Daniel Gaul

Last updated
Daniel Gaul
Personal details
Born1953
Political party Democratic [1]
Residence North Olmsted, Ohio [2]
Alma mater Cleveland State University
Capital University Law School (J.D.)
OccupationJudge
Attorney

Daniel Gaul (born 1953) is an American judge for the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court. Gaul was first elected to the court in 1991.

Contents

Early life and education

Gaul was born in 1953. [2] Gaul attended Notre Dame-Cathedral Latin School in Chardon, Ohio. [2] After completing high school, Gaul attended Cleveland State University, receiving an undergraduate degree in 1977. [2] Gaul later attended Capital University Law School and graduated with a juris doctor in 1981. [2] He was admitted to the Ohio State Bar Association in 1981. [2]

Career

Following his admission to the Ohio State Bar Association in 1981, Gaul began his career in private practice. [2] In 1991, Gaul began serving as a judge for the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court. [2]

On October 7, 2010, the Ohio Supreme Court suspended Gaul for threatening to jail a defendant he thought was intimidating an elderly witness. [3] [4] [5] In the 2007 trial, Gaul had threatened to have the witness "bound and gagged" and accused him of crimes including obstruction of justice, kidnapping, and smoking crack. [5] The Ohio Supreme Court stayed the one-year suspension pending good behavior, allowing Gaul to continue working as a judge during the period. [4] [5]

In 2012, Gaul won the general election for the judgeship against Edele Passalacqua with 69.81 percent of the vote.

In 2017, the Eighth District Court of Appeals determined that Gaul had coerced a man, Carlton Heard, into pleading no contest to attempted murder, felonious assault, aggravated robbery, and other charges related to an October 2015 drive-by shooting. [1] Gaul had sentenced Heard to fourteen years in prison after coercing him into the plea. [1] The Eighth District court overturned Heard's plea and ordered that the case be assigned to a different judge. [1] In the new trial, Heard was acquitted by a jury. [1]

In 2018, Gaul was featured on the true crime podcast Serial , which criticized him for his treatment of Black defendants, including using racial stereotypes, threatening to incarcerate defendants who were on probation for having children out of wedlock, and referring to Black defendants as "brother." [1] [3] Gaul was interviewed by producer Sarah Koenig and told her that he prefers to give defendants probation so that he has more control and supervision over the defendants who come through his courtroom. [1] On November 6, 2018, Gaul was reelected in Cuyahoga County General Election, receiving 54.7 percent of the vote.

In 2019, the Eighth District Court of Appeals again overturned one of Gaul's decisions after determining that Gaul improperly questioned a defendant, William Skerkavich Jr., about his juvenile and misdemeanor criminal history. The Eighth District determined that, "Based on the record before this court, we find this to be a clear example of bias and prejudice on the part of the trial court...It is also clear that the trial court abandoned its duty as an impartial factfinder and interrogated appellant on matters, not only inadmissible, but wholly immaterial to the instant case." [4] During the trial, Gaul had asked Skerkavich more than eighty-three questions. [4] The Eighth District Court of Appeals ordered Skerkavich's case to be heard by a different judge at the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court. [4] Gaul was also criticized in August 2019 for granting an early release to an attorney who had sexually abused an eleven-year-old boy. [6]

In March 2021, Gaul threatened to hold the North Royalton police chief in contempt of court at an early release hearing for a man convicted of attacking a female officer. [7] In December 2021, a thirty-page complaint was filed against Gaul in the Ohio Supreme Court accusing Gaul of five instances of misconduct between 2014 and 2020, including coercing a plea, inappropriate communication with an incarcerated defendant, improper questioning, taking the position of biased advocate, and violations to the Ohio Code of Judicial Conduct and Ohio Rules of Professional Conduct. [3]

In December 2023, the Ohio Supreme Court suspended Gaul for a period of one year. [8] The basis for the suspension were eight counts of judicial misconduct which arose from seven criminal matters and one civil-stalking-protection-order case. The misconduct, which occurred over a period of more than five years fell into one of six main categories: (1) coercing pleas, (2) aggressive questioning of a criminal defendant, (3) making demeaning comments to criminal defendants and other persons in a court room, (4) abusing the prestige of judicial office to advance the personal interests of others, (5) refusing to grant release from confinement and disregarding appellate-court orders, and (6) abusing contempt power. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Sharon Kennedy wrote that Gaul's actions "[r]ather than promoting confidence in the independence, integrity, and impartiality of the judiciary, Gaul’s conduct has called those essential elements of our justice system into question while harming multiple litigants." Gaul's suspension for a year, effective December 29, 2023, essentially removes him from the bench as he was elected to his last six year term in 2018 since he reached the mandatory retirement age in 2023.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Appellate procedure in the United States</span> National rules of court appeals

United States appellate procedure involves the rules and regulations for filing appeals in state courts and federal courts. The nature of an appeal can vary greatly depending on the type of case and the rules of the court in the jurisdiction where the case was prosecuted. There are many types of standard of review for appeals, such as de novo and abuse of discretion. However, most appeals begin when a party files a petition for review to a higher court for the purpose of overturning the lower court's decision.

A plea bargain, also known as a plea agreement or plea deal, is a legal arrangement in criminal law where the defendant agrees to plead guilty or no contest to a charge in exchange for concessions from the prosecutor. These concessions can include a reduction in the severity of the charges, the dismissal of some charges, or a more lenient sentencing recommendation. Plea bargaining serves as a mechanism to expedite the resolution of criminal cases, allowing both the prosecution and the defense to avoid the time, expense, and uncertainty of a trial. It is a prevalent practice in the United States, where it resolves the vast majority of criminal cases, and has been adopted in various forms in other legal systems worldwide.

The Courts of England and Wales, supported administratively by His Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service, are the civil and criminal courts responsible for the administration of justice in England and Wales.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sam Sheppard</span> American neurosurgeon (1923–1970)

Samuel Holmes Sheppard was an American osteopath. He was convicted of the 1954 murder of his pregnant wife, Marilyn Reese Sheppard, but the conviction was eventually overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, which cited a "carnival atmosphere" at the trial. Sheppard was acquitted at a retrial in 1966.

Frank Daniel Celebrezze of Broadview Heights, Ohio, is an Ohio jurist who currently serves as an Ohio appeals court judge.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Terrence O'Donnell</span> American judge

Terrence O'Donnell is a former associate justice of the Supreme Court of Ohio.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lance Mason</span> American criminal and former politician (born 1967)

Lance Timothy Mason is a convicted murderer and former politician, government official, and judge, who served in various offices in and representing Cleveland, Ohio.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Celebrezze family</span>

The Celebrezze family is an Italian-American family based in Cleveland, Ohio prominent in the fields of law and politics. They are considered a political dynasty, as three generations have held various forms of office on the federal, state, and local levels, encompassing all three branches of government.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John R. Adams</span> American judge (born 1955)

John Randell Adams Jr. is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Donald C. Nugent</span> American judge

Donald Clark Nugent is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio.

The Ohio Courts of Common Pleas are the trial courts of the state court system of Ohio.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anthony Sowell</span> American serial killer (1959–2021)

Anthony Edward Sowell was an American serial killer and rapist known as The Cleveland Strangler. He was convicted in 2011 of murdering 11 women whose bodies were discovered at his Cleveland, Ohio, home in 2009. After being sentenced to death for the murders, Sowell died in prison from a terminal illness.

Ronald Joseph Suster was an American jurist and politician who served in the Ohio House of Representatives from 1981 until 1995, and as a Common Pleas judge in Cuyahoga County from 1995 until 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blanche Krupansky</span> American judge

Blanche Ethel Krupansky was a Cleveland, Ohio, United States judge who became the second woman to sit on the Ohio Supreme Court when she was appointed in 1981.

The shooting deaths of Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams, two Black American individuals, occurred in East Cleveland, Ohio on November 29, 2012, at the conclusion of a 22-minute police chase which started in downtown Cleveland, when police erroneously claimed shots were fired at them as Russell and Williams drove by a squad car; the cause of the shots was their vehicle's exhaust pipe backfiring.

Michael Patrick Donnelly is an American lawyer who has served as a justice of the Supreme Court of Ohio since 2019. He formerly served as a judge of the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas from 2005 to 2019. Donnelly is running for re-election to his seat in 2024.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Jones (Ohio lawyer)</span> American lawyer

Robert Walter Jones was a Cleveland, Ohio lawyer, politician, law professor, civil rights litigator and environmentalist. As an attorney, he was employed in public capacities in Northeastern Ohio as a Legal Aid Public Defender, United States Attorney, and City of Cleveland attorney. In response to the Cuyahoga River fire, as U.S. Attorney in 1970 he led the first Federal grand jury water pollution investigations and prosecutions setting into motion the recovery of the Cuyahoga River and Lake Erie and the development of the Clean Water Act.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">J. Philip Calabrese</span> American judge (born 1971)

Jude Philip Calabrese is an American lawyer and jurist who serves as a district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. He formerly served as a judge of the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas from 2019 to 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blanche Krupansky</span> American judge

Blanche Ethel Krupansky was a Cleveland, Ohio, United States judge who became the second woman to sit on the Ohio Supreme Court when she was appointed in 1981.

Joseph J. Nahra was an American lawyer and long-serving judge in Ohio, whose service included sitting by designation on cases before the Supreme Court of Ohio.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Shaffer, Cory; Fong, Marvin (September 20, 2018). "Serial Season 3, Episode 2 introduces listeners to Judge Daniel Gaul". Cleveland.com. Retrieved 30 July 2022.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "Common Pleas Court Judges". Cuyahoga County. Retrieved 30 July 2022.
  3. 1 2 3 Drown, Hannah (December 31, 2021). "Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas judge Daniel Gaul accused of conduct violations in 5 cases". Cleveland.com. Retrieved 30 July 2022.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Shaffer, Cory (December 5, 2019). "Cleveland judge featured in Serial podcast acted as 'biased advocate' for prosecution in snowball fight case, appeals court rules". Cleveland.com. Retrieved 30 July 2022.
  5. 1 2 3 Atassi, Leila (October 7, 2010). "Ohio Supreme Court punishes Cuyahoga judge's misconduct with stayed license suspension". Cleveland.com. Retrieved 30 July 2022.
  6. ↑ Shaffer, Cory (August 15, 2019). "'Holistic' judge grants early release of D.C. attorney who served six months for repeatedly sexually abusing Fairview Park boy". Cleveland.com. Retrieved 30 July 2022.
  7. ↑ Anderson, Chris (March 31, 2021). "Judge, North Royalton police chief get into heated exchange over whether man convicted of assaulting officer should be released early". Cleveland19. Retrieved 30 July 2022.
  8. ↑ Trevas, Dan (December 29, 2023). "Cuyahoga County Judge Suspended From Office for One Year". CNO. Retrieved 29 December 2023.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.