A Republican former state lawmaker who’s now a juvenile judge in northeast Ohio has been suspended for 18 months for ordering two teenage brothers taken to juvenile lockup for refusing to visit their father. If he remains in good standing, he could come back to the bench in May. But the Ohio Supreme Court also made another important ruling in his disciplinary case.
The court dismissed charges against Geauga County Probate-Juvenile Court Judge Tim Grendell that related to public comments on two occasions: a presentation at the Geauga County Tea Party in 2019 and his testimony in 2020 for a COVID data reporting bill sponsored by his wife, then-Rep. Diane Grendell. She and her husband have both been in the House; in 2000, he won the seat she occupied when she was term-limited. He moved on to the Senate in 2004, and she ran for the House seat again and won it in 2018. She decided not to seek re-election in 2022.
Judge Tim Grendell had spoken at the Tea Party meeting about a battle with Geauga County Auditor Charles Walder, who wanted more detail on Grendell’s court’s spending. At the June 2, 2020 meeting of the Ohio House State and Local Government Committee, Grendell testified about his concerns that the Ohio Department of Health was releasing only "half the facts to the public, the scary half of the facts" about COVID. He added, "I saw the information on which we closed the state of Ohio. It was wrong. It has been proven to be wrong. And it is still wrong. It's being misreported by using cumulative data to make it look less wrong. But it's wrong. 99.9% of the people are not dying of COVID-19 in Ohio."
The Board of Professional Conduct ruled Grendell violated rules that prohibits judges from testifying before the legislature. The board also said his comments before the Tea Party meeting violated rules that require judges to act “in a manner that promotes public confidence in the independence, integrity, and impartiality of the judiciary” and to “avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety.”
Justice Pat DeWine asked about that in arguments before the court in February, noting that in rulings in nine states, courts have said the First Amendment can't prohibit judges from announcing their views on disputed legal and political issues.
"I do think that the First Amendment issue is clear, the case law is very clear," responded Grendell's lawyer Stephen Funk. "It applies not only to statements made in during campaigns, but it would apply to statements made in front of legislative committees."
Later, DeWine asked Joe Caligiuri from the Office of Disciplinary Counsel about the testimony: "This is core speech before a legislative body. I mean, if that's not protected, what is?”
"Our position on this would be that the subject matter of the testimony, which was the way the Department of Health reports that COVID statistics, had nothing to do with the law or the legal system or the administration of justice," answered Caliguiri. "I understand if you disagree with that. But it was also an abuse of the prestige of his office to advance his wife's interest."
The court sided with Grendell. DeWine wrote in the majority opinion that "lawyers and judges do not give up their First Amendment right to free speech just because they chose to pursue a career in law."
But the court did find Grendell violated the Code of Judicial Conduct for ordering two boys to a detention facility in 2020 with no contact with their mother to force them to visit their father, who they hadn't seen in over three years. Grendell had said that wasn’t inappropriate because they were unruly, but the court held the record didn't support that.
In the majority opinion, DeWine wrote that Grendell was frustrated that the boys couldn't be reunified with their father. But DeWine wrote Grendell "willfully turned a blind eye to legal safeguards designed to protect the best interests of children and avoid unnecessary detentions. We do not question Judge Grendell’s good faith in believing that visitation with their father was in the children’s best interests. But the means that he employed to accomplish that end evince both a conscious disregard for the law and a failure to impartially perform his duties."
The decision means Grendell is immediately suspended from judicial office without pay for the duration of the suspension. If he remains in good standing, 12 months of his sentence will be stayed. But if he fails to comply, he'll be required to serve the full 18-month suspension.
