{"id":107309,"date":"2021-10-04T20:01:54","date_gmt":"2021-10-05T01:01:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=107309"},"modified":"2021-10-04T20:02:22","modified_gmt":"2021-10-05T01:02:22","slug":"ohio-supreme-court-justice-refuses-to-recuse-himself-from-redistricting-lawsuits-involving-his-father","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=107309","title":{"rendered":"Ohio Supreme Court Justice  Refuses to Recuse Himself from Redistricting Lawsuits Involving His Father"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-1545664804358300\" crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script><br \/>\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block; text-align: center;\" data-ad-layout=\"in-article\" data-ad-format=\"fluid\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-1545664804358300\" data-ad-slot=\"8616314829\"><\/ins><br \/>\n<script>\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\n<\/script><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=107309\" rel=\"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=107309\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-107310 size-medium\" style=\"margin-right: 10px;\" src=\"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/UCJJBBK6AJC2ZJODT7ELJERA3U-300x213.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"213\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/UCJJBBK6AJC2ZJODT7ELJERA3U-300x213.jpg 300w, https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/UCJJBBK6AJC2ZJODT7ELJERA3U-768x545.jpg 768w, https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/UCJJBBK6AJC2ZJODT7ELJERA3U-1024x726.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/UCJJBBK6AJC2ZJODT7ELJERA3U.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>By Nikki Slusher <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>An Ohio Supreme Court Justice has refused to recuse himself from the upcoming pile of lawsuits regarding the states upcoming redistricting. So what\u2019s the problem? Justice Pat DeWine\u2019s father just so happens to currently be Ohio\u2019s Governor, Mike DeWine.<\/p>\n<p>On Thursday, Justice DeWine said he has no intentions of recusing himself from hearing the upcoming trip of lawsuits that will challenge the new state House and Senate districts that DeWine\u2019s father, Gov. DeWine, voted to approve this year.<\/p>\n<p>Justice DeWine has previously recused himself from lawsuits that involved deciding made by his father. As recently as July, DeWine had said he did so to \u201cavoid the appearance of impropriety\u201d when he decided to remove himself from a case that challenged Gov. DeWine\u2019s decision to end the enhanced unemployment benefits from the federal government in Ohio. Back in May, Justice DeWine withdrew from another case that challenged Gov. DeWine\u2019s restrictions related to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. He cited his father\u2019s \u201cextremely personal involvement\u201d with the situation. <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Yet Justice DeWine has defended his position to stay on for the redistricting cases was defended as he said that his father was only one of seven members who approved the the new maps with the rest of the Ohio Redistricting Commission. \u201cHe has considerably less influence over the commission than he would over a department of state government,\u201d Justice DeWine said. \u201cMoreover, he is not a member of the legislature and the district lines do not affect him personally. As a consequence, there is no basis for me to recuse myself.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cVoters elected me to do my job as a Supreme Court Justice. Unless I\u2019m unable to do that job on a specific case due to a conflict of interest, I will continue to do it to the best of my ability,\u201d Justice DeWine continued. He also Addie\u2019s that the redistricting issue for him was \u201cnot a close call.\u201d However, not everyone agrees with this viewpoint.<\/p>\n<p>The director of the Center for Professional Ethics at Case Western Reserve University\u2019s law school, Cassandra Burke Robertson, rebutted DeWine\u2019s comments. Robertson emphasized that the state of Ohio\u2019s judicial code of ethics explicitly requires all judges on the bench to recuse themselves from any cases where their close relatives, including parents, are parties or will likely be material witnesses to the court\u2019s proceedings. Furthermore, the ethical standard to which judges are held to also supports recusal from these types of cases as it\u2019s a judge\u2019s duty to remain completely impartial, and if not would possibly bring in reasonable questions over their impartiality.<\/p>\n<p>In the trio of upcoming Ohio redistricting lawsuits Gov. DeWine is listed as a defendant; and at least one of the suit\u2019s\u2019 plaintiffs have stated that they intend to call on all seven members of the ORC which would make Gov. DeWine a witness. State attorneys wrote in submitted court filings that they intend to do so. Since the likelihood of this becoming a reality is high, Robertson believes there isn\u2019t much room for discretion over these cases. She also noted that although voters knew of the father-son relationship between the two when they were elected, this does not \u201coverride a non-discretionary requirement.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Although judicial seats are mostly apolitical \u2014 they don\u2019t usually run on party platforms like political candidates \u2014 this doesn\u2019t mean politics doesn\u2019t come into play. David Pepper, a lawyer and past Chairman of the OH Democratic Party, called it an \u201copen-and-shut case\u201d on whether Justice DeWine should recuse himself from the upcoming redistricting suits.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Pepper also said that Pat DeWine\u2019s previous comments expressing his concern over the maps ultimately being found unconstitutional could end up as a key player of evidence that could affect the outcome of these cases. Pepper followed up his stance saying, \u201cHe\u2019s a critical witness in the whole thing\u2026This is not a close call. This is decisive.\u201d Both DeWines are Republicans.<br \/>\nThe Ohio Supreme Court is planning to listen to three lawsuits challenging the redrawn district maps that Gov. DeWine and other Republicans approved earlier this month. They are scheduled to begin oral arguments in December. One of the suits was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of OH and two voting rights groups. This suit specifically argues that state Republicans intentionally drew maps to likely award Republicans a largely disproportionate share of the newly gerrymandered legislative districts. The other two additional lawsuits have similar arguments and were filed by Democratic-aligned and progressive groups.<\/p>\n<p>Justice DeWine\u2019s position on the OH Supreme Court and residing over cases involving his Governor father has been a reoccurring issue over the years and helped provide him with longtime prominence in Ohio politics. In 2009 Pat DeWine was elected as the Hamilton County Common Pleas judge, and then elected to the state\u2019s appellate court in 2014. Simultaneously, this overlapped with Mike DeWine\u2019s time as Ohio\u2019s state attorney general from 2011 til 2018; and in November 2019 DeWine took the gubernatorial office which happened to overlap Pat DeWine\u2019s tenure on the bench of the OH Supreme Court which he started in 2017.<\/p>\n<p>In 2018 a panel of three judges dismissed disciplinary complaints against the younger DeWine for refusing to recuse himself from cases involving his father during the elder DeWine\u2019s tenure as state attorney general. In their conclusion, the panel<\/p>\n<p>[si-contact-form form=&#8217;2&#8242;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Nikki Slusher An Ohio Supreme Court Justice has refused to recuse himself from the upcoming pile of lawsuits regarding the states upcoming redistricting. So what\u2019s the problem? Justice Pat DeWine\u2019s father just so happens to currently be Ohio\u2019s Governor, Mike DeWine. On Thursday, Justice DeWine said he has no intentions of recusing himself from [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22247,18030],"tags":[27529],"class_list":["post-107309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political-columns","category-world-news","tag-ohio-supreme-court-justice-refuses-to-recuse-himself-from-redistricting-lawsuits-involving-his-father"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=107309"}],"version-history":[{"count":-3,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107309\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=107309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=107309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=107309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}