{"id":4834,"date":"2004-05-18T00:50:55","date_gmt":"2004-05-18T04:50:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/formerlyknownas\/2004\/05\/18\/judge-says-everybody-does-it\/"},"modified":"2011-08-05T14:58:46","modified_gmt":"2011-08-05T18:58:46","slug":"judge-says-everybody-does-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/2004\/05\/18\/judge-says-everybody-does-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge Says Everybody Does It"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Facing a recommendation that her law license be suspended for two years, Franklin County [OH] Common Pleas Judge Deborah P. O’Neill replied with a refrain familiar to any parent: “But, everybody <\/EM>does it!” — every judge, that is.<\/FONT><\/DIV>
\n
<\/FONT> <\/DIV>
\n
\"judge  Eight of her fellow judges brought the initial complaint against Judge O’Neill.  She says that she is “a conscientious judge” and will appeal.  According to News Channel 4, the feisty jurist responded to the filing of the complaint in June, 2002, with a statement<\/A> that the charges were political in nature and:<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/DIV>
\n

\n
“There isn’t one allegation in this complaint that could not be immediately directed toward any judge in Ohio, including the eight who initiated this groundless complaint.” <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/DIV>
\n
<\/FONT> <\/DIV>
\n
“I will not allow the independence of the judiciary to be tarnished by this obvious attempt to personally discredit me or thwart my candidacy for higher office at the expense of the public.”<\/DIV><\/BLOCKQUOTE>
\n

<\/P>
\n

Per Columbus’ News Channel 4, charges in the 56-page complaint include, inter alia<\/EM>:<\/DIV>
\n

    \n

  • \n
    “[T]hat O’Neill consistently displayed rude behavior toward her own staff and others in her court, including members of the public, and denied due process to litigants in her court. <\/DIV>
    \n

  • \n
    “[T]hat O’Neill consistently displayed rude behavior, including showing up for court sometimes two hours late, not allowing a court reporter a lunch break and allegedly yelling at staff and sheriff’s deputies in open court.” <\/FONT><\/DIV>
    \n

  • \n
    That “O’Neill also allegedly pressured both sides to reach a plea agreement because she was going away. She allegedly told the lawyers, ‘No plea, no bail, and he’ll sit in jail until I’m back from vacation’.” <\/DIV><\/LI><\/UL><\/FONT>
    \n
    You judge for yourself, dear visitors, and let us know your feelings.  <\/FONT><\/DIV>
    \n

    \n
    \"prof  Okay, but would Judge O’Neill push a lawyer off a bridge, if her colleagues did?<\/FONT><\/DIV>
    \n
    <\/FONT> <\/DIV><\/BLOCKQUOTE><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Facing a recommendation that her law license be suspended for two years, Franklin County [OH] Common Pleas Judge Deborah P. O’Neill replied with a refrain familiar to any parent: “But, everybody does it!” — every judge, that is.     Eight of her fellow judges brought the initial complaint against Judge O’Neill.  She says that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2926],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pre-06-2006"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kP1R-1fY","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/94"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4834"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4834\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13820,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4834\/revisions\/13820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}