Cuyahoga County Judge Daniel Gaul Suspended for Misconducting By Ohio Supreme Court

A judge who had been working in Cuyahoga County for a long time has been removed by the Ohio State Supreme Court. The court decided unanimously on Friday that Judge Daniel Gaul would not be able to practice law for one year and would also not be able to hold legal office for the same amount of time without getting paid.

Gaul was suspended because he broke 29 rules in the Code of Judicial Conduct and the Rules of Professional Conduct.

The Ohio Supreme Court said Gaul forced people to enter no-contest pleas, stopped being an impartial judge, made litigants and spectators feel bad in his courtroom, used his contempt power to get back at someone for a small wrongdoing, and used the prestige of his job as a judge to help a litigant in a federal case who had been in his courtroom for a related matter.

Ohio Supreme Court Suspends JudgePhoto byCleveland

"Rather than building trust in the independence, integrity, and fairness of the judiciary, Gaul's actions have called these important parts of our justice system into question and hurt many litigants," Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Sharon Kennedy wrote in the decision.

Gaul called some Black suspects "brother," like Demagio Callahan, who Gaul remembered because he had "an Italian first name and an Irish last name, but he's a brother." Gaul also found a defendant guilty of contempt and sent him to jail for 30 days because he and Gaul got into a fight during a Zoom meeting.

Gaul has been a judge in the Common Pleas Court of Cuyahoga County since 1991 and has been a lawyer since 1981. Gaul was banned for six months by the Ohio Supreme Court in 2010 for bad behavior during a criminal hearing.

Based on the claimed misconduct over five years, the Ohio Board of Professional Conduct asked the Ohio Supreme Court in December 2022 that Gaul be banned from practicing law and sitting on the bench for one year.

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