Ex-Ohio Judge Loses Appeal in Suit Saying Politics Led to Charge

A then-Ohio judge convicted of having an unlawful interest in a public contract lost her bid for another shot at her due process suit alleging she was prosecuted because of politics, according to a Sixth Circuit Tuesday ruling.

Tracie Hunter was a judge on the Hamilton County Juvenile Court when her brother Steven, who worked as a corrections officer at the same court’s youth center, was accused of hitting one of the youth center residents. Hunter allegedly requested information related to the investigation into Steven and the resident, and passed that information to him. He was ultimately fired.

Hunter was indicted and convicted for her actions connected to the investigation. Hunter argued her prosecution was politically motivated, and the state courts and federal district court rejected her claims.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed the finding of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, which denied the petition for a writ of habeas corpus.

The appeals court only considered four statements by prosecutors to see if they deprived her of due process. The state court’s judgment that those statements—including one in which the prosecutor questioned the former judge’s hiring of a bailiff who had reportedly been fired for “hitting children"—weren’t constitutionally deficient wasn’t an unreasonable application of U.S. Supreme Court law, the Sixth Circuit said.

“Although some of the statements in Hunter’s trial might have pushed the bounds of professionalism, the state court did not defy Supreme Court precedent by concluding that Hunter’s trial was fundamentally fair despite them,” Judge Joan L. Larsen wrote. “The state court reasonably concluded that each of these remarks was ‘invited,’ and did no more than ‘right the scale.’”

Judge Ronald Lee Gilman and Judge Raymond M. Kethledge joined in the decision by Larsen.

Hunter is represented by Berkman, Gordon, Murray & DeVan.

The case is Hunter v. Ohio, 6th Cir., No. 19-03515, 1/18/22.