Sheriff Wellington must get a grip on the agency

After the arrest in July of three current and three former corrections officers on charges that they participated in the beating of an inmate, you would think that Mahoning County Sheriff Randall Wellington realized that he needs to run the department with an iron fist. Think again.
As a recent incident involving the common pleas court shows, the department is still suffering from managerial malaise. The result: The sheriff has had to stand before Judge Maureen Cronin to be publicly berated for failing to deliver inmates for a hearing.
"Those are stupid, stupid mistakes," Judge Cronin told the sheriff and two of his departmental supervisors, Maj. Michael Budd and Cpl. Cortland Casey, on Tuesday. "I don't understand this. The inmate transportation at the courthouse is in a shambles."
Later on in the proceedings, the judge was moved to remind Wellington, Budd and Casey about their responsibility to the court. "Common pleas court is a priority in this county, and you know it. I've had it. I've had it," she warned.
Simple mistake?
Overreaction to what might appear to be a simple mistake? Hardly. The judge had been forced to delay arraignments for more than an hour because deputy sheriffs failed to deliver the inmates to the courthouse from the criminal justice center.
But what really irked Judge Cronin was the fact that after one of the two vans used to transport prisoners had broken down Tuesday, the sheriff's department decided to use the working one to first take inmates to misdemeanor court in Boardman and then return to the jail to pick up the prisoners for their common pleas court appearances.
The district court in Boardman is served by a part-time judge, as are the district courts in Austintown, Canfield and Sebring.
Common pleas judges are full time and preside over higher-level crimes, including those that carry the death penalty.
From where we sit, the buck stops with the sheriff -- just as it did in July when he said he was "very disappointed" with the arrest of the current and former corrections officers.
Given the federal government's contention that the inmate, after being beaten a second time, was dragged "naked through the disciplinary unit to his cell," Wellington's reaction was mealy-mouthed, to say the least.
One of those charged, retired Sgt. Bill DeLuca, has pleaded guilty to a federal civil rights violation and has admitted that he passed on an order from "senior management" at the jail to beat the inmate and drag him naked to his cell.
Considering the seriousness of the allegations, we expected the sheriff to react with more fervor. As we said in an editorial in July, "righteous anger" on Wellington's part would have been appropriate.
These and other recent incidents point to a systemic problem in the sheriff's department.
Re-election bid
Wellington is unopposed for re-election in November, having won the Democratic primary over former Sheriff Edward P. Nemeth and retired sheriff's Lt. Howard L. Faison Jr.
In endorsing the incumbent for the party nomination, we focused on his integrity. Given the embarrassingly large number of government officials who were caught in the FBI's government corruption probe, we believed that having an honest top cop was essential.
We still hold to that belief -- but also recognize that government doesn't run on honesty alone. Indeed, we noted in our endorsement editorial that Wellington deserved another term in office "not because his four-year tenure has been problem-free and the department is running at 100 percent efficiency" but because of his "proven integrity."
He now must prove that he can manage.