Restoration of Rights Task Force Hearing Transcript, Cleveland
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
1 NATIONALASSOCIATIONOFCRIMINALDEFENSELAWYERS 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 REPORTOFPROCEEDINGS 9 10 NACDL Task Force on Restoration of Rights and 11 Status After Conviction 12 13 D a y 2 o f 2 14 15 16 Friday, April 27, 2012 9:02 a.m. - 5:43 p.m. 17 McDonald Hopkins 600 Superior Avenue 18 Cleveland, Ohio 44114 19 20 ATKINSON-BAKER,INC. COURTREPORTERS 21 (800) 288-3376 www.depo.com 22 File No. A603DF6 23 24 REPORTEDBYDEBORAHC.FUREY,REGISTEREDPROFESSIONAL REPORTER,NOTARYPUBLIC,STATEOFOHIO 25 221 1 NACDLTASKFORCEMEMBERS: 2 Rick Jones, Co-Chair Vicky Young, Co-Chair 3 Margaret Love Geneva Vanderhorst 4 Lawrence Goldman Christopher Wellborn 5 Penelope Strong Elissa Heinrichs 6 Jenny Roberts, Reporter 7 8 PANEL I (Page 224) 9 Blain Griffin, Director of Community Relations, Office 10 of Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson 11 12 PANEL II (Page 275) 13 Illya McGee, Vice President, Oriana House, Inc. 14 Alec P. Boros, PhD, Research Manager, Oriana House, Inc. 15 Ronnie Dunn, Associate Professor Urban Studies, 16 Cleveland State University. 17 18 PANEL III (Page 334) 19 Al Blumstein, University Professor of Urban Systems and Operations Research, Heinz College, Carnegie 20 Mellon University 21 Kiminori Nakamura, Assistant Professor, Department of 22 Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of M a r y l a n d 23 24 25 222 1 PANEL IV (Page 375) 2 Gary Mohr, Director, Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction 3 Senator Shirley Smith, 21st District, Ohio State 4 S e n a t e 5 6 PANEL V (Page 444) 7 Judge Nancy Margaret Russo, Cuyahoga County Common P l e a s C o u r t 8 Judge Joan Synenberg, Cuyahoga County Common Pleas 9 C o u r t 10 PANEL VI (Page 500) 11 Judge Dan Polster, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Ohio 12 13 Dennis G. Terez, Federal Public Defender, Ohio. 14 --- 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 223 1 (Thereupon, the following proceedings were held:) 2 MR. JONES: Good morning 3 everyone. Welcome to day two of the NACDL Task 4 Force on the Restoration of Rights and Status 5 After Convictions, Cleveland hearings. 6 We have a full slate and a lot of 7 work ahead of us, but we're excited about it and 8 we should probably get started. 9 Mr. Griffin, good morning. 10 MR. GRIFFIN: Good morning. 11 MR.JONES: We'rehappyto 12 have you. I see you're flying solo this morning. 13 I know you can handle it. 14 MR.GRIFFIN: Yes. 15 MR.JONES: Thewaywe 16 operate, as you know, because I think you were 17 here for some portion of the day yesterday, we're 18 going to offer you ten or 15 minutes or so to 19 give us the benefit of your background, as well 20 as whatever contributions you have to make to the 21 discussions that we've been having, and then we 22 have lots of questions for you. 23 One of our members will lead the 24 questioning and this morning on this panel it 25 will be Larry Goldman who will be the primary 224 1 questioner, and so without any further ado, I'm 2 going to turn the floor over to you and we're 3 excited to hear from you. 4 MR. GRIFFIN: Thank you. 5 First and foremost, Chief Walker Minor the Chief 6 of Public Affairs for the City of Cleveland, 7 sends her regrets and regards. 8 She got called into a meeting with 9 the mayor and for any of you who have worked in 10 municipal service or worked for a mayor of a 11 major city or if you haven't, I can let you know 12 when you're called into a meeting with the mayor, 13 almost everything else stops, and you have to 14 adhere to it unless the all mighty himself is 15 calling you to a different place. 16 So she sends her regrets and asked me 17 to basically pinch hit for both of us today. 18 MR.JONES: Youcantellher 19 that she was missed. 20 MR. GRIFFIN: Thank you. I 21 s u r e w i l l . 22 To give you the way that the 23 City of Cleveland is structured. The mayor has 24 clusters, and I won't belabor you with all of the 25 clusters, but you have the Economic Development 225 1 Cluster, you have the Operations Cluster. 2 The Economic Development is community 3 development, business, regional development, et 4 c e t e r a . 5 The Operations Cluster is the water, 6 the operations like streets and those types of 7 operations. 8 And then you have the Public Affairs 9 Cluster, which is the cluster that Chief Walker 10 Minor oversees. 11 In that cluster you have Human 12 Resources, you have Aging, you have the Civil 13 Service Commission, you have Workforce 14 Investment; you also have my department, which is 15 the Community Relations Board for the 16 City of Cleveland; and you also have the Health 17 Department that is in that cluster. 18 The reason that I wanted to give you 19 the structure of the city is because within that 20 cluster is where the movement to ban the box 21 i n i t i a t e d . 22 I want to focus on the entire cluster 23 because it wasn't an initiative that was 24 initiated solely by the Community Relations 25 Board, who focuses -- and I'll give you a little 226 1 bit of background about us -- who focuses us on 2 civil rights and issues of equity and fairness in 3 our community, but it also focuses on -- but our 4 cluster also has the hiring policies, the equal 5 opportunity, which I neglected to mention, which 6 Chief Walker Minor doubles as Director of Office 7 of Equal Opportunity. 8 We are what we call the People 9 Cluster of the City of Cleveland. Our job is to 10 connect government to people. 11 So that is why it is critical to kind 12 of give you the structure and why this initiative 13 was born within that cluster. 14 To give you a little background about 15 myself. My name is Blain Griffin and I am the 16 executive director of the Community Relations 17 Board for the City of Cleveland. 18 The Community Relations Board is the 19 oldest, government-funded, human relations board 20 in the entire country. It was initiated in 1945. 21 The reason that it was initiated was 22 to promote better racial harmony amongst all of 23 the racial and ethic groups within the 24 City of Cleveland. So we're mandated by charter 25 to promote human relations by the Charter of the 227 1 City of Cleveland. 2 Our board has 17 members. The mayor 3 serves as chair of the board. Two out of the 19 4 Cleveland city councilpersons serve on our board 5 for the Community Relations Board, and we have a 6 diverse board, which includes four from industry, 7 business, four from labor, and five from 8 community representatives. 9 We also have a diverse board that's 10 made up of LGBT community, Asian/American 11 community, an Arab/American community 12 representative sits on our board, members of 13 several faith-based institutions sit on our 14 b o a r d . 15 Our board is chaired by a gentleman 16 named Reverend Dr. Charles Lucas, Jr. 17 The reason I want to mention that is 18 because our board's job is to promote diversity 19 and human relations and harmony in the 20 City of Cleveland. 21 Traditionally we've had to deal with 22 a lot of issues around building race relations 23 and other type of issues. 24 If you're familiar with the City of 25 Cleveland, like many other major cities in the 228 1 1960s, and the turbulent '60s and those times, 2 there was a lot of racial strife, especially in 3 areas that were beginning to get integrated like 4 Glenville and Hough. 5 Many riots took place in light of 6 some of the assassinations that took place, so 7 there was a lot of strife, and at that time the 8 Community Relations Board had the focus of really 9 building a lot of racial harmony. 10 I would like to start there because I 11 fast forward to now and some of the things that 12 cause a lot of -- well, before I move there, in 13 the 1970s there were a lot of clashes that had 14 police/community relations problems that really 15 cause strife with police and community relations. 16 But as you matriculate through time, 17 one of the things that we witnessed was that: 18 One, a rise in gang and youth violence in the 19 City of Cleveland, which our Community Relations 20 Board now has an arm of people that deal strictly 21 with gang and youth violence in the 22 City of Cleveland; and then you also have an 23 emerging reentry population. 24 So we changed our mission throughout 25 the time to deal with the impact of what is going 229 1 on in our community, which leads me to why we're 2 probably here today. 3 The estimates are, from federal, 4 state, municipal, and county institutions, that 5 approximately 16,700 or so people are released 6 from those institutions back into the Cuyahoga 7 County area on a yearly basis.