Prosecutor tries to stop sheriff's hearing

The sheriff is to appear Wednesday in court on the contempt charge.
By DEBORA SHAULIS
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- In honoring Youngstown Municipal Court Judge Elizabeth A. Kobly's "Do Not Release" orders on inmates, Mahoning County Sheriff Randall Wellington risks violating the common pleas court judges' emergency jail release policy and running an unconstitutional jail, says county Prosecutor Paul J. Gains.
That's the basis for a writ of prohibition that Gains filed Friday with the 7th District Court of Appeals. He's asking appellate judges to stop Judge Kobly from conducting a contempt hearing at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, at which she ordered Wellington to appear. The writ also asks the judges to prevent her from issuing further orders that supersede the emergency release mechanism.
"As a matter of law, once a common pleas court exercises its jurisdiction by order to approve and adopt operational policies for the county jail ... a municipal court patently and unambiguously lacks jurisdiction to override such an order," Gains wrote in his complaint.
Jail overcrowded
The emergency release policy was drafted last March, after U.S. District Judge David D. Dowd Jr. declared the overcrowded, understaffed county jail to be unconstitutional. In response to Judge Dowd's directives, common pleas judges devised a system to prioritize offenses in order to limit jail population to 296 inmates. Prisoners charged with misdemeanors or nonviolent crimes are either released on a court summons or furloughed to serve their sentences later.
Judge Kobly ordered Wellington to attend a show-cause hearing to explain why Ronald A. Tomlin, 19, of Hudson Avenue was released early from his seven-day jail sentence when the judge wanted him to remain locked up. The judge had sentenced Tomlin on Nov. 29 for a domestic violence conviction, but Tomlin was released the same day.
Wellington said his department did not receive part of the judge's journal entry, which included a handwritten message: "Sheriff not to release early." Tomlin was arrested Nov. 30 and returned to the jail.
Judge Kobly could not be reached to comment Friday. In a Vindicator story Thursday, Judge Kobly said the emergency release policy is unfair to lower court judges, who hear only misdemeanor cases.
Dowd's order
Gains' complaint follows an order that Judge Dowd issued Wednesday, instructing Wellington to keep in jail all defendants who have been found in contempt of court by any of Mahoning County's municipal, county or common pleas judges -- regardless of the emergency release plan.
Previous efforts to halt Wellington's contempt hearing have been unsuccessful. Earlier this month, Judge Theresa Dellick of the Juvenile Division of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court overruled a motion by Gains to disqualify Judge Kobly from presiding over the contempt hearing. She was acting as presiding judge of common pleas court.
Gains also had argued that Wellington purged himself of the contempt citation once Tomlin was returned to jail, but Judge Kobly has said the hearing will proceed as scheduled.
shaulis@vindy.com