CLEVELAND, Ohio — A Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court judge on Thursday, over prosecutors’ objections, upheld a teenager’s sentence of probation for the youth’s 18th felony case.
Prosecutor Michael O’Malley attacked the decision, as his office wanted the teen placed in a facility run by the Ohio Department of Youth Services.
“The court is sending him the wrong message,” he told cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer on Friday. “And the message that they’re sending him is: Keep doing what you’re doing, because nothing happens.”
The ruling, according to O’Malley, represents a pattern of soft-on-crime decisions handed down by Juvenile Court judges.
“A majority of the judges in Juvenile Court are following this type of philosophy where they ignore community safety,” he said.
Timothy McDevitt, th