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Full-Text Articles in State and Local Government Law

Land Of The Free, If You Can Afford It: Reforming Mayor's Courts In Ohio, Lucia Lopez-Hisijos Apr 2020

Land Of The Free, If You Can Afford It: Reforming Mayor's Courts In Ohio, Lucia Lopez-Hisijos

Cleveland State Law Review

Unlike most states in America, Ohio has a unique system of punishing minor misdemeanors and ordinance violations through municipal institutions called mayor’s courts. In 2017, Ohio had 295 of these courts, and they heard nearly 300,000 cases. But these are not normal courts. Ohio’s mayor’s courts do not conduct ability to pay hearings and can jail defendants who fail to pay court fines. With the author’s original research into Ohio’s mayor’s courts, this Note argues that these institutions can function like modern-day debtor’s prisons and violate indigent defendants’ constitutional right to Due Process. Ultimately, this Note proposes a model bill …


An Open Letter To The Ohio Supreme Court: Setting A Uniform Standard On Anders Briefs, Matthew D. Fazekas Apr 2020

An Open Letter To The Ohio Supreme Court: Setting A Uniform Standard On Anders Briefs, Matthew D. Fazekas

Cleveland State Law Review

Attorneys are faced with an ethical dilemma when they represent indigent defendants who wish to appeal a criminal sentence, but that appeal would be frivolous. In 1967, the United States Supreme Court, in Anders v. California, introduced a procedure protecting the rights of indigent defendants that balanced the ethical concerns of an attorney forced to file a frivolous appeal. In 2000, the Court in Smith v. Robbins held that the states can set their own procedure for the aforementioned ethical dilemma, so long as it protects the rights of indigent defendants in compliance with the Fourteenth Amendment. This has …


Qualified Immunity Dissonance In The Sixth Circuit: Why We Must Return To Reasonableness, Matt Chiricosta Jan 2011

Qualified Immunity Dissonance In The Sixth Circuit: Why We Must Return To Reasonableness, Matt Chiricosta

Cleveland State Law Review

The Sixth Circuit's inconsistent jurisprudence threatens the delicate balance that the defense aims to strike between protecting citizens from having their constitutional rights violated on the one hand and protecting government officials from undue interference with their official duties on the other. This Note critiques the medical emergency-law enforcement response capacity the Sixth Circuit has set forth to help adjudicate qualified immunity claims and suggests improvements the court can make to its qualified immunity jurisprudence.In Part II, I briefly trace the Supreme Court's development of the doctrine and outline the doctrine's policy goals. In Part III, I develop my thesis …


An Ohio Dilemma: Race, Equal Protection, And The Unfulfilled Promise Of A State Bill Of Rights, Jonathan L. Entin Jan 2004

An Ohio Dilemma: Race, Equal Protection, And The Unfulfilled Promise Of A State Bill Of Rights, Jonathan L. Entin

Cleveland State Law Review

Race was a central issue in Ohio from the very beginning. The original state constitution of 1802 and the successor constitution of 1851 explicitly limited suffrage to whites even as both documents forbade slavery. Moreover, the legislature imposed various legal disabilities and restrictions on African Americans. For much of the Nineteenth Century, however, the Ohio Supreme Court tried to narrow the scope of those restrictions by developing a distinctive jurisprudence that was in some respects more progressive, and in general less obnoxious, than that developed in other states and by the U.S. Supreme Court. Before the end of the century, …


Forest City Enterprises, Inc. V. City Of Eastlake: Zoning Referenda And Exclusionary Zoning, Frank J. Kundrat Jr., Stephen Bond Jan 1975

Forest City Enterprises, Inc. V. City Of Eastlake: Zoning Referenda And Exclusionary Zoning, Frank J. Kundrat Jr., Stephen Bond

Cleveland State Law Review

In the recent Ohio Supreme Court decision of Forest City Enterprises, Inc. v. City of Eastlake, the court stated a new principle of law in the area of referendum zoning: A municipal charter provision, which requires that any ordinance changing land use be ratified by the voters in a city-wide election, constitutes an unlawful delegation of legislative power, in violation of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The court was, however, far from convincing either in terms of distinguishing the prior law of referendum zoning or in demonstrating the applicability of their conclusion …


Using Statistical Evidence To Enforce The Laws Against Discrimination, Kenneth Montlack Jan 1973

Using Statistical Evidence To Enforce The Laws Against Discrimination, Kenneth Montlack

Cleveland State Law Review

In actions brought under a variety of federal statutes barring racial discrimination, the federal judiciary has increasingly relied upon statistical evidence in determining the existence of unlawful discrimination. This article will seek to identify the nature and extent of such reliance on statistical evidence, discuss the reasons for the increasing use of statistical evidence, analyze the significance of the increase, and explore the potential for using statistical evidence in actions by the Ohio Civil Rights Commission.