This is The Marshall Project - Cleveland’s newsletter, a monthly digest of criminal justice news from around Ohio gathered by our staff of local journalists. Want this delivered to your inbox? Sign up for future newsletters.
Ohio lawmaker wants independent advocates for children in residential treatment
An Ohio lawmaker wants children held in residential treatment centers to have access to an independent adult advocate who can listen to their concerns and report suspected abuse or neglect directly to police and state regulators. During questions, Rep. Crystal Lett, a Columbus Democrat, suggested going beyond shutting facilities down and suggested connecting children with advocates through OhioRISE, a Medicaid program serving young people with complex behavioral health needs. She raised the idea while discussing her bill to require the state to revoke licenses of facilities if there is a pattern of serious state violations, abuse, neglect or exploitation.
Lett cited The Marshall Project investigations of Fox Run Center for Children and Adolescents and Mohican Young Star Academy, questioning why police reports documenting emergencies and allegations of abuse at Fox Run were missing from state records.
– Brittany Hailer
Closed discovery on trial again in Cuyahoga County
Three appeals court judges heard oral arguments Tuesday and will decide in the coming months whether a Cleveland man convicted of killing two elderly neighbors in 1992 deserves a new trial based on evidence that was undisclosed, and likely withheld.
Since his 2003 conviction, Terry Ferrell has maintained his innocence. Getting a new trial, though, would require proving that the prosecutor or the detectives who put him away hid police reports that included alternative suspects and conflicting witness statements. That would be a violation of the 1963 U.S. Supreme Court case Brady v. Maryland, which requires the disclosure of all evidence — particularly anything that would aid the defendant.
But Ferrell is among more than 1,000 Cuyahoga County defendants sent to prison before 2008, when local judges only required prosecutors to read witness statements and police reports to defense attorneys instead of providing hard copies. The Ohio Supreme Court ordered the end of this opaque process of closed discovery statewide in 2010.
“This is the crappy way discovery was exchanged,” 8th District Court of Appeals Judge Eileen A. Gallagher said in the hearing Tuesday.
But since prosecutors kept no record of what evidence was or was not read, and Ferrell’s original defense attorneys have long ago purged their notes, “How do you prove a negative?” a skeptical Gallagher asked.
Simple, replied Cuyahoga County Chief Public Defender Cullen Sweeney, who is leading Ferrell’s post-conviction legal defense team. Citing numerous cases decided in Cuyahoga County, Sweeney said the best test for a Brady violation is whether the evidence was used at trial.
Sweeney then pointed to the “avalanche of evidence” that Ferrell’s trial attorneys said they would have used if they had it. Among the recently unearthed exhibits is a music box that belonged to one of the victims. It was collected by police in the 1990s with help from a man who admitted to driving the real killers to the crime scene.
But neither the man’s admission of guilt nor the bloody music box was ever introduced at trial.
Prosecuting attorney Michael Wajda theorized that defense attorneys sometimes avoid introducing evidence as part of their strategy. He criticized Sweeney’s argument that evidence being absent from the trial record is an indication that it was withheld.
“You could always find something in some police report somewhere that didn't make it into the trial record, and then say, ‘Aha! There needs to be a new trial,’” Wajda said, noting that under that standard, “No conviction under the closed discovery regime could ever stand.”
– Doug Livingston
Bratenahl traffic stops of Black drivers still dominate
For years, Cleveland’s East Side harbored a poorly kept secret: Bratenahl police officers routinely stop and ticket Black drivers cutting through the village.
Cleveland residents now have definitive proof. Since 2024, Black drivers have been stopped and ticketed more often than White drivers as they traveled through the village, according to traffic-stop data gathered by The Marshall Project - Cleveland.
Officers didn’t consistently record race during traffic stops before 2022, but started doing so after a Marshall Project investigation into racial disparities in enforcement. By 2024, the department was collecting racial data, and the village ordered officers to undergo racial bias training.
– Mark Puente
Free community screening and conversation
Tuesday, Nov. 17; 6 p.m. Neighborhood Connections, 1971 E. 66th St., Cleveland
The Marshall Project - Cleveland invites you to a free screening of “Inside Story,” Season 3, Episode 1, followed by an open community conversation. We want to hear from you! Share your thoughts on the episode, learn about our latest Cleveland reporting and tell us what stories and issues you believe deserve more attention.
Your voice and perspective matter. Help us better understand what’s happening in our communities and what we should be looking into.
Free and open to everyone. We hope to see you there.
Around the 216
Amid the ongoing debate over police surveillance, the city of Cleveland plans to switch from Flock Safety’s license plate readers to a competing system made by Axon Enterprises. Signal Cleveland