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Previously on Serial...
You know, at first I was like, "Ha ha, you know, stop." What you don't have is audio. You don't hear the officer saying, "Police, break it up." Sweetheart, don't worry. I'm not—listen, I'm not gonna press charges. It doesn't matter. You're fine. Like, you'll just be seen as an irritant now in this case? Well, as an obstructionist. You don't want to get a reputation for that. Not guilty. Not guilty of it. That's fine. That's fine. But you still have to go through this.
From This American Life and WBEZ Chicago, it's Serial. One courthouse told week by week. I'm Sarah Koenig.
First thing I said to myself when I looked at the list of felony judges in Cuyahoga County was, holy cow, that's a lot of Irish names. Well, truthfully, that was the second thing I said. First thing I said was, where are all the Jews? Second thing, so many Irish. There's Judge Corrigan, another Judge Corrigan, Judge Holly Gallagher, Judge Shannon Gallagher, Judge Kelly Gallagher, Judge Shaughnessy, Judge Sheehan, Judge McClellan, Judge McCormick, Judge McDonald, Judge O'Donnell, and Judge Donnelly.
Second to the Irish are the Italians, namely Rousseau, Rousseau, Rousseau, and Rousseau. Judge John J. Rousseau, Judge Joseph Rousseau, Judge Michael Rousseau, and Judge Nancy Margaret Rousseau. At the end of the list is Judge Satoula and her cousin, Judge Satoula. And finally, Judge Sinnenberg. I know, sounds like my kind of judge, but she's actually Italian, married to Sinnenberg.
The upshot. In a courthouse where the majority of the defendants is black, out of the 34 felony judges, 32 are white. Two are African American. Early on in my reporting here, I was on the 19th floor of the Justice Center, and I wandered into the courtroom of Judge Daniel Gall just in time to hear him sentencing someone. I think it was four years the guy was about to get.
I didn't record it, but I took notes. "You're pathetic," the judge was saying. "You're pathetic, dude." My father had a saying. I shouldn't say this in court, but I'm gonna say it. "You're a bullshit artist. You're a criminal and a liar, and you've used the system all your life." Then the bullshit artist says to Judge Gall, "A liar, a cheater, that's not what I've built my life on." "Don't come in here and make these pretty speeches," Judge Gall says. "You've got what's called a mortal character flaw." The man says, "I'm not gonna let you down."
I left the courtroom a little wigged out. I had never heard a judge talk to a defendant quite like that. Raw and brutal and confusingly intimate. As if these two men were locked in a personal argument rather than a legal one. The man up on the bench, tight and small, acting the enraged parent. The other, chin up but shamed, trying to mollify. A judge's job here when it comes to sentencing is, broadly speaking, to punish the offender and to protect the public.
There are sentencing guidelines, of course, spelled out in excruciating detail in the Ohio Revised Code. And I'd assume the guidelines meant that sentencing was fairly mechanical. A certain kind of charge would produce a certain kind of sentence, plus or minus a little wiggly room in the margin to account for special circumstances or whatever else. But it's not like that. County judges in Ohio have a lot of leeway in sentencing, a lot of discretion to interpret what punishment consists of, what danger to the public looks like.
Leeway, discretion, that's power by another name. Today's episode, we're going to spend it all in one place, in Judge Gall's courtroom. And we chose his room, we as our producer, Emanuel Jochi and I, because frankly, it's sometimes thrilling in there. The shock factor alone is worth the price of admission. But also because his room, more than any we saw, laid bare this prodigious power that judges hold and the many ways they can wield that power to try to get what they want.
Emmanuel is going to tell part of today's episode. He actually moved to Cleveland for us, went to the Justice Center almost every day. He'll be reporting some of this series, so you'll hear from him throughout. And hang on to your hats, America. Emmanuel went to high school and college in Ohio, but he sounds like an Englishman. Long story. Here's Emmanuel.
I spend about five months off and on watching cases in Judge Gould's courtroom. And so I can say with confidence that this is a typical day. Most of what's happening in Judge Gould's courtroom, in any courtroom, are pleas and sentencings. Trials of the exception. So this one I'm starting with, a sentencing for a 19-year-old I'm going to call Terrell, isn't unusual in any way.
Terrell was caught driving a stolen car. He'd led the police in a chase. He'd pled guilty about a month earlier. And now he was back in front of Judge Gore for sentencing. So let's back up for a second here. Please tell me who's in the courtroom. Is that your mother in the far corner to the left? Yes, sir. Hi, how are you today? Terrell's family is sitting back there, which is usually a good thing for a defendant. It's meant to telegraph that there are people who can keep the defendant in line should he or she be released. Who else is here with your mother? His sister? Yes.
OK, hi, how are you? Judge Gore greets Terrell's sister and another sister and brother, then turns back to Terrell, starts to churn out a lecture anyone with better behaved siblings has heard. When you're not in jail, do you live with those fine people? Yes. Well, that's too bad for them, isn't it? Because you've been pretty much of a bad guy. You're two nice sisters and you're a nice brother. They don't have these problems, do they? But you bring grief to their door, don't you? Don't you? You tell me.
Judge Gould looks at Terrell's PSI, pre-sentencing investigation, which is details about Terrell's background. Is your father in the picture? I see him, Terrell says. What does that mean? They were divorced when you were five, correcto? Does your father have a criminal record? Terrell says, not that I know of. Has he been to the penitentiary? He's a decent guy. What's he do for a living?
You don't know him well, he sort of deserted you and the family, right? Are your brothers and sisters, full brothers and sisters or step sisters? Full brothers and sisters. And your parents divorced when you were five? Is that correct?
If you're hearing a sharp note of, I don't know, racial stereotyping in Judge Gall's questions, an assumption on the part of the judge that this Black family is rudderless and unstable, that all these kids must be from different, possibly incarcerated fathers, yeah. I'm guessing Terrell hears it too. I'm quite certain his attorney, John Stannard, hears it.
He's standing just behind Terrell at the podium in the middle of a courtroom. He's got one hand at the back of Terrell's neck and the other firmly on Terrell's hip, as though he is physically trying to steer Terrell through this. — Mother, do you want him back? — Yes. — He can live with you? — Terrell's mother says, yes, she wants him back. Plus, she says, Terrell's son needs him. — Right, that was the other thing. Are you married? Are you working? No, you're not. You're in the county jail. And you've been in the county jail how long?
— How long? — Four months. — OK, so when I ask you if you're working, you don't work in a county jail, you don't support your child. And you had a baby at what age? — Eighteen. — Eighteen. Was that a smart move? That was also a bad decision, right? So let's see, let's just review. — Judge Gould lists the bad decisions that led Terrell to this moment. And he's not altogether wrong. A lot of bad decisions won't play. Finally, Judge Gould sentences Terrell to four years of probation. Not a terrible outcome for him.
considering Judge Gall could have given him almost three years in prison. Judge Gall explains the terms of Terrell's probation: periodic drug testing, get a job, and he tacks on one last condition. He tells Terrell that if he has another child out of wedlock that he can't support, he will consider that a violation of his probation. Mother, are you with me there? Thank you. Your mother's talked to you about that responsibility.
It's a responsibility to the community. I'm not down with you having kids and dumping them cradle to grave on the shoulders of the taxpayer. I know some people don't think that's politically correct, but that's my view.
Teruel doesn't say anything. His attorney, John Stannard, thanks Judge Gall and escorts his client out. No one in the room points out that what Judge Gall has just threatened to do is unconstitutional.
He can't punish Terrell for having a child, not legally. But this is the sort of thing Judge Gould does. As the day continues, he puts the same condition on two more defendants. If you're on probation to me and you have more kids out of wedlock than you can afford to pay for, I'm going to send you right back to the institution. As far as I know, Judge Gould has never made good on this. He issues threats all the time. We're going to tap your cell phone. We can test your hair follicles for opiates right now. It's all bluster.
The attorneys know that. And what they also know is that as long as you don't piss him off, Judge Gall isn't an especially tough sentencer. All of the punishments he handed out on this day were reasonable for this building. He put people on probation whom he could have sent to prison. And the people he did send to prison, he said he'd consider giving early release. So for defendants and their attorneys, the strategy in Judge Gall's courtroom is endure whatever he lobs at you. Don't challenge him. Don't trigger him. And you'll probably come out okay.
That's what a defense attorney like John Stannard is trying to convey by squeezing Terrell's shoulders. Just hold on. Don't say anything. We're almost there. Can you see me one second? Back in his office, Judge Gall's got souvenirs from Ireland. A lot of the judges have Ireland stuff in their chambers. He's also got one of those putter things. There are a lot of golf balls. That'd be funny if I had a slip and fall case from your golf balls. We have to get a visiting judge.
Judge Gall is at home here. He's nestled into the building, along with the sons of other prominent Clevelanders. On his floor are two other judges whose fathers were also county judges. Judge Gall's own father was a Cleveland city councilman and later county treasurer. Judge Gall started out as a defense and civil attorney and then ran for judge in 1992. County judges are elected in Ohio. He hasn't lost an election since, and there have been four of them.
He's known around here as a TV judge, controversially entertaining. The way he talks, the way he reacts instantaneously to stimuli. It's why the Cleveland.com reporter sometimes parks himself in Judge Gall's room on a slow news day. A recent headline, Here's another. Note the word acquitted of murder.
In that one, Judge Gall said that if the defendant had pulled a gun on him, on Judge Gall, quote, I would have busted a cap in you, unquote. The defendant's name was DiMaggio Callahan. Judge Gall said he remembered this guy from a previous case because, quote, he's got an Italian first name and an Irish last name, and he's a brother.
He'll often call Black defendants "brother" and "dude," as in: You got a bit of an attitude going here, brother. Emanuel told me that in eight months of watching his courtroom, the only Black person he didn't hear Judge Gall call "brother" or "dude" was Emanuel. He uses terms like "baby's mama" and "baby's daddy," which, impossible for a white guy to do without making the whole room cringe.
He has no truck with political correctness. He's apt to use the term "race card." If you throw it down in his courtroom, he says it is not going to work. I.e., woman calls judge racist, gets life sentence. He'll work the Black Lives Matter movement into his colloquy as a pun, I guess. "His black life didn't matter to you, did it?" he'll say. Has said, more than once, to a black defendant regarding a black victim.
Judge Gall knows he's blunt, knows he's skirting, not to quibble, but I'd say crossing various lines constitutionally and socially. He says he's been called all the names, misogynist, racist. But he says that is the price he pays for trying to connect with defendants. Now, I have been criticized in the past for maybe using a little slang or being a little bit too casual sometimes.
But I'm talking to a group of people, and I want to speak to them in their idiom, in language that they can understand, not in legalese, not in footnoted references and jerry, just, hey, dude, get real. I mean, I really want them to understand me and understand that I understand them. He's doing something up there, he says. He's not just a functionary.
Say what you will about Judge Gall's personal views and his manner and his temperament, and I will say many things here, but he is not cynical. He's fundamentally optimistic, in a way, that he can fix what's broken, defendant by defendant. And I really think I know these people sometimes better than they know themselves, and I share this information. I confront them. I make them think about their lives. Every day, Judge Gall is seeing all these depressing stats made manifest. It's almost always there in the PSIs.
He'll see that the defendant's parents were drug addicts or abusive, couldn't or didn't take care of their children, maybe ended up in prison themselves. And now this person, a product of foster care and abortive education with kids of his or her own, comes before Judge Gall having committed a crime, sometimes a horrible crime. It's a rotten family cycle, and Judge Gall wants to break it. He told Emanuel that's why he's asking defendants about their children.
You ask me why I ask people how many kids they have. Yeah, why go there? Because it should be an issue of social concern. It's not politically correct to ask people how many children they have. Why? I don't know. I think perhaps because some people think it disses women. It's not about that.
If I believe that most of the people are in here because of abuse or abandonment or neglect as a child, and I do, then I want to see to it that there aren't kids that are just born and left by themselves and abandoned. You know, some people would say, well, you're a misogynist. Wait a second. I'm defending little boys and little girls who are brought into this world and raised in foster care for the rest of their life. What do you think their chance is, Emanuel? And what percentage of the kids can be born into poverty before we don't have children
a middle class anymore, or there's a permanent underclass. So, theory meet practice. Please tell me you don't have children. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. This woman had pleaded guilty to theft, an incident at a Macy's. You have children? How many? Okay. Her lawyer tries to help her out. He explains she has one child and a second on the way. And you're pregnant now. Even better. Wonderful.
Who's the first baby's daddy? Judge Gall gave her a couple years probation. This was on a Monday. Over the weekend, Judge Gall had read an article about the percentage of children born on Medicaid. After the Macy's woman left the courtroom, he started talking about it. Anybody see the story in the paper about the percentage of children born in this country on Medicaid? Anybody see this?
I don't even want to know, moaned a defense attorney. New Mexico, I think, leads the country 72%, he told them. And the national average is over 50%. I believe it, said a prosecutor. We'd hear Judge Gall cite this statistic from the bench several times as the months went on.
Judge Gall is one of the most transparent judges in the building. His worldview seemed woven into every proceeding. He liked the old days better, when Cleveland was better, when America was better, when people were more respectful, more resilient, less whiny. Now we're dealing with a generation raised on ADHD medication, which did who knows what to their brain chemistry. And these millennials, nourished on participation trophies, think they're owed something from the rest of us.
All of this, this whole building, the 13,000 felony cases moving through the criminal court each year, Judge Gall traces it to a frightful shortage of personal responsibility. Sentencing in Ohio, the recent history of it, is similar to what's evolved all over the country.
Back in the mid-1990s, when we were freaking out about rising violent crime, Ohio, like many states, revamped its sentencing laws. It redefined certain felonies, made some punishments harsher, and got rid of parole for most cases. And I'm going to shamelessly oversimplify for a second, because the reasons why Ohio's prison population climbed are complex — and super interesting, by the way — but just know it did climb, mostly because people began serving longer sentences.
In 1974, Ohio prisons held 10,700 people. By 2011, they held almost 51,000 people, a 400% increase. That's expensive. More than a billion and a quarter dollars expensive. So that year, 2011, Ohio, again like other places, swung back the other way. It passed new legislation aimed at unpacking the prisons.
It gave judges more options for diverting low-level felons to alternative punishments and broadened the opportunities for probation. That suits Judge Gall just fine. He likes probation. He likes lengthy probation. I probably put more people on probation than any other judge in this courthouse. Yeah, because I can always put them in prison later, right? And I keep my eye on them. Probation gives Judge Gall ongoing control over people's lives. It's his best hope for getting them to change.
And I probably have at any one time, anywhere between, I don't know, a couple thousand people on probation to me. 50% of people on probation violate probation.
Probation, what insiders call getting paper rather than time, is what most defendants want. But probation has its own hazards. Probation here is actually called community control sanctions, emphasis on the control, which is why I have heard defendants tell judges they'd rather pay a big fine or just do some jail time and get it over with rather than be on probation.
On probation, you're out, but you're not free. You are still tethered to the courthouse. And the conditions of your release can worm their way into almost every aspect of your life. They can dictate who you live with, where you work, whether you can have a beer after work, whether you can go to your uncle's funeral or your niece's wedding. It's so easy to slip up. A dirty urine test, a missed meeting, maybe you get indicted on a new crime, and you're back before Judge Gall.
That's why he's got more cases than most judges in the building, because of all those probation violations. We watched one violation hearing for a woman named Vivian. Judge Gall doesn't know Vivian pretty well, but he knows her specs. She's 29, single, three children. Her youngest is three months old.
A couple of years ago in 2015, she pleaded guilty to felony drug possession. She got caught with a small amount of cocaine. Rather than convict her of the felony, Judge Gall granted her what's called an ILC, intervention in lieu of conviction. Works sort of like probation. The idea is if Vivian can do everything she's supposed to, her case will go away.
The list of requirements is significant. Report weekly, undergo drug testing, complete intensive outpatient drug treatment, go to AA meetings, obtain a sponsor, get counseling, get her GED. She's done everything except stay clean. A recent drug test showed she'd been using. This is her fifth violation, her sixth time before Judge Gall.
And I'm telling you that you've got to deal with the drug problem or you're going to lose your job and your children are going to live in poverty. Judge Gall takes time with Vivian. For a matter that another judge might have dealt with in five minutes tops, Judge Gall spends 20 minutes talking to her. That's a dog's age in this building.
He spins through the usual jazz about babies, daddies, and bad decisions in the welfare state, Medicaid, New Mexico, 72%. But he also seems sincere about trying to help her. He bores into the detail of her schedule, asks about her job. She works nights in the kitchen of a casino for $10 an hour. Bad idea, he tells her. That's exactly the kind of place where you're going to be offered cocaine. You need to stop the second shift work. I think it set me up for failure.
I do. If you could get up and get the kids off and get the kids daycared and work during the daylight hours so that you and the children could rest at the same time, you need to get on the scene. You're working, you know, 16 hours a day without the help of anybody.
Three months ago, at another violation hearing, Judge Gall got fed up and sent Vivian to jail for a week to try to scare her straight. That didn't work. Today, she's desperate not to get locked up. She's worried she'll lose her children. Her comportment is deft. She knows not to beg and hear, not to whine. She admits her weakness, flags her strength. She tells him all on her own she's enrolled herself in an intensive outpatient drug treatment program, an IOP.
Vivian's attorney today requests that Judge Gall transfer Vivian to drug court.
Instead of remaining under Judge Gall's supervision, she'd be put on a specialized docket designed specifically for people like her. People who aren't violent, who don't want to be criminals, but who get in trouble with the law because of their addiction. Over in drug court, they use a therapeutic model. Their question is not, how can we best punish you? It's, how can we best help you get better?
One of the drug court judges is Joan Sinnenberg, who has a social work background. Actually, she's the recovery court judge, which is a docket for people struggling with both mental health and drug problems. And it is a different vibe over there. Just really fast, I'm going to show you. I was with her one day when she popped into that courtroom to say hi. How are you?
Another judge was substituting for her because she was tied up on a murder trial. The participants sat in the jury box and on the benches. The atmosphere was casual and warm. I miss you a lot. Do you miss me too? Are we missing her? Come on. That's what I'm about to say. Right? I love you. Do the right thing. Okay.
On the way out, Judge Sennenberg ran into one of the recovery court participants in the hallway, a guy named Craig. Gave him a big hug. He's amazing. Yeah, you have been, you're one of my inspirations. This program is amazing. A little hectic and stressful, but amazing. So proud of you. This whole experience was amazing. I'm so proud of you. Thank you. You have come so far. I know. Nice, right? No one gets torn down in drug court. No one is asked why they're pregnant.
I'm not saying it's a cure-all. Ohio has been devastated by the opioid crisis. But research shows that programs like these are the best way we've found to help people with drug problems stay out of the criminal justice system. So, Vivian's attorney asks for drug court. And the probation department, which is staffed with substance abuse specialists and social workers, they're well-regarded around here, they're also recommending Vivian for drug court.
But Judge Gall flicks that idea aside. As if drug court is going to do something different than what we've already done. It's as if he's saying, I got this. I deal with addiction all day long. Vivian's just got to buckle down, stay the course. She doesn't need drug court. She has me. Vivian's attorney doesn't push back much on this. He even seems to agree with Judge Gall. What difference would it make? One difference, in drug court, she'd have one defense attorney dedicated to her case who'd follow her progress and update the judge.
but this guy is her fifth attorney each time she has to appear before judge gall she's assigned someone new first there's a public defender linda ricco who negotiated the ilc deal since then it's been assignment list attorneys there's charles morgan then jim hoflick and aaron brockler he represented her at two hearings actually today it's joseph o'malley their goal all of them is to keep vivian out of jail other than that they don't have much of a stake here
They're not thinking too hard about how she progresses with drug treatment or what would work best for her. They're getting paid $100 for this hearing, and the moment it's over, she's not their client anymore. Today, Judge Gall ends up putting Vivian on house arrest at her own suggestion. I'm sure Vivian would like this interaction with Judge Gall to be her last, but alas, she is midstream. A month from now, she'll be indicted for theft for using a friend's credit card.
At another hearing, Judge Gall will tell Vivian she's out of control, and he'll send her to jail. She'll spend 51 days there while the credit card case gets sorted out. She'll plead guilty to a couple of first-degree misdemeanors. Judge Gall will tell her she's weak, indulgent, selfish. He'll tell her to quit the tears, sweetheart, and he'll give her a suspended jail sentence, more home detention, plus two years probation. Now, instead of three AANA meetings a week, she must go to four a week.
Two months later, she'll violate again. This time, she'll beg for inpatient treatment. She'll tell Judge Gall her cousin died three weeks ago from an overdose, and she's afraid. "I need help. I need help," she'll say it seven times. "I need to learn to get through this sickness." "You call it a sickness and I call it a crime," he'll say. He'll send her to jail. Once again, she will leave her three sons, who by this time are nine years old, six years old, and nine months old, with their grandmother.
After Vivian has spent 66 days locked up, her ninth assigned lawyer will write to Judge Gall asking him to let her out. And Judge Gall will release Vivian from jail. He'll put her on probation for another year and a half. And now she must attend five AANA meetings a week.
Judge Gall is trying to help Vivian, at least I think he is. But consider, if Vivian had gone to drug court, that new theft charge would have been rolled into her existing case. It would not have affected her status in drug court at all. If she'd been in drug court, it's unlikely she would have spent even one day in the county jail, much less 127 days. If she'd been in drug court, and if she was anything like the other drug court participants, almost all of whom backslide and struggle, she would have graduated from that program in about 13 months.
As it stands, she's been embroiled with Judge Gall for three and a half years and counting, for fewer than five grams of cocaine. This is possibly the most profound and least examined question in the building. What works?
The court doesn't gather statistics on sentencing, and that's true for most of the country, by the way. No data that says defendants in Cuyahoga County do better after six months of probation than after three years of probation, or in terms of reoffending, four years in prison yields better results than seven years in prison. We just don't know, which I found rather astounding when I realized no one is tracking this.
The court keeps extensive data regarding efficiency, how many cases are moving through whose dockets and how quickly, which I'm not knocking efficiency, it's important. That's why people here are generally not waiting years and years for their cases to resolve, and that's good. But there's no database, locally or nationally, that shows what works. So each judge in the building has to muddle it out for him or herself. Judge Cassandra Collier-Williams put it to me this way. There's 34 judges up here, and it's like 34 different cities.
Of course, judges here aren't just winging it, or mostly they're not winging it. They're basing their decisions on the sentencing guidelines and on their professional experience, but they're also making decisions based on their life experience, on where they come from and who they know and where they live and what they read and what it is they hold dear. Duck into various courtrooms and you feel it right away.
Mr. Cook, how old are you? 22 years old. I need you to speak up just a little bit, okay? That's Judge Collier-Williams on the 23rd floor taking a plea, case of felonious assault with a gun.
She painstakingly lists for Mr. Cook all the rights he's giving up by not going to trial. With gentleness, she makes double sure he understands what she's saying. Okay, so what's the total time you're looking at the possibility? 11 years. From 5 to 11 years. Understand? Yes. Okay. Finally, she lectures him. Thank you. I accept your plea of guilty to count three and find you guilty thereon. Just kidding. She's done. No muss, no fuss.
Though we have seen her do this. You have 30 days to register to vote and show proof of that to your probation officer. And now you are required to vote in all elections. And the reason why I do that is because people died for this right. Judge Collier-Williams wants felons to participate in democracy like everybody else. But she actually stopped doing this ever since the ACLU had a little chat with her. Again, unconstitutional.
Judge Michael Donnelly on 19, he'll only discuss pleas on the record, no backroom sentencing deals. Judge Janet Burnside down on 16 finds she's giving people accused of serious crimes longer and longer prison terms because she's so struck by the sheer violence she's seeing. But for probation, she swings light. She wants to get people off of court supervision as quickly as possible.
A few years ago, the probation department started using what are called evidence-based practices to determine probation. You ask a bunch of questions to try to figure out a defendant's risk of recidivism and then tailor the conditions of probation to his or her level of risk. A PowerPoint I saw on The Method included a slide that said, quote, But judges don't have to take the probation department's recommendations. They're optional.
Judge Kathleen Ann Satula, back up on 23, says she uses the evidence-based thing only sometimes. Her philosophy is akin to Judge Gall's. She told us, short probation, that's throwing a person away. She'll typically give five years of probation, super strict conditions. 90 AA meetings in 90 days, for instance. And if you miss a day, you have to start over. She owns her reputation as a tough judge.
Mean would be the tamest thing we heard to describe her. But I gotta say, we didn't see that so much. She was tough, but we didn't get the feeling her toughness was self-serving. We watched the sentencing of a young guy, 19. He'd stolen a bunch of cars. Other guys were involved, but they didn't get indicted. It was intense. She asked the defendant, "'You live with your father, so why didn't he pay your bond? "'250 bucks and you could have gone home months ago "'instead of sitting in jail all this time.'
You know, we called your father. He said he didn't know your address or where you stay. Does that surprise you? Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am, he whispers. You're standing here all alone. There's no Louis, there's no Marquis, and even your father doesn't want to stand here with you. Does this tell you something? Do you have any thoughts about this in your head? Yes, ma'am. What are they? Share them with me. I've been going down the wrong path. Yeah.
Big time. By the end, they're talking about his future plans. She mentions college. I don't know. Can one stiff talking to change the trajectory of a teenager's life? I don't know. Maybe. When I ask judges here, how do you know? How do you know if what you're doing is working?
They'd talk about the people who come back just to visit or who write letters or whom they see on the street, who say thank you for being hard on me or thank you for giving me a chance. You helped me. I have my kids back. I'm doing well. Which must be great for a judge to hear. But rigorous evidence it isn't. For Judge Gall, I wasn't exactly sure what he needed to see from a defendant in order to declare success. Until we came upon the case of Rayshawn Ellis. That's after this.
Hey, serial listeners, go deeper into one detainee's story in Letters from Guantanamo on Audible. Mansour Addaifi was 18 when he was kidnapped by Afghan militia and sold to the CIA. As one of the first prisoners at Guantanamo, he endured unbearable
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When Judge Gall sentences someone, the principal thing he's looking for is remorse. Emanuel and I have heard him say these two phrases dozens of times. Acceptance of responsibility, demonstration of remorse. Rehabilitation can't begin until there's some acceptance of responsibility, some candor with the court, some demonstration of remorse.
Acceptance of responsibility, showing remorse. Judge Gall did not invent these phrases. They come from federal and state sentencing guidelines. And they sound bedrock-ish, like they're probably chiseled into the courthouse wall someplace. But in practice, they're controversial because acceptance of responsibility or showing genuine remorse, what does that mean? What's that supposed to look like? It's subjective. Some judges will say, well, you pled guilty, so that's taking responsibility right there. That's enough for me.
But in Judge Gall's room, a plea alone, definitely not enough. He needs to hear you say it. Even better, he wants to feel you feeling it. If you do, it's a good bet your sentence will be lighter. If you deflect responsibility or stay mum on the subject, the sentence could be heavier.
The starkest example we saw of this was the sentencing of a guy named Rayshon Ellis. Rayshon was 31. He'd been a defendant in many cases ever since he was a teenager. Some charges he'd beat, some he hadn't. The year before, he'd picked up a new case, or caught a new case is what everyone says, as if it's a virus. Anyway, Rayshon caught a new case. Serious charges, felonious assault, weapons violations,
It was a messy incident, but the gist was that a guy shot a gun out the window of Raishan's car while Raishan was driving, and a fight had broken out. Early on, Judge Gall made it plain he thought Raishan should plead guilty. But Raishan said he wasn't the instigator of this debacle, and what's more, he had tried to de-escalate the situation, to break up the fight. He'd been scared for his own life, he said.
Rayshon took the case to trial, and he won, mostly. He was acquitted of the most serious charge, felonious assault. But he was convicted on two weapons charges, both of which carried the possibility of prison time. Because of the gun in the car, even though it wasn't Rayshon's gun and he didn't fire it, the jury found he was still criminally responsible for it.
Immediately after the verdict, with the jury still sitting there, Judge Gall launched. Rayshon, he said, you should have resolved this case a long time ago. You, sir, are going to be looking at the harshest possible end, OK? Because I'm not going to put on a screen a person that's so dysfunctional and destructive...
that doesn't understand that you should resolve this case without risking 23 years on the first count if you found him guilty? 26. 26. I want to pause on this for a second so the perversity of the moment can sink in. Judge Gall is angry at Rishon for refusing to plead guilty, for risking huge prison time on an assault charge for which he has just been acquitted, not guilty,
That's what's dysfunctional and destructive, refusing to plead. And that's what makes Rayshon deserve prison. A month later, Emanuel went to Rayshon's sentencing. We were curious to see what he was going to get. It was a Monday morning. Rayshon was one of his first cases of the day. And already, Judge Gore was worked up. You get indicted and you don't admit your responsibility. You don't demonstrate any remorse. You know you're going to go to prison on a probation violation because I told you that through your attorney.
Right? He's got to go. Ray Sean had been on probation to Judge Gore when this new case happened. That's partly why he was pissed. Judge Gore starts listing arrest after arrest, charge after charge, dropped or not, that Ray Sean faced ever since he was a juvenile. Then he and Ray Sean's attorney, John Mizanin, start relitigating the facts of the current case. John's exasperated and not pretend exasperated. You often see attorneys performing an argument, but you don't often see a real one.
John is insisting that Ray Sean had tried to do the right thing, to keep the people around him from getting shot. He's getting hot with the judge. This goes on and on.
Ray Sean is facing five and a half years on the probation violation alone, never mind the new charges he's just been convicted of, which could add another four and a half years. So 10 years total if the judge wants to stick it to him. This fighting is not helping. Finally, right as Judge Gould says, "So you're sentenced to..." Ray Sean interrupts. -So you're sentenced to... -I thought you did speak. Do you want to speak further? Right ahead.
Rayshon takes out a four-page letter and begins reading. Your Honor, Judge Gall. Your Honor, Judge Gall, I know I understand what you have been trying to communicate to me this whole time. I was wrong. I am wrong for being a criminal. Later, back in his chambers, Judge Gall read parts of the letter aloud to me. I am wrong for being a criminal. My point of view has been clouded since I was first charged at 16 years old. And I have been angry ever since.
I have finally opened my eyes and saw and came to realize I have been wrong for 15 years. It has humbled me. This experience has helped save my life and awakened me to my self-destructive illusions. You are an outstanding judge. I'm going to remind you of what you said, that I could be your son, and I'm not assuming that as favoritism. That comment truly touched me and made me look at you different. I originally perceived you
to be prejudiced and never expected you to show me your human personal decency. I recognize the wisdom and help you imparted on me, that I was wrong, and you have been trying to reason with me to consider my choice to associate with the criminal lifestyle. And it goes on and on and on. In the courtroom, Ray Sean read his letter for more than seven minutes. When he finished, Judge Gore was stunned. That's really...
He said he wanted to get the letter laminated and read it from time to time because he found it inspiring. A visitor to the courtroom, such as myself, might consider Ray Sean's letter a brilliant strategic move, while also wondering whether Judge Gore had just been played.
But Judge Gore believed the letter was genuine. He was moved. He said to Ray Sean, "It's not possible for anyone to fake what you just said." The letter was gratifying for Judge Gore. Of course it was. But I think it was also maybe vindicating for him. Because I'd been there to hear it. I'd also been in a room a few weeks earlier when a defendant had called Judge Gore racist. Judge Gore knew I'd been squinting uncomfortably through the harangues and his stereotyping. And now he was proof. Gore's method worked.
Judge Gore was emotional about it afterwards. He mentioned a Bible story about the good thief who was redeemed. He choked up. So there may be some redemption here. He's certainly young enough. And if he changes his attitude, he may amount to something. He may make it. Because of the letter, Rayshon cut his own sentence roughly in half. Judge Gore was going to give him six and a half or seven years, he said. Instead, he gave him three.
And he told Ray Sean, "Come back in six months and apply for judicial release." What's known as shock release. A way of cutting someone loose who's learned his lesson after the shock of prison. So six months, he said. File a motion. Maybe I'll shock you out.
Six months to the day, John Mizanin, Rayshon's attorney, did file a motion for shock release. Judge Gall held a hearing. Rayshon and Mizanin were there. But it lacked the magic of the sentencing. Instead, Judge Gall trawled Rayshon's criminal record all over again. So much prior involvement with the system. Cruelty to animals, that jumps off the page. Anyone that would do that to an animal. Rayshon pushed back. It wasn't me. I was 14 years old and someone shot a cat on my porch with a BB gun and I didn't tell.
What about the aggravated robbery in 2001? Well, that one, I didn't do it, but I was there, so I got caught. And then the crime at hand. Judge Gall accused Rayshon of knowing about the gun, of putting other people in danger. Rayshon said it wasn't like that. Judge Gall said, why are you minimizing? The Gettysburg Address wasn't echoing in anyone's ears.
Judge Gall denied Rayshon's motion for judicial release. I'm denying your motion for shock probation at this time, he said, because you are not accepting responsibility and therefore you're not demonstrating any remorse. Try again in six months, he told him. See if your attitude has changed. After it was all over, I talked to Rayshon about how this whole thing went down. He told me he still hadn't made sense of it. Judge Gall had all but promised to shock him out if he did well in prison, and he had done well.
Six months earlier, when he wrote the letter, he said it was partly sincere, partly political. He knew he'd need to stroke Judge Gall's ego. He behaves like a king, he said. But at the hearing for shock release, he figured they were past the stage of flattery and theatrics. So he was taken aback when Judge Gall started in on the details of his case.
Rayshon said he kept trying to talk to him, man to man. I respect you as the individual and the position that you're holding. Because, you know, I'm being accused of something, and I need you to be a professional and look at the facts and find out what the evidence is. He just automatically already knew, like, it doesn't matter if you're innocent. I want you guilty. I kept trying to tell him, like, there's something, there's more to this story. And I don't know what you want me to tell you, but that's the honest-to-God truth.
Raishan didn't feel as if Judge Gall were leading him down the road toward responsibility and redemption. He felt as if Judge Gall simply wanted submission for its own sake. Raishan said Judge Gall, quote, struck me as nothing less than a raging slave master.
And I just had to let him know in such a nice way without really hurting his feelings too much. Like, I ain't that guy. I ain't no slave. I'm not scared of you. And, you know, and I was, you know, a lot of times I kept telling him, I don't agree with you. I don't agree with what you're saying. And he just didn't like that. So he wanted it his way or no way. And it was just like, man, it's not your way or no way.
But it is Judge Gall's way or no way. That's the maddening corkscrew of Rayshon's position. Judge Gall shouldn't require him to grovel. Rayshon's right about that. But there's nothing Rayshon can do about it. Because Rayshon is the one who broke the law. Everything Judge Gall's doing is legal. If you're wondering, does Judge Gall ever get in trouble for the way he runs his room? Has he ever reined in?
Well, let me tell you about this one last case just quickly. It was back in 2015, so I wasn't there for it, but I do have a transcript. A guy named Carlton Hurd was indicted for shooting. He said he didn't do it. He wanted to go to trial. After being postponed a few times, day of trial finally comes, and Carlton Hurd's attorney asks for another continuance because he said Mr. Hurd had just informed him a half hour ago that he's been covering up for the real shooter. So now they need more time to investigate.
Judge Gall does not take kindly to this motion to continue. He thinks this last-minute new evidence claim is bogus. He's sure they're just trying to delay. He does what he does, which is to excoriate Mr. Hurd for being black, among other things. Your black life didn't matter to you, did it? And your child's going to grow up, and I'm speculating now, just like you did, without a dad. Did you have a father? No, says Carlton Hurd. No, of course not, says Judge Gall.
But then, even by Judge Gall's standards, Judge Gall veers out of bounds. He says to Carlton Hurd, you're either going to go to trial right now or you're going to plead guilty. Carlton Hurd hadn't asked for a plea deal, and the state had not offered one. No matter, Judge Gall comes up with his own deal for Carlton Hurd. He says, if you plead no contest to the indictment right now, I'll sentence you to 14 years.
Quote, if you take the case to trial and are convicted, you will do multiples of 14 years. Because if you're convicted of these charges, that's what you deserve. You deserve to spend what could be the rest of your life in the state penal institution, unquote. What's it going to be? Carlton Hurd says, I'll go to trial. His mom blurts out, no. Carlton says to her, listen to what he just said. 14 years seemed like forever to Carlton. His little daughter would be 18 when he got out.
But his mom was hearing the other numbers, multiples of 14, if he's convicted at trial. They confer for a bit off the record. Then Judge Gall tells them at length about another case he had in which he offered a couple of, quote, knuckleheads, a deal they didn't take. I had the same conversation with them I'm having with you. They sat right there, right in that chair. I told them, I said, look, you can do 15 years, or if you're convicted of all this other stuff, you're going to get consecutive time. They both got sentenced to 78 years.
Judge Gall asks again whether Carlton wants to plead. I didn't do it, says Carlton Hurd. Judge Gall says, look, you want to go to trial, go to trial. You have a beautiful suit on. You can sit there and maybe the jury will think you're a great guy and you're not guilty. What do you want to do? There's a pause. All right, let's bring the jury up, Judge Gall says. The jury's on its way. If they walk into this room, my deal with you is off.
I'll take it, says Carlton Hurd. It was like a now or never thing. That's Carlton. When I asked him why he said yes to the plea, he told me his mother persuaded him they could fight it, that they could appeal, which they did. Because it was like what he was saying, like we just knew that's not nothing that a judge really could be saying. He ain't supposed to be saying and doing none of that. The Court of Appeals agreed. I got the sense reading their decision that the justices were straining to contain their displeasure.
A plea is supposed to be knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily made. That's the standard. The fact that Judge Gall participated in the plea, by itself that's not necessarily unconstitutional. But the way Judge Gall did it, concocting the plea all on his own, without even asking the prosecutor or the defense attorney, then you add in the pressure, the threats, the way he made it obvious he thought Carlton was guilty before even seeing a scrap of evidence.
The only thing Carlton Hurd could have knowingly and intelligently concluded, the court said, was that he was unlikely to get either a fair trial or a fair sentence after trial from Judge Gall. Under those circumstances, they said, the plea was not voluntary. It was coerced. Unconstitutional. They vacated the plea and then took the extraordinary step of ordering that Carlton Hurd's case be reassigned to a different judge. The forcefulness of the Court of Appeals decision was remarkable.
Then something more remarkable happened. This summer, almost three years after being locked up, Carlton Hurd went to trial, this time in front of Judge John Russo. And he was acquitted of all charges. So, what does this mean for Judge Gall? For the moment, nothing. I asked Judge Gall whether he felt he'd screwed up in Carlton Hurd's case. His answer, no.
To me, he said, this isn't a case about an innocent man being railroaded by the system. It's a case that clearly demonstrates how a defendant and his attorney manipulated the system of justice to their benefit and beat a murder case. Attempted murder, actually. The day Carlton was acquitted, I called Judge Russo. He'd presided over the trial, but he's also the administrative judge for the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas. He's not Judge Gall's boss, but he is the public face of the court. I caught him on his cell right when he got home from the trial.
Is there any consequence for Judge Gall because of this? I mean, there isn't for me. So I don't, you know, he's a colleague. And so I don't reprimand him or sanction him in any way. After the verdict, when Carlton Hurd was acquitted, Judge Russo had apologized to him, said coercion has no place in the system, etc.,
Judge Russo clearly disapproved of how Judge Gall had handled the case. But now on the phone with me, he was sounding rather mealy about that. What seems frustrating is that there isn't some automatic now review or some automatic investigation, something. I mean, I've seen him do this in his courtroom to other people. It's wrong. It's wrong. And if any judge is doing that, somebody needs to be made aware of it.
I mean, that's it. There's a process. So whatever that process is, it has to be started by somebody. I would argue that Judge Russo is a somebody. I talked to another Cuyahoga County judge who was outraged by this case. He's a somebody. A couple of attorneys on this case whom I also spoke to. They're somebodies. The Court of Appeals judges who ruled in this case. What about those somebodies?
If any of these somebodies is afraid of reprisal from Judge Gall, they can even complain anonymously to the Ohio Supreme Court. There's a state board on grievances and discipline that has the authority to investigate and sanction judges, disbar them if necessary. Judge Gall has actually been through that process once before, in 2010.
I won't give you the details, but suffice it to say the Supreme Court justices were appalled by what Judge Gall had done and said in that case. And then they gave him a fairly minor reprimand, a six-month suspended suspension of his law license, meaning he was able to stay on the bench. As of right now, I've not heard that anyone has filed a complaint with the Supreme Court against Judge Gall because of Carlton Hurd's case. Nothing about the case has been reported in the local newspaper or on TV. No one's picketing outside his courtroom.
So Judge Gall's not too worried. He's been on the bench for 27-plus years. I take my role as protecting the peace and dignity of the state of Ohio very, very seriously, and I wasn't elected to be stupid, he said. If he's being lied to, he's not going to sit back and pretend it's not happening. I wasn't elected six times to be a dumbass, unquote. As long as the voters keep voting for him, then, he's going to keep on keeping on.
And he's right. Yes, there's the appeals court and the discipline board. But really, every six years, it's the voters who have the final say. And most of the voters here, here and everywhere, it's understood that, eh, what do they know?
For decades, they've seen the same Irish and Italian names on the ballot, almost all Democrats. What's a Russo over a Corrigan over a Gallagher? How could you even keep them straight? Mostly, the voters are casting their ballots and then staying far, far away from the felony courthouse. It doesn't touch them, and they don't touch it. Until there's a shockwave, a crime-and-punishment shockwave that billows out across the city, the county, the country.
That's next time on Serial.
Serial is produced by Julie Snyder, Emanuel Jochi, Ben Calhoun, and me, with additional reporting by Ida Lijoskowski. Editing on this episode from Ira Glass, Nancy Updike, and Hannah Jaffe-Walt. Whitney Dangerfield is our digital editor. Research and fact-checking by Ben Phelan. Sound design and mix by Stowe Nelson. Music clearance by Anthony Roman. Seth Lind is our director of operations. Serial staff includes Emily Condon, Julie Whitaker, Cassie Howley, and Frances Swanson.
Our music is by Adam Dorn and Hal Wilner, with additional music from Matt McGinley and Fritz Meyers. Our theme song is by Nick Thorburn, remixed by Adam Dorn. Special thanks to Gypsy Escobar at Measures for Justice, Cullen Sweeney, Corey Schaefer, Zoe Root and the Justice Programs Office at American University's School of Public Affairs, David Brown, Kelly Mitchell, and Julia Laskarunsky at the Rubina Institute of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice, and to our sponsors,
Sarah Andrews and Scott Shoemaker at the Ohio Criminal Sentencing Commission, Brian Hoffman and the Pretrial Justice Institute. Finally, the art on our website was made by Adam Maeda. He created the mural for this episode and Moth Studio did the animation. Please check it out at SerialPodcast.org. That's SerialPodcast.org. Also thanks to Studio Rodrigo, who did the web designs. In particular, Ben Averill, Juliet Wang, Or Levite and Koi Wong.
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