Ohio Supreme Court candidate awaits punishment

By JIM PROVANCE

Blade Columbus Bureau Chief

COLUMBUS

In an unprecedented proceeding, an active candidate for the Ohio Supreme Court on Monday appeared before a new disciplinary arm of the high court that will decide his punishment for misrepresenting himself in advertising.

Retired appellate judge William M. O’Neill, a Democrat challenging incumbent Republican Justice Robert Cupp in November, was found by a three-judge panel in February to have violated the Judicial Code of Conduct by knowingly misrepresenting himself as a sitting judge in campaign materials.

Now a pediatric-emergency nurse, O’Neill retired from the Warren-based 11th District Court of Appeals bench in 2007.

“I would say that if [retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice] Sandra Day O’Connor walked into this room right now, no one here would address her as Mrs. O’Connor,” O’Neill’s Cleveland attorney, Michael Murray, told the president judges of all 12 district courts of appeals and the chief justice of the Court of Appeals Association of Ohio.

The 13 judges sat together for the first time on a special panel to consider the punishment of a candidate for state Supreme Court. The panel sat in lieu of the high court, which normally serves as the final arbiter in attorney and judicial disciplinary cases. Its decision would be final and could not be appealed to the high court.

“I dare say that if any of your retired colleagues entered here, you would extend a formal greeting with words to the effect, ‘Judge Smith, it’s good to see you,’” Murray said. “It’s a matter of custom, usage, respect and dignity.”

In the March 6 primary election, O’Neill for the third time defeated the party’s endorsed candidate, this time Hamilton County Municipal Judge Fanon A. Rucker, for the party’s nomination going into a general election. Neither of his two prior primary wins translated into general-election wins.

This marks the first time he is not running for Supreme Court as a sitting judge.

The special judicial panel is considering the recommendation of the lower panel that O’Neill be ordered to cease use of the campaign materials, something he said he already has done.

A two-sided campaign card printed by O’Neill refers to him nine times as “judge,” including in the disclaimer identifying who paid for it. It called him “former court of appeals judge”’ once.

The lower judicial panel had recommended no punishment beyond the cease-and-desist order.

Murray told Judge Patricia Blackmon, president of the 8th District Court of Appeals in Cleveland, that he would always call her “Judge Blackmon” once she leaves the bench.

“The question is whether I will call myself that,’’ Judge Blackmon responded.

Although association Chief Justice Sheila Farmer, of the Canton-based 5th District Court of Appeals, questioned whether the panel has jurisdiction to do anything other than judge the appropriate sanction, Murray urged it to question whether a cease-and-desist order would be an unconstitutional prior restraint on freedom of speech.