Judge violated ethics rules for ordering teens' detention but not for legislative and Tea Party remarks, court finds
An Ohio judge has been suspended for ordering the detention of two teenagers in the juvenile lockup for a weekend after they repeatedly refused to attend visitation with their father.
The Ohio Supreme Court suspended Judge Timothy J. Grendell of Geauga County, Ohio, for 18 months, with 12 months stayed if he commits no further misconduct.
Court News Ohio, the Geauga County Maple Leaf and the Statehouse News Bureau have stories on the Nov. 21 decision written by Justice R. Patrick DeWine.
The Ohio Supreme Court rejected two other ethics charges stemming from Grendell’s speech at a Tea Party gathering and from his voluntary legislative testimony on behalf of a bill requiring the state to release additional information on COVID-19 testing and hospitalizations. The state supreme court said Grendell’s comments were protected by the First Amendment.
The “extremely difficult” child custody case was transferred to Grendell, a juvenile court judge, in 2019. A domestic relations judge had asked for Grendell’s help in hopes that he might have the authority to require three children to meet with their father in a “safe, therapeutic setting.”
Grendell ordered therapeutic counseling, first with a service provider that worked with the juvenile court. When the children refused to participate, Grendell ordered counseling with another professional he considered “the nuclear option for parental alienation matters.”
Grendell ultimately concluded, however, that therapeutic visitation would be a lost cause and ordered the two younger children to have visitation with their father on alternating weekends. The transfer was to take place at the sheriff’s office, and the constable was to be present the first hour of visitation.
The mother dropped off the boys, who eventually began fidgeting. The older boy said he and his brother would not visit their father for the weekend. After the constable called Grendell, he told a probation official that the children were being placed in detention for “unruliness based on their refusal to attend visitation.”
The judge ordered that the boys be kept separate from the general population and separate from each other. He also banned them from speaking with their mother during the detention.
Although Grendell was frustrated at thwarted efforts for reunification, that didn’t allow him to turn “a blind eye to legal safeguards designed to protect the best interests of children and avoid unnecessary detentions,” the state supreme court said.
But the state supreme court found no ethics violations for Grendell’s comment at the Tea Party gathering and before the legislature.
“Lawyers and judges do not give up their First Amendment right to free speech just because they chose to pursue a career in law,” the Ohio Supreme Court said.
The primary sponsor of the COVID-19 bill was Grendell’s wife. He testified that Ohio was releasing only “the scary half of the facts,” creating an atmosphere of fear. The Ohio Board of Professional Conduct concluded that Grendell abused the prestige of his office to advance the interests of a family member.
But the judicial conduct rule’s “broad restriction” on legislative testimony on all but a few topics “is a content-based speech restriction in violation of the First Amendment,” the state supreme court said.
Grendell is a former state lawmaker, according to the Statehouse News Bureau.
Grendell’s speech at the Tea Party event concerned his conflict with the county auditor, who was also asked to attend the meeting in “a healthy act of democracy,” the state supreme court said. “Because Judge Grendell’s remarks at the Tea Party meeting were about the operations and processes of local government given in a political context, they are entitled to the strongest First Amendment Protection,” the state supreme court said.
The conduct board had found that Grendell’s Tea Party remarks were “baseless and disparaging,” “reckless and untrue,” “biased,” and “filled with inaccuracies and half-truths.”
But Grendell can’t constitutionally be punished unless he knowingly lied or acted in reckless disregard for the truth, the Ohio Supreme Court said.
“It is not uncommon for elected officials to mistakenly say something inaccurate or misleading,” the Ohio Supreme Court said. “When they do, their opponents, journalists and citizens are usually quick to point it out. That is the preferred First Amendment remedy: ‘more speech, not enforced silence.’”
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