6-5-24 Willie with Melissa Powers - podcast episode cover

6-5-24 Willie with Melissa Powers

Jun 05, 202419 min
--:--
--:--
Download Metacast podcast app
Listen to this episode in Metacast mobile app
Don't just listen to podcasts. Learn from them with transcripts, summaries, and chapters for every episode. Skim, search, and bookmark insights. Learn more

Episode description

Willie discusses the disastrous state of the juvenile criminal justice system with Hamilton County Prosecutor Melissa Powers.

Transcript

Welcome this glorious Wednesday afternoon of the triesdate rains coming later on possibly Fredge Baseball kicks off about ten this afternoon. As you may know, the Reds are on a hot streak. They've won eight of the last eleven. They look impregnable, they look unbeatable, and they come home for four games against the Cubs. There and last place by a percentage point. But they're two games

out of second place. So hope springs eternal and all the action. First pitch about three ten Eastern time, and second and I have the pregame show. But until then, on one of those interviews that happens in talk radio you might remember for years to come, as to one I had yesterday with a mother. She did not want her last name being used because a little

bit of a fear, but her first name is Tracy. And her son, who went to high school downtown, decided on a wonderful warm Wednesday May afternoon of last year to go to Washington Park and sit around with some fellow students and kind of fellowship together. And this group came up to them, hassling them, wanting to smoke one of the vage pipes and wanted some money, and when they kind of get up and said let's go in, Tracy's son, who's seventeen, said let's go. He walked away and he was

cole cocked in the back of the head. One of the bumbs, the derelicts who beat him up had a cast on his arm used that to bash his skull. He was kicked in the face and the ribs repeatedly knocked unconscious, hit so hard his teeth came through his lower lip, and mom got a call as the ambulance was on its way to children's hospital, met her son there and Tracy, the mother is a nurse, and what she saw is she can't get it out of her mind, the tubes and the pain

and the sorrow and the disgust she felt. And she thought necessary to come on and talk about what happened in juvenile court to the person who was then fourteen years old, like an eighth grader who's now a fifteen year old, who was already on probation for other criminal offenses. He was found responsible for Bloom. Carrie Bloom had him on probation and during the sentencing it was a done deal what happened, but the judge refused to look at the videotape because

she said, I it does I know what it looks like. I don't need to look at it. And then she sentenced this juvenile criminal who committed felonious assaults to probation. I'm going to double your probation to your twenty one plus. You got to stay out in Washington Park and our county prosecutors Melissa Powers, and she also spent I think at least six years in juvenile court, and before that she was in municipal court. Before that, she was

a prosecutor for like twenty five years with Joe Eaters and others. And once again prosecutor Melissa Powers. Welcome to the Bill Cunningham Show. First, I want to deal with what's happening in juvenile court. Justice. I made the point yesterday that there's one juvenile court judge who sets the policies and how many count of juvenile court, and that is Judge Carrie Bloom. You might get a good judge in common please because there's fourteen, or a good judge of

municipal court. There's fourteen. But everyone who's a juvenile criminal goes before directly or indirectly Judge Bloom, and she has a policy. Now I knew. First of all, I think you're familiar with the facts of this case. I want to get your reaction to Judge Bloom putting another vicious criminal on double secret probation and what that means. Well, Bill, obviously we're not happy with that result. This was a very violent attack. It was a mob

attack on a single individual who was rendered defenseless. He was down on the ground, and while he was on the ground, he was being hit and stumped and kit he suffered a traumatic brain injury. That's a serious injury to the brain. That is a lifelong injury. And obviously we were arguing for detention, commitment to the Department of Youth Services. I know that he is

young. However, he has been through probation, responding to probation, continuing to commit acts of violence out in our community, making her community less safe. But this isn't this is typical. This is very typical of Judge Bloom's philosophy. She's radical. This is what our voters have put in and I

hope that people are waking up that are out there. We've got seven judges that are coming up on the ballot this fall, and you'd better know your judges if you want law and order and hopefully maintain the future of Hamilton County. We need to turn this county around. We've got three more years of Judge Bloom before she's up for election again, unless there's some other mechanism out there that the community can explore to get rid of her. But we're stuck

with her. We're stuck with her policies, and a lot of what she does she hides she can. She steals records, she deletes records so that we don't have access to them, or the media doesn't have access to them,

so that nobody knows exactly what she's doing. So she does hide, she operates in the shadows, and that we want to make sure that the people, the voters, the voters are the only ones that can hold her accountable, and hopefully she changes her the direction of the court, but her direction is no one should go to detention, no one should be in jail, because that's worse. But it's okay to put those rights over a victim

or the family of a victim. We have case after case in which other you know when you do this, and you keep letting them ount they continue to commit crime, they're emboldened to do it. Obviously, I'm very a big proponent of rehabilitation, but there's when there's violence involved, you have to tread very carefully which direction you're going in order to work with that child. And juvenile court is set up for rehabilitation and with graduated sanctions, but when

you're seeing this continued violence, the stronger steps need to be taken. And we have kids at thirteen that have never been involved in the system, has committed murders. That's happened a couple of years ago when I was in the juvenile court. So this is not this is so you you can't say, oh, I'm just going to do probation. I've got cases one where there was a robbery. It was the worst beating of a robbery in Price Hill

that the police officers have ever seen. And in the sentence of the disposition was that the JT was to make a new friend and tell the court how to make how his football trip went. That was what his disposition was. He was to try school and football and then talk about it at the next court date. These are these ridiculous, ridiculous dispositions. Another one, a

felonious assault was somebody at firearma juvenile used the farm, shot someone. She she gave early release, and it was the disposition at that point was we're going to look at restorative justice services and resources. I mean, these are the dispositions that are that are being done. I've got cases where she released the defendant and then on a island offense, for example, an aggregate robbery and a probation violation, released to mother from court, and then within seven

days commits a murder. Another one a defendant was a shooting victim. The Cincinni police officer actually observed the defendant standing over the victim while shooting him, found him not guilty, releases the defendant, and then of course it's retribution. Street justice took place and that defendant was later killed. And I can

go on and on. I've got case after case in juvenile court where this idea that no one should spend a night in jail or in detention and violent, and we don't remove violent criminals off our streets or those that are using firearms, and we just do social programs. I mean that's great. I'm all in favor of social programs, but they don't work for everybody, and they're not supposed to be used on everybody. No, Melissa, I remember you when you were a judge and I spoke at one of the classes you

had for veterans that had substance abuse problems, that have committed crime. And I can't tell you how many veterans and how many folks that needed help out of the hole in which they find themselves veterans programs who would be helped by Okay, you've done this, you've done that, you've got PTSD. And Judge Melissa Powers was there. We have got to treat veterans with great respect, but you must be held accountable for your behavior. I had about three

years ago Joe Dieters when she first came to the bench. One of the prosecutors and juvenile courts a lot of times, and municipal courts where the new prosecutors go to kind of get their jobs, learn how to do things. And a young prosecutor got a hold of show and said, mister Dieters, can I see you? And Joe said, sure, come on over.

And this new judge at that point, Carrie Bloom, had a case where a seventeen year old boy had raped a thirteen year old and it was a vicious rape and the result of that from Judge Bloom was to write a book report and home incarceration for seven days. And there was a meeting set up,

which is restorative justice between the victim and the perpetrator. And the mother of the thirteen year old was reluctant to go into the room in the juvenile court system with the perpetrator, but she said let's do it, and he didn't show up, and when the court was notified, nothing happened to this rapist. And Judge Bloom believes in the restorative justice. Now, secondly, I saw there's a brand new judge the municipal court and let me explain this

to Tony Bender. Every week over the fourteen weeks of a cycle, each judge of municipal Court is generally it's misdemeanor jurisdiction, but they sit there in room A and they set bonds on felonies and then those can be reviewed weeks or months later if an indictment takes place. Tell us about this new judge, Judge Samantha Silverstein, and she's been on the bench about four months. She took uh She beat Kurk Kissinger for the seat, who was a moderate

Republican, a good judge. And what's her view about setting bond for murderers, rapists, aggravated robberies, and drug dealers. This is Judge Samantha Silverstein again, a white liberal Democrat, and what is she doing with murder cases?

But she sent no our bond sign and nor means that you sign that you'll come back to court in that space, and she is, yes, exactly she and I want, I want again to make it very clear to all these listeners how important their vote is and how it affects and directly impacts their daily life every single day. These voters. She she ran in a district which is Mount Lookout, Anderson, Norwood High Park, Mount Washington. There's probably a few other neighborhoods in there. They voted her in and voted

out a very highly regarded, highly confident judge. I understood his job, knew how to keep the people safe, never had a problem, was fair. And this this judge is not from Cincinnati. She's a radical. She's been radicalized. She even puts in her bio under her the Municipal Court bio on the website that she's a bail reform advocate, so she doesn't believe, she does not believe anyone should remain behind bars between arrest and a conviction.

So it's all our bonds on violent offenses. And I want to call out the Democratic Party and the chairman, Gwen McFarlane. They endorse this person, this woman to one and and now this is what we're dealing with. And I've got case after case after case where the women helping women, the domestic violence that are felonies these that means there's a prior conviction that she's releasing on oor bonds, letting the And I've got a case here. The defendant's name

is Michael Simpson. Domestic violence falenty five aggregated burglary, felony one, strangulation on ten percent on each one of those. Because she asked him what can you afford? And he says three hundred dollars, So that's what he has to post, three hundred dollars to get out. How are you protecting that victim? What is women helping women say about these? That's what I want

to know. Where are they? Where are they? We've got I don't know how many domestic violence and strangulation cases were violence against women and is or bond. The bonds that were set yesterday domestic violence felony three that means there's multiple convictions or of CCW failure to comply with an officer or felonious assault and aggravated robbery. This case is so outrageous. This defendant admitted that he shot

and robbed and stole somebody's car, an innocent person on June first. Two days later, he then is involved in a high speed pursuit with officers. They're trying to pull them over because the plates on the car come up stolen, and he goes into a high speed pursuit with two babies, an eighteen months and a four year old in the backseat of the car. Two children, and then they have to use stop six to stop. But when they

finally get him under arrest and he's then they play. He admits to the robbery, admits to shooting an innocence of person to steal the car because he wouldn't turn over the car keys. Oh our bond. He is out now again. These women that are voting for one issue, single issue or identity politics and just vote for women. You better wake up because your vote. We've got this judge now for the next six years, and she is not going to change her philosophy. So I'm just all I can do. There's

not much I can do. We're fighting as hard as we can, but all we can do is make sure that the public understands the grab and the importance of this next election in every election after this. Are state representatives who make the laws. Because some of these laws are too loose, and these radicals are using them to their advantage so that they can make our community less

safe, or they're not following the law. We bring up the constitutional amendment that was passed by the voters seventy percent in the state of Ohio that judge must consider the safety of the community that must be taken into account. She's not following that. She doesn't have to, so does she says, she

wrote the law. She knows she wrote the law. That she doesn't even she doesn't have to consider it. She has to consider what's the least restrictive means when somebody is arrested in charge with a crime and we're not talking about she asked, minor offenses. We're talking these are the worst things a person can do to I'm thinking of Benjamin Addison, the UC student who was murdered when he went out to get his car and someone's trying to steal it and

he was shot to death. And in this case, what this is one guy a shot, admitted to it, and she gave him sign your name and leave or post one hundred bucks and you're gone. That doesn't take into account public safety, which we pass seventy percent. Can you take it upstairs? Can you file some special writ before the Supreme Court on Judge Samantha Silverstein, who's a left ring radical Marxist judge, is anything you can do well?

The only thing I can say is, I mean, we're trying to explore any option in any recourse, but there's so much discretion given to the judges because they're of the independence of the judiciary. We are limited on what we can do now. Once there's an indictment, hopefully we get a better judge and maybe we can get them into custody then to keep the community safe.

But we know violent offenders continue to commit crime. We know that the best judge of future behavior is looking at what's currently going on in their pasts. That's why a criminal history is so important when a judge is considering bond. Just none of this is taken into account at all, flight risks, not at all. We had this abusive corpse on the on the body that was disposed of in a garbage can. He was given you know, there's he that man went to the bank before he was arrested, drew as much

money. He told the cops. He knows that if I if he said anything, he'd go to jail for the rest of his life. He was just released from parole and he you know, so he's a flight risk. He's and he's out, he's out on bond. I mean, this is just the most outrageous of we I've never seen it in the thirty two years. How how reckless this is, and what a complete disregard for victims, for communities, for the safety. The defendant's rights are way more important.

But what's most important is their agenda. And the silver Stein and and and also Carrie Bloom they are they are it's their agenda, and that's what's the most critical. They are. They have radicalized, they have drank the kool aid, and I can't believe I cannot believe that the voters want this. I mean, the guy that stuffed the woman in the in the garbage can, who had previous record, he was released on bond. He was he was given a bond of I think it's a thousand and me double check.

I think it's around a thousand dollars, hundred bucks, hundred bucks in you're out. No, I think it's a thousand. It was like five ten percent on thousand. I mean, these are yeah, you know, and that is that's in an ongoing investigation. We don't know what the circumstances were that that led for this body to be but you know, you've got an ongoing investigation. He makes a statement, I'll go to prison the rest of

my life if I tell you anything, right. I mean, there's maybe more to the story here, and there may be he's a flight risk at the very least, at the very least he's out, all right, Uh, bless of powers. I don't know what to say. I'm watching our city become Detroit, Washington, DC, Atlanta becoming Portland, and you're the only one standing at the gate trying to protect us. And I hope the voters by November fifth, wise up to what's happening in our community, and

nobody wants this to happen. And I would assume women helping women. I'd be holding news conferences protesting some of these ridiculous bonds that are set. But well, we have to go, Melissa Powers. We'll talk later about Orlando sons and things like that, but up against the clock book. Once again, thank you for coming on the Bill Cunningham Show. And please keep doing

what you're doing. Please, thank you, and thank you Bill, and hopefully you keep shutting a light and keep telling people so they know what's happening down here, because our media is not reporting it is. They're almost an arm of this type of philosophy out there. Thank you, Melissa Powers, good day, Thank you. Well, let's continue with more Wow, what happened to the City of Cincinnati? What happened to Hamilton County by Comments next on news radio seven hundred WLA

Transcript source: Provided by creator in RSS feed: download file
For the best experience, listen in Metacast app for iOS or Android