Ex Judge Cronin’s jail service has appearance of favoritism

Former Judge Maureen Cronin has destroyed the public goodwill she built on Sept. 12, after she pleaded guilty to a drunk-driving charge, by the apparent special treatment she received with regard to her serving a five-day jail sentence. Less than two days after Mahoning County Area Court Judge Scott Hunter told her she would first have to serve 18 days’ electronically monitored house arrest, undergo an alcohol assessment and then report to jail, Cronin was booked into the misdemeanant facility in downtown Youngstown Friday morning.

How did she get on such a fast track, overtaking 271 other drunken-driving defendants waiting to serve their jail time? The finger-pointing among officials in Mahoning County’s criminal justice system has begun.

Suffice it to say that Judge Hunter strongly denies that he ordered Sheriff Randall Wellington to put the former county Common Pleas Court judge behind bars ahead of others on the waiting list — as the sheriff initially claimed in an interview with Vindicator Crime Reporter Patricia Meade.

From the outside looking in, it seems that Cronin wanted to slip in and slip out of jail without reporters being alerted, and her friends in the system were only too happy to oblige. Indeed, reporters who was on hand for the sentencing probably marked their calendars for the end of the 18-day house arrest, which was to commence on Sept. 13.

Jail overcrowding

Cronin’s lawyer argues that his client just wanted to get the jail time over with. We would suggest that a large number of the 271 individuals convicted of operating a vehicle impaired would be just as eager to serve their time, but jail overcrowding had forced the sheriff’s department to place them on furlough. Their lives, in effect, have been put on hold.

We have no doubt that Cronin’s supporters will argue that she did not attempt to have the jail time set aside, nor did she seek any favors from the court. However, given that this was her second drunk-driving conviction and that she had refused for the second time to take a breathalizer test, she could have been sentenced to 20 days behind bars.

The plea deal her lawyer, Scott Cochran, struck with the county prosecutor’s office could be viewed as her getting a break.

There is also the issue of the alcohol assessment ordered by Judge Hunter that needs to be examined. Given that she was sentenced on the afternoon of Sept. 12 and reported to the jail on the morning of Sept. 14, we wonder about the extent of the assessment — if, in fact, there was one conducted. Why is this important? Because it speaks to the advisability of placing an individual in a dormitory-style lock-up without knowing the extent of her addiction and her mental and emotion state.

The speed with which she was processed, incarcerated and released flies in the face of the dysfunction that has long defined the criminal justice system in Mahoning County.