i know many of you were involved in various fundraisers for the victims and i haven't read anything on here about the sentencing so i thought that i would post this.

in short, i'm disgusted by the judge's decision and also by his side comments on shared responsibility. it really seems as if he didn't even attempt to be impartial.

feel free to tell me if i'm being an ignoramus on this...i could probably use the insight.

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/lo ... tence.html

well, alcoholism, like many additcitions is considered a disease.

but that being said, when 'the court' stated it's opinion "the police should have been called when he walked in, and he shouldn't have been served any alcohol" the court made it clear that it has never been out to dinner in a restaurant, let alone a bar anywhere in the city. The court sounds like a bit of a douchebag.

yeah, it would be one thing if this was the douchebag's first ever offense...but it wasn't.

also, to put ANY blame back on the victims of this accident is beyond disgusting...i mean, i work in a restaurant and unless someone is fall down drunk, how do you know if someone is drunk or high?

So the judge thought that the restaurant knew he was high when he walked in? Ummm...unless the guy was making a total ass of himself in the restaurant, how would the servers know?

On a totally unrelated note, Mr. Duffy and I went to Bakery Gingham in German Village the other day (don't bother unless you're in the neighborhood), and this guy got booted out of Thurman's because he was so drunk. He crossed the street and started sliding in the ice. He almost had it under control, but then seemed to just give up and fall into a mud puddle. There were a ton of people waiting to get into the bakery as well as Thurman's just staring at him and he tried to make a joke of it. Nobody laughed. Then he attempted to pick up a big decorative rock out of somebody's yard to HURL at everyone across the street, but his buddy calmed him down.

I like him. He's the kind of judge I could have a beer with, and that's the quality I find most important in public officials.

The Other Paper has a pretty good article about this:

http://theotherpaper.com/articles/2009/ ... 726229.txt

Those alcohol laws are super vague, making what happened in this trial possible.

He's also starting his new job - as a judge of the 10th District Court of Appeals.

He won the election this year, and this sentencing was one of his last on the Common Pleas bench.

I think that's the judge who hangs out at the Dugout, down the street from the old Clippers stadium.

Is that even open, anymore?

As much as I can't stand Bill O'Reilly - I think this is the type of story he could bring to mass attention and put the needed spotlight on this judge.