Re: OpEd

August 27, 2015

Recently, I read an editorial by a woman by the name of Helen Baker. In response to Judge Tracie Hunters filing of a
civil rights lawsuit, Ms. Bakers editorial dismisses Judge Hunters legitimate claims of injustice as pulling the race
card. While I would agree that not every issue could be attributed to race, the differential treatment directed at
African-American children in Hamilton County and Judge Hunter, as the first black and the first democrat to ever hold a
seat as a common pleas court judge in Hamilton Countys juvenile courts 110 year history, clearly evidences the
legitimacy of racial disparity in Hamilton Countys justice system. As such, if we are to be the model community of
justice and racial harmony that many of us aspire to be, we must be careful of being dismissive of situations where
clear racial disparity exists.
According to FBI statistics, nearly 70% of all juveniles arrested in Hamilton County in 2010 were white, while all
children of color made up approximately 30% of arrests; the majority of those arrests were for less serious offenses
which included fighting, theft, and disorderly conduct. Conversely, more white children were arrested for serious
offenses than black children, yet that same year the Ohio Department of Youth Services reported that 92.2% of all
committed (incarcerated) youth from Hamilton County were black, 97.4% of those were black boys. Black youth under
the age of 18 make up only 17% of the total population in Hamilton County and are committing fewer crimes
numerically and statistically, yet incarcerated at a rate over 9 to 1. In an environment where less than fourteen percent
of all of the offenses committed by juveniles are serious offenses, these statistics are certainly troubling and indicative
of real racial disparity in the County. Couple these statistics with last years news stories about a black teen being
arrested for 30 days without a probable cause hearing, after being falsely accused of stealing a book bag; and the little
six year old black boy handcuffed at Taylor Elementary for not giving his teacher back her scissors; while white
teenage boys attending private catholic schools accused of sodomy were never charged with crimes.
Its scary to think that white private school kids who gang rape another child can be dismissed by the prosecutor as
boys being boys, while a group of black children who get into a brawl with a belligerent drunken adult on fountain
square can be called soulless and unsalvageable by that same prosecutor. Its even scarier to think that two middleaged black church deacons (one male and one female) can be arrested, handcuffed, and charged with crimes for
carrying iPads in the Hamilton County courthouse, while a week later three white (male and female) 20 somethings
can be allowed to carry assault weapons through the streets of Price Hill, while yelling the N word, and even after
being stopped by local police officers, they are not arrested and are instead allowed to continue their reign of terror of
physical threats and verbal assaults on their black neighbors.
Moreover, there is something disturbing about arresting and handcuffing an African-American female judge and pastor
(Judge Hunter) on a civil charge with no arrest warrant, after she has just been issued an Own Recognizance (OR)
bond on that charge just minutes before. Even more alarming is when the same judge and life-long childrens
advocate with no prior criminal record can be sentenced to 6 months in jail, a year of probation, and assessed millions
of dollars in court costs; and thirteen days later in the same courtroom, in front of the same judge, a while male and
son of a prominent attorney can violently rape a woman on UCs campus and be sentenced to probation and no jail
time.
Clearly, Judge Hunter was working in an environment of racial disparity in the Hamilton County juvenile court system,
where she had the largest caseload in Ohio, yet was sued for trying to get a Court Administrator. Judge Hunter, the
elected judge, was afforded a part-time case manager, while her appointed judicial counterpart had a full-time
Administrator and a full-time case manager. County officials sued Judge Hunter for having cases out of date, in
situations where the cases were out of date before she ever came to the bench, and where she was not even able to
legally rule on those cases; while her white male counterpart had more cases out of date at the same time and was
given an opportunity to fix the situation rather than being sued. When county officials sued Judge Hunter, she had to
suffer being represented by the Prosecutors office, which was subsequently both representing and suing her at the
same time, while her counterpart was immediately afforded private counsel when he was sued. In one incident while
Judge Hunter was on the bench, she was sued after she refused to allow the names and faces of accused children to
be printed in the media to protect them from white supremacists camped out in front of their school in North College
Hill.

Hamilton County officials benefit from an elaborate school-to-prison pipeline, where poor and black children are
seemingly the commodities. Judge Hunter was a threat to the good ole boy system that makes money on the
incarceration and conviction of black boys. To ensure the continual feeding of their money making scheme and
trafficking of little black boys on the stock market, Hamilton County officials voted to privatize Hillcrest Training Center,
only five days before Judge Hunter finally took her seat, after an 18-month court battle, and several appeals on the part
of the Board of Elections and the Prosecutors office, as they refused to count the legitimate votes of voters in
predominantly black precincts due to poll-worker error. If this doesnt raise eyebrows, one should certainly be alarmed
by the fact that the County has spent upwards of $5,000,000 in court battles to sue Judge Hunter nearly 30 times (18
times, after she was only on the bench between 4 and 9 months), and to prosecute her for trumped up felony charges.
Hamilton County and the State of Ohio spends approximately $220,000 per year to incarcerate one child, while only
spending $11,000 to educate them in the Cincinnati public school system. Taxpayers, who are footing the bill for the
gross miscarriage of justice directed at Judge Hunter and poor and black children of Hamilton County, should be
yelling foul and directing their efforts towards an economic boycott to cut off the never-ending supply of misused
taxpayer dollars. Budgets are being cut for services to the poor, the elderly, the mentally ill, and for recreation centers
for children, while the Prosecutors office gets unlimited dollars to prosecute Judge Tracie Hunter and for staff raises
(which were outside of the Prosecutors budget, and allocated and issued without a vote by the County
Commissioners).
Vanessa Enoch
West Chester, Ohio