The Ohio Supreme Court has suspended Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Daniel Gaul, ending his career as a judge.
Gaul’s one-year suspension will last until the end of his current term. Gaul has reached the age limit of 70 for judges in Ohio and is ineligible to run again.
In a unanimous decision, the Ohio Supreme Court found Gaul had committed “egregious” violations of judicial rules of conduct.
The violations cover eight separate incidents, according
to the decision.
In one, referred to in court documents as “The Heard Matter,” Gaul told a defendant, Carleton Heard, in 2015 that if he pleaded “no contest” to charges including attempted murder, he would receive a 14-year sentence. If he went to trial and was convicted, Gaul told Heard he’d be sentenced to up to 42 years.
“Gaul did not merely encourage settlement of the case — he initiated the settlement, dictated its terms, and repeatedly told Heard what would happen (imposition of a lengthier prison sentence) if he were to go to trial and be convicted of the charged offenses,” the justices wrote in their opinion. “He also threatened to impose a trial tax by clarifying that Heard would be given a much lengthier aggregate sentence if he were to exercise his right to a jury trial.”
In another 2016 case, referred to as “The Callahan Matter,” Gaul referred to defendant Demagio Callahan as a “brother,” and a “murderer,” because Callahan is Black and had, according to Gaul, “beat the rap” in an earlier case where Callahan was charged with murder and acquitted.
The justices wrote that Gaul’s language “indicated a lack of impartiality that should have compelled Gaul to disqualify himself from the matter.”
The justices found a total of 29 violations spanning eight separate incidents in his courtroom occurring between 2014 and 2021.
In his responses, Gaul acknowledged going too far in certain cases but also defended his actions during a hearing at the Supreme Court, saying his conduct in most cases did not rise to the level of a violation of the Code of Judicial Conduct.
During his disciplinary hearing, Gaul acknowledged getting “too involved” in the plea of a defendant in “The Heard Matter,” but insisted he was not biased.
“I think that, at times, one can say too much, and I did in this instance, and I regret it,” Gaul said. “And I understand it’s unacceptable because it’s giving you the impression that I’m biased and was forcing this guy in a plea. And that’s not what my life is about. That’s not what my job is about. That’s not what the [character witness] letters tell you about. So I deeply regret leaving you or anybody with that assumption or inference.”
He had asked the court to spare him the year suspension originally recommended by the Board of Professional Conduct, which conducted the initial investigation.
Gaul began serving as a common pleas judge in 1991 after working in private practice for 10 years. He was the subject of a 2010 disciplinary proceeding and received a six-month stayed suspension after he threatened to jail a defendant he accused of intimidating a witness.
