers blowing through lights and stop signs. They argue the cameras could be a safety tool this time, not a moneymaker.
which it definitely was years ago when it was first on the scene. Councilman Mike Polenski called traffic enforcement the number one concern that he hears at neighborhood meetings, but they would have to clear some major hurdles before they reinstitute cameras. Cleveland’s charter explicitly forbids automated ticketing unless a police officer is there to issue the citation in person.
which really nullifies the purpose of the camera at all because if you’ve got an officer who’s available to stop speeders, why do you need the cameras? So any comeback of these cameras would need voter approval to undo that requirement. And state law also penalizes cities that collect camera fines by docking their local government funding from the state unless the cameras are used only in school zones.
Advocates like bike Cleveland’s Jacob van Sickle say it’s worth it. He points to federal data showing traffic cameras can cut serious crashes nearly in half. But critics like former law director Sabod Chandra said that if the city does bring them back, they’d better avoid the speed traps and revenue schemes that got them banned in the first place. I should note that I was delighted that Sabod Chandra burst out laughing when reporter Sean McDonald told him that the city was exploring this possibility, by the way.
So, you know, for now, this is all just talk. It’s this test balloon in council caucus meetings. you know, it could signal the start of this bigger political fight over whether Cleveland’s leaders should override that 2014 mandate from voters.
Chris Quinn (10:10.009)
Look, I was around back then. I remember when they put them in and council people like Kevin Conwell saying, is good. Just don’t put them in my neighborhoods. And what they did is they station this where suburban commuters were driving. So they put it right at the city line with Cleveland Heights on Cedar Hill. They had one on Chester where all the commuters were going. They had one in front of the Cleveland Clinic to catch all the out of towners that were going there. This was never
ever about safety. was about catching people who didn’t mainly didn’t live in Cleveland and raising even more money. And we already know most of the city budget comes from people who live in the suburbs and work downtown. The other thing I would argue that putting up cameras in a stationary place doesn’t really change anything. You need to have mobility. So it’s the surprise and I you know back in when I lived in another state, I was driving through a neighborhood
and I got pulled over and the cop came up and he said, look, we’re not here to write tickets. We’re worried about traffic in this neighborhood. People are going too fast. So we’re stopping them today in this week and telling them, please slow down. We’re not here to write you a ticket. This isn’t about the cash. We’re trying to keep this neighborhood safe. We’re going to write down your name and your car license number. If you do it again, you’ll get a ticket. But really I’m here today to ask you, please be careful in this neighborhood.
I swear for the next year traffic in that neighborhood was exactly where it should be. Everybody slowed down. If it’s about safety, there are more effective ways to do it than put up these cameras that people largely hate. They voted three to one to get rid of them.
Leila (11:40.83)
Hmm.
Leila (11:52.245)
To be honest, I think what’s very effective are those sort of roadside speed monitor things, those that tells you what your speed is as you’re coming by. I really do think there’s a psychological underpinning to that because sometimes I’m approaching it and it’s like, slow down, slow down or whatever. And I’m like, whatever, speed monitor.
Chris Quinn (12:14.511)
Ha ha ha.
Leila (12:14.994)
And then as I’m creeping up to it, it’s like, thank you. And I’m like, God, it got me again. It made me slow down when I tried to override my instincts. And I think most drivers would comply with those kinds of things. And you can see it. You see every car that’s approaching it fall into the green zone. Things like that are very effective. But to your point about moving them around,
Chris Quinn (12:22.403)
Yeah
Lisa (12:34.772)
Mm-hmm.
Leila (12:40.638)
I think there probably are areas where you could have a stationary camera because they’re just known to be more dangerous than other areas of neighborhoods. But I just think this is an impossibility. I three out of four Clevelanders voted to ban these cameras 10 years ago. really, wasn’t, I mean, they rewrote the city charter. That is a big deal to get these things off the street.
Chris Quinn (12:53.925)
Right.
Right. Right.
Leila (13:06.182)
And it wasn’t really only about pushing back on that money grabbing aspect of the camera program. They hated the unfairness of it and the feeling that City Hall was exploiting people. They were such a bad taste in their mouth about cameras.
Chris Quinn (13:19.195)
Well, you couldn’t… It was hard to fight the tickets. The money largely went to a contractor out of town. Everything about it was bad. Look, my point is the Charter’s the Charter. You’re not going to get voters to approve it. But if you really think that there’s a problem with speeding, there are other ways to get it toned down. Be creative. Think about those at this point, because you’re not going to get to go down this road.
Lisa (13:46.344)
Yeah, but it should be solutions without a human involvement because CPD is struggling. They’re way down in their ranks. They’re having problems recruiting. They really need kind of technological assistance for some things.
Chris Quinn (14:01.625)
No, that’s what Layla was talking about with those those kind of warning signs. And I do think that when they put those in, even temporarily, people do pay attention. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. If we have discussed a good bit, reckless chases by the Cuyahoga Sheriff’s Office have resulted in three deaths this year, including two innocent bystanders. Many, including us, have called for disbanding the sheriff’s unit responsible for the deaths.
Lisa (14:04.05)
Right.
Chris Quinn (14:30.563)
Instead, the county has renamed it and issued new rules for chases. Lisa, what are they?
Lisa (14:36.51)
So the Sheriff’s Department issued a 16 page policy about chasing people. They say that deputies must always remember that immediate arrest of the fleeing suspect is not more important than public safety. So the policy says you can only give chase if this person is believed to have committed one of 39 felonies that include murder, robbery, rape, domestic violence, and arson.
There are specific directives for ending the pursuit, how it’s conducted and how they report it after the fact. So some of the rules, they must use flashing lights and sirens. They cannot pursue if an arrested person is in the backseat of their cruiser. They can use techniques like ramming or roadblocks to stop the vehicle, but they cannot shoot at or from a moving vehicle unless deadly force is justified. They can request support from other units and aircraft assistance if necessary.
Deputies are supposed to receive periodic training about pursuit and cannot pursue if they’re not current on their training. Supervisors must approve of the pursuit and they have to ensure a review by a major incident board. so yeah, those are some of the rules. So I still see a couple of little loopholes in there.
Chris Quinn (15:53.487)
Well, there’s a couple of things. One, the other thing is, is if they know who’s in the car, they can’t chase because they can arrest them later. They didn’t want to abolish this unit because the executive Chris Ronane says it’s used way beyond just downtown patrols, that it’s the thing that he sends out when there’s carnivals and fairs to try and keep them safe. And we all know those have become.
really dangerous places of late with hooligans and gunshots and all sorts of things. So they didn’t want to get rid of it. But these rules would have stopped the chases that we were talking about earlier this year, because those were all predicated on nonsense, know, or right on red without a full stop. and I think he might be drinking kind of stuff. mean, it was it was the weakest of reasons to start 100 mile an hour chase down.
Lisa (16:36.658)
Mm-hmm.
Chris Quinn (16:45.403)
city streets really that were pretty much guaranteed then in crashes. So on that note, they’re taking steps that would stop the recklessness they’ve had. It doesn’t change though, that this unit is reckless. mean, the people on this unit have been reckless. How do you change the culture of a unit that is out of control? I don’t know that this policy does that.
Lisa (17:10.536)
Well, and the deputy that was involved in two of the three fatal crashes or two of them, were, yeah, whatever. He was involved in two of them. Casey Laudermic, as far as we know, he’s still on the job and he’s not even writing a desk at this point. So, you know, it’s almost like they’re tacitly condoning it.
Chris Quinn (17:31.331)
It’s a big step in the right direction, but I still think it would have said something to the community if they said, we’re going to abolish this unit. We may come back with a different incarnation of it and really try to change the culture, but we’ll have to see what happens next. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. We all know that the names of Ohio property taxes on the ballot are confusing. Renewals, replacements, emergencies.
It all seemed designed to fool voters into complacency and approvals. The legislature has now abolished a bunch of them, overriding Governor Mike DeWine’s veto to do it. So Laura, what are we likely to see when our school districts or other government entities want us to vote on property taxes?
Laura (18:18.902)
Okay, so the first thing to know is this doesn’t start till 2026. anything on the ballot for November, you could see these three words. You could see emergency, substitute or replacement. But starting in 2026, the ones that exist will continue, but there won’t be any new ones. So the emergency levies collect a fixed dollar amount for a set term. And they can act, they’re not really emergencies. Like that’s what the reasoning that the state has.
Chris Quinn (18:46.907)
Let me interrupt you, because we’ve talked about how they’re being abolished. What I’m trying to get at is, what will I see? What is the way I will be asked to increase my taxes?
Laura (18:52.268)
Right. Okay.
Laura (18:58.956)
Well, so you will just see operating levies on there and they’ll show how much a school district or government has in savings. It has to list all carryover balances, both in dollars and a percentage of the annual operating costs. Now, maybe that’s going to be limited how much money they can keep. We don’t know because that’s another idea in the legislature. But I’m thinking these are going to be really long issues on your ballot getting printed. Also, instead of describing your home’s worth as a, quote, auditors appraised value.
the ballots are simply going to say market value because that’s what the goal of the appraised value is anyway. So you’ll have more information when you’re voting and you won’t be confused by all those different terms because the end result is how much money are you going to be paying in your property taxes based on the value of your home?
Chris Quinn (19:46.245)
So it’s just going to be a straight tax. You’re voting on a tax rate that you will have no confusion about.
Laura (19:53.857)
Right. And usually it does say what it’s for, if it’s for operating, if it’s for improvements, there are the straight out tax levies, and then there are bond issues, which translates into a tax rate amount. And that’s always on there. And then it’s up to, you know, the school district will put out information and we always try to tell you how much it’s going to cost you too, because lately I feel like the districts are saying, it’s only this much per week or per month, but nobody thinks about their property taxes that way.
So it’ll tell you the rate and that it’s gonna be more straightforward.
Chris Quinn (20:27.259)
Yeah, I’m a believer in this because I think it’s been confusing beyond words and intentionally so. I think that the taxing entities know that people are usually hostile to taxes and so they try to cushion it in all sorts of ways. So I’m kind of glad that they’ve done this. I think it should be straightforward. You should know what you’re voting for. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Well, the Jogga County commissioners seem to have taken a step toward more open government. How did they do that?
Leila (20:55.464)
Well, for the first time, residents will now be able to comment at the beginning of county commission meetings, not just after all the decisions have been made already. The board voted to change its public comment policy on September 30th, adding a new opening comment period and expanding the rules so people get three minutes to speak instead of just two. It’s a really clear shift from how things used to work. Up until this year, Geauga didn’t even have a formal public comment policy.
People could only speak at the very end of meetings, often long after key votes had been cast. And that changed in January when the board adopted its first ever set of rules. And now this latest revision takes it further by giving residents a voice earlier in the process. So speakers will have to sign up in advance and they have to state their name and address and stay within their time limit.
The change took effect immediately, although in classic small county fashion, nobody actually signed up to speak at that first meeting. So, womp, womp. But the board says that it plans to publicize the opportunity more widely going forward.
Chris Quinn (21:58.181)
Ha ha.
Chris Quinn (22:04.655)
Well, the idea that you can be heard before they vote makes some sense if you want to talk about something that is before them.
Leila (22:11.07)
Yeah, it absolutely does. mean, of course, the impact depends on how seriously the commissioners take those comments. know, adding a microphone at the start of the meeting doesn’t, you know, automatically make government more transparent too. But like you said, it’s a step in the right direction.
Chris Quinn (22:26.363)
You’re listening to Today in Ohio. What happened with abortion rights in Ohio after voters enshrined the right to the procedure in the state constitution? Lisa, what do the 2024 numbers show us?
Lisa (22:38.26)
The numbers actually went down from 2023. So data from the Ohio Department of Health showed that there were 21,829 abortions in Ohio last year. Like I said, that’s down by 171 over the previous year. 85.5 % of them that got the procedure were residents of Ohio, but about 14 % were out of state residents. And that’s actually up 2 % from 2023.
So the vast majority of these procedures were done at less than nine weeks, 64.6%, 23.2 % at nine to 12 weeks. And then there was just like seven tenths of a percent that are done after 21 weeks. Most of them were women aged 20 to 29 years, 45 and a half, I’m sorry, 48.9 % were black women and 42.
were white women and they were concentrated in urban areas. That’s to be expected. Cuyahoga saw the most procedures at 28.3 % followed by Franklin County at 19 and a half and Hamilton County at 19%.
Chris Quinn (23:44.161)
And so those predictions that if we enshrined it in the Constitution, we’d have lots and lots more just did not prove out to be true. You know, listening to Today in Ohio, a trio of appeals court judges appointed by Republican presidents has given permission to First Energy to keep hiding some of its dastardly deeds. Laura, what is the ruling that does that, regrettably?
Laura (24:07.202)
They don’t have to first energy doesn’t have to release these results of two internal investigations into the utilities involvement in the House Bill six bribery scandal, biggest one ever in Ohio. Yeah. And this overturns a lower court decision. So those investigations, which were by the law firms of Jones Day and Squire, Potten Boggs, those are what the company used to figure out what went wrong and to do some firing.
And those written findings were sought by the first energy investors. They filed a class action lawsuit after Larry Householder was arrested in July, 2020, and the company stock plummeted by 45%. So their view, this isn’t a criminal loss. I mean, it’s a lawsuit, right? Theirs is over how much money they lost. And while the previous judge, Aldrinon Marbley, said that documents could be released because
First Energy launched the investigation only for business advice, not legal. This appeals court panel, all appointed by Republican presidents, held that the investigation was protected by attorney-client privilege. And so that bars the release of those communications between lawyers and clients.
Chris Quinn (25:16.111)
We’ve seen this kind of tactic before, but where is you ask a lawyer to do the investigation for you and then claim attorney-client privilege, or if you ask anybody else to do the exact same investigation, you’d have no protection. There really should be in a law in Ohio that discerns what is really lawyer-client privilege information, because this was a dodge. They did this with the law firm specifically to cover it up. And the people that are suing
Laura (25:30.158)
Mm-hmm.
Chris Quinn (25:45.229)
Normally we’d get information like this through discovery. I think the appellate court judges are all wrong, but of course they’re going to protect the big money bags of First Energy and its executives and deprive the people who pay all the money, all the money that goes to this utility of the information about how this terrible utility corrupted our entire state. Bad ruling. Hopefully there’ll be an appeal.
Laura (25:55.32)
Mm-hmm.
Laura (26:07.724)
Right.
Chris Quinn (26:12.123)
You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Cuyahoga County prosecutor Mike O’Malley has come out with a harsh criticism on juvenile court, this time over a probation sentence for a kid facing his 18th felony case. Leila, what did O’Malley say? How did the court respond?
Leila (26:30.558)
Mbally argued that this teen should have been sent to a state youth facility. He said that the court is sending the wrong message and ignoring public safety. He went so far as to call this case the poster child for what he sees as a soft on crime philosophy in the juvenile court. But the court pushed back, though not directly on the case itself. Administrator Timothy McDevitt said judges are committed to weighing both the best interests of the child and the community and Judge Ann McDonough, who
upheld the probation sentence for this kid, pointed to positive reports from the teen’s school and home and community. And she noted that while the kid has a long list of lower level offenses, including car thefts and assaults and threats, he’s currently in compliance with court orders. Public defenders countered O’Malley’s critique too. They said incarceration often makes young people more likely to reoffend and that courts should be praised, not blasted, when they try approaches that can lead to better long-term safety.
Chris Quinn (27:26.959)
Ha ha ha.
Leila (27:27.912)
But still, O’Malley insists that victims are being overlooked in this situation, and he pointed to stolen cars and the assaults and high-speed police chases tied to this teen’s record as evidence that the community is paying the price.
Chris Quinn (27:39.899)
Look, 18 is a staggering number. The whole purpose of juvenile court, as you and I have discussed many times, is to get kids back on the right track. And the fact that he’s been through there 18 times shows this is an abject failure. You would think at number nine or number seven or number 12, a judge would have said, okay, what we’re doing clearly not working. This kid keeps coming back here.
What are we going to do to change your trajectory? Just putting them on probation repeatedly isn’t working. I understand O’Malley’s frustration. I also understand the idea that if we lock him up now, he’s just gonna become a much better criminal as an adult. But they’re failing here. 18 times is the mark of failure. I can’t believe 18 times. How do you fit in 18 felony cases in a life that young?
Leila (28:17.545)
Yes.
Leila (28:35.722)
Right. Well, you start very young is the answer because prosecutors say that this kid’s offenses started when he was just 11. He had serious charges like abduction and sexual assault of a classmate in a school bathroom. And since then, they’ve tied him to at least 20 stolen cars. And there was even a chase that hit 120 miles an hour. of course, we know how the chases are around here. But there’s all kinds of violence in his background. each time,
Chris Quinn (28:37.871)
Yep.
Chris Quinn (28:58.693)
But… But-
Leila (29:03.774)
He’s been handed some form of probation, sometimes with suspended sentences or GPS monitoring, but he’s never been locked up long term. And O’Malley’s arguing that after so many chances, probation is just too dangerous.
Chris Quinn (29:15.771)
But maybe locking them up isn’t the answer, but there’s got to be an answer. mean, every person that has their car stolen, that’s a traumatic event. It’s a pain. You got to go deal with insurance companies. You’re without wheels for a while. And he did it over and over again. So O’Malley’s point is letting his kid back out is going to create more victims and it’s going to harm more lives. That’s not right. He’s arguing for public safety. You have a hard time arguing with him on that.
The other thing is everybody in that courtroom is supposed to be focused on this kid, the judge, the defense attorney, the prosecutor, the social workers. What have they done? Have they ever had a conversation where they look at each other and say, okay, it’s number 16. What are we going to do so there’s not a 17 and an 18? It’s a failure. This is just a complete and utter failure of our system.
Leila (30:05.81)
And really, you it’s interesting that O’Malley says that this kid is kind of the poster child for soft on crime judicial action, but it’s really the poster child for everything that we talked about in our delinquent series, because the entire premise of delinquent grew out of our wondering how it is that someone like this particular kid could ever get to the point in the system where, you know,
Chris Quinn (30:20.685)
Yeah!
Leila (30:35.122)
where it’s not doing what it’s designed to do, which is divert kids away from a life of crime. When we launched that project, we wanted to know where the system failed. This exact type of kid, where did he fall through the cracks? Why didn’t interventions help him after his first crime or second or sixth or seventh? And this situation is a product of a broken system. So I understand Mike O’Malley’s argument that it’s time to think about the public safety and get this kid off the street, but he will come back.
Chris Quinn (30:49.795)
Right.
Leila (31:03.482)
sooner rather than later. He’s not going away for life. So let’s think a little bit down the road about what kind of a young man will be returning to Cleveland then, not just what kind of kid are we taking off the street now.
Chris Quinn (31:18.223)
Well, yeah, and how do you turn it around? mean, every judge that’s been involved in this kid has failed. I mean, maybe not for lack of trying, but I just putting them out on probation over and over again. How many times do you do that before you say, okay, this isn’t working? It’s one of those where you think about 18 times. All the comments by the judges and the defense attorneys, it’s like, you could have made that at seven maybe or eight, but at 18, you got no credibility here.
Leila (31:21.577)
Yeah.
Leila (31:38.047)
Yeah.
Chris Quinn (31:47.951)
This is a failure.
Leila (31:49.246)
This really is a great case study and one that maybe we should look closely at to see at each juncture, just like we did for delinquent, what could have been done, what was done, and how did it go for this young person?
Chris Quinn (31:58.064)
Yeah.
Chris Quinn (32:03.045)
Good idea. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. That’s it for the Tuesday episode. Thanks, Leila. Thanks, Lisa. Thanks, Laura. Thank you for listening. We’ll be back Wednesday to talk about the news.