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Girard must pay for court’s failure to produce items
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
A Hubbard woman and her attorney will receive a combined $11,750 as a result of Girard Municipal Court’s being unable to produce an audiotape and stenographic record of the woman’s 2003 trial.
Mary Benton filed a mandamus action in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court last year alleging Girard Municipal Court violated the Ohio Public Records Act when it failed to turn over the transcript and audiotape.
Judge W. Wyatt McKay of common pleas court agreed, saying the court is obligated to maintain the records for 50 years.
Ohio law provides for a “delay damage” of $1,000 per public record and a “destruction damage” of $1,000 per public record, Judge McKay wrote in his judgment entry, filed Thursday.
Additionally, Judge McKay approved legal fees of $7,750 for Atty. Warner Mendenhall of Akron, who filed the mandamus action and represented Benton.
The entry levies the judgment against the city of Girard because it is the “body politic and political subdivision of the State of Ohio that appropriates and spends public tax dollars,” Judge McKay wrote.
The entry says Benton was convicted Dec. 4, 2003, in Girard Municipal Court of telecommunications harassment, a first-degree misdemeanor, and was sentenced by Judge Michael A. Bernard, who presided over Benton’s jury trial.
Judge Bernard ordered Benton to serve 60 days in the Trumbull County jail, serve two years’ probation and pay a fine of $1,350 and court costs of $1,420.
Benton received a transcript of the proceedings in 2006, but in July 2009, she sought an audio recording of the proceedings and other “recording media” from the court reporter.
According to Benton’s 2009 filing, she wanted “all tapes, disks or other recording media from the court reporter’s transcription machine, upon which the court reporter took down the stenographic record.”
But court officials were able to produce only one of two audiotapes, which covered half the trial, and nothing else, Judge McKay’s judgment entry says.
Judge Bernard could not be reached to comment.
“It must be assumed that they have been inadvertently lost or destroyed,” Judge McKay wrote of the other items, adding that the court even contacted the family of the court reporter, the late Erica Smith, but without success in finding the records.
“Public records are the people’s records,” Judge McKay wrote. “Nevertheless, whether by inadvertence, the records (1) the trial transcript and (2) the audio record cannot and has not been produced.”
Benton, who represented herself during the trial, said she will send the judgment entry to the Disciplinary Counsel of the Ohio Supreme Court to seek disciplinary action against Judge Bernard over the matter.