Tracie Hunter: Case against her a 'political takedown'

Tracie Hunter sees a conspiracy. The case against her, she says, is as a "political takedown" orchestrated by the county’s Republican party.

Hunter, the suspended Hamilton County juvenile court judge who has been convicted of one charge involving mishandling documents and faces eight felony counts, has taken her case public in recent weeks, proclaiming her innocence on a local radio station as well as a video interview posted on Facebook.

They are among the few interviews Hunter has granted in recent years and came within weeks of her Nov. 21 announcement that she intends to run for juvenile court judge in 2016.

Hunter says the continued prosecution of her can be traced back to the controversial 2010 election, which she initially lost by 23 votes. Hunter, a Democrat, filed a lawsuit after the election to have previously uncounted provisional ballots counted. A federal judge ordered the votes counted, but a legal fight ensued, and it took a year and a half for that to happen. She ended up winning by just over 70 votes.

“This is all about, ‘You got the seat from us the first time, and so we’re going to come in and we’re going to get it from you by any means necessary,’ ” Hunter said in a Dec. 3 interview on WDBZ-AM.

“They’ve actually perpetrated a heist on a juvenile court seat – that’s honestly what has happened here.”

The chairman of the county’s Republican Party called Hunter’s claims “preposterous.”

“This is delusional,” said GOP Chairman Alex Triantafilou, a former judge. “An objective look at the facts will tell you that her failings had to do with her own conduct.”

Triantafilou noted that the Hamilton County Public Defender's Office filed numerous suits against Hunter when she was on the bench, saying she failed to make timely decisions. That, he said, was not part of any Republican effort.

Hunter could not be reached for comment. Her attorneys, Louis Sirkin and Jennifer Branch, both veteran civil rights attorneys, did not return messages seeking comment.

In the nearly hour-long radio segment, Hunter said she faced resistance from the moment she took the bench in 2012, as the first black judge to serve on the county’s juvenile court.

“I didn’t expect them to roll out the red carpet,” she said. “I certainly did not expect them to tamper with my records. I certainly did not expect them to bring criminal charges against me.”

Hunter, who also is a pastor, sees the judgeship as part of a higher calling to enact change in the juvenile court system.

“I believe that God has called me to help to implement (changes) not only on Earth, but here in Hamilton County, where it’s so desperately needed,” she said.

She also framed the prosecution of her as a racial issue: “Throughout history, these type of attacks have taken place against our people when we dare to stand up for ourselves, and when we dare to stand up for our children – and when we dare to stand up, quite honestly, for our constitutional rights.”

Running again for judge

Hunter’s increased public presence, which includes a website and Facebook page connected to her, coincided with her announcement last month that she is running for her own seat on juvenile court. The Ohio Supreme Court suspended her from that seat in January 2014 after she was indicted, but she still was allowed to earn her $121,350 annual salary. She was suspended without pay in October 2014 after being convicted. The election is next year for a term that begins in January 2017.

It’s not yet clear if Hunter's name can appear on the ballot if her felony conviction is upheld or if she is convicted of additional charges. Branch, who also appeared on the Dec. 3 radio show, said Hunter is qualified to run for judge, as long as she is a licensed attorney.

Hamilton County Board of Elections Director Sherry Poland said if Hunter does officially file to run, her office will seek a legal opinion about whether Hunter’s name can appear on the ballot. That legal opinion will come from either the county prosecutor’s office or the Secretary of State’s office, Poland said.

Douglas Berman, professor at Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law, said Ohio election rules bar people from running for office if they’re incarcerated or serving a probation sentence. But Hunter’s status isn’t so clear.

She was sentenced last year to six months in jail, but the Ohio Supreme Court suspended the sentence while she pursues an appeal.

“She’s in this in-between state,” Berman said. “This is a very gray area … I think there’s some uncertainty, and part of that uncertainty is that this doesn’t happen very often.”

Hunter remains embroiled in legal battles on several fronts.

She is appealing her conviction last year on the lone felony charge. She also is expected to stand trial Jan. 19 on the eight counts the jury in last year’s trial couldn’t agree on. The case has been handled by two special prosecutors chosen by Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters, a Republican.

Judicial immunity

Hunter's attorneys are seeking to have the charges thrown out, saying in court filings that “the doctrine of judicial immunity shields her from prosecution.”

Her attorneys argue that the conduct she is accused of happened when she was acting as a judge. A judge, they say in court documents, “should not be influenced by the fear of prosecution.” A hearing on the motion to dismiss is set for Monday.

Hunter is charged with theft in office, tampering with evidence, forgery and misuse of credit cards.

Regarding the tampering with evidence and forgery charges, prosecutors say Hunter signed backdated documents in two juvenile cases, knowing they had been altered. Her intent, they say, was to prevent prosecutors from appealing her rulings.

Hunter’s attorneys say she acted in good faith when she signed the documents, and that it was legally impossible for her to deprive the prosecution’s ability to appeal based on the dates of the entries.

There was testimony at the first trial that it was common practice to put the date of a court hearing on judicial entries, rather than the date of the judge’s signature.

The theft in office and credit card charges relate to the use of her county-issued credit card to pay filing  fees to the Ohio Supreme Court after she personally appealed decisions in 11 lawsuits filed by the county public defender’s office.

Hunter said she had to appeal the decisions herself because Deters' office – which represented her until the Board of Commissioners determined there was a conflict of interest – didn’t respond to them. Deters has a staff of civil attorneys who represent elected officials sued in their official capacity. He has previously said that Hunter wouldn't talk with his office.

In the radio interview, Hunter said two attorneys “hand-picked” by Deters to represent her also didn’t file timely responses to the lawsuits.

“When I protected the court and responded to all those lawsuits, they charged me,” she said, “for doing the job that (the prosecutor’s office) and two subsequent lawyers failed to do but were paid to do.”

Appeal pending

Hunter also is appealing the lone charge she was convicted of in last year’s trial. Oral arguments are set for Jan. 4.

The charge – having an unlawful interest in a public contract – surrounds documents her brother, a Juvenile Court employee fired for punching a teen inmate, allegedly used in a disciplinary hearing. Prosecutors said Hunter used her judicial authority to obtain the documents, which contained information protected by federal privacy laws, and gave them to her brother.

A key issue in the appeal is over whether jurors were properly asked about the verdict.

Jurors agreed on a guilty verdict on the public contract charge after more than two days of deliberations. Judge Norbert Nadel asked each juror in the courtroom – without saying what the verdict was – if it was his or her true verdict, according to court documents. The jurors responded that it was.

After further deliberations, the jury could not agree on the remaining counts, and Nadel ordered the sealed verdict read.

Hunter’s attorney then asked for the jury to be polled. Nadel refused, saying he had already done that.

Three jurors filed sworn statements saying that if Nadel had polled them a second time, they would have said Hunter was not guilty. One of the jurors said she felt pressured into the guilty verdict.

In the WDBZ-AM interview, Hunter told host Nathan Ivey there should have been mistrial on that count, as well.

“Had they been polled,” Hunter said, “they would have said they found me not guilty.”

Key upcoming dates in the Tracie Hunter case

Monday: Pretrial hearing on several motions, including a motion to dismiss the eight charges Hunter faces.

Jan. 4: Oral arguments scheduled before the First District Court of Appeals in Hunter’s appeal of her 2014 conviction.

Jan. 19: Hunter's trial scheduled to begin.