Ex-Ohio Judge Suspended for Improperly Releasing Inmate Early

A former Ohio judge had his law license suspended for a year—though he’ll only serve six months of that if he follows the rules—for letting a man out of prison early after repeatedly discussing the case privately with the inmate’s mother.

Richard S. Skelton, who resigned from the Montgomery County Common Pleas Court in 2024, engaged in a “blatant and persistent ex parte communications over nearly two years” and committed a “expansive pattern of misconduct” leading up to and including releasing the inmate in 2022, the Ohio Supreme Court said Tuesday. Skelton had the case of the inmate, who’s the ...