Eddie From Ohio

A stayed suspension of one year was imposed on a Massillon judge by the Ohio Supreme Court.

It was not his first rodeo

In October 2012, we found that he violated the Code of Judicial Conduct and the Rules of Professional Conduct for, among other things, unnecessarily injecting himself into an internal police-department investigation, using vulgar and intemperate language toward a probationer in his courtroom, and conducting that individual’s probation review without the presence of his counsel or the prosecutor. Disciplinary Counsel v. Elum, 133 Ohio St.3d 500, 2012-Ohio-4700, 979 N.E.2d 289. We sanctioned Judge Elum with a stayed six-month suspension for this misconduct. 

Charges here were filed in November 2015

On May 11, 2015, Antonio Pettis approached Judge Elum in the Massillon Municipal Court parking lot and requested the judge’s legal assistance regarding a dispute with his landlord, Susan Beatty. Pettis told Judge Elum that although he had money to pay his rent, Beatty would not accept it. Judge Elum recognized Pettis because the day before, the judge’s wife, a former school teacher, had invited Pettis into the judge’s home to assist him with a scholarship application. In the parking lot, Judge Elum agreed to help Pettis and took him into his chambers.

Judge Elum then called Beatty and, according to the judge, identified himself as “Eddie Elum from the Massillon Court.” Judge Elum urged Beatty to accept Pettis’s late rent payment. After Beatty told the judge that Pettis had violated his lease and that she had already given him a three-day notice to vacate, the judge proceeded to discuss with Beatty the amount of Pettis’s security deposit and inquired whether she would give him two additional days to remove his belongings from the property. During the nine-minute phone call, Judge Elum openly, and within Beatty’s hearing, consulted with Pettis. At one point, Beatty told Judge Elum that she may have already changed the locks on the property, and the judge responded that she could not do that without a writ of restitution. The judge also asked that she have her lawyer contact him. 

Pettis moved out of the rental property the following day, and according to Beatty, he left furniture and trash on the lawn, which required her to rent a dumpster. Judge Elum later called Beatty on two occasions—purportedly to inquire whether the matter was resolved and to inform her that he had not heard from her lawyer. Beatty, however, did not return the judge’s phone calls. Beatty was surprised and intimidated by Judge Elum’s initial phone call and felt bullied in light of the fact that he was a judge. She later filed the grievance that initiated this disciplinary action.

Since then, Judge Elum has admitted that calling Beatty was a mistake, that he should not have injected himself into a dispute that was not on his docket, and that he was not an appropriate person to mediate the disagreement between Pettis and Beatty. At his disciplinary hearing, the judge also testified that he understood how Beatty could have perceived his phone call as advocating on behalf of Pettis and against her. The judge stated:

As a lawyer, I have been trained to resolve disputes. As a judge, I know I’ve got to step back and can’t get involved. Unfortunately, I let my heart do my thinking for me. And I went and tried to put two people together to resolve a rental dispute that got way out of hand because there was a lot of facts that I was not privy to. And I got myself in quicksand and I made a terrible mistake. 

Sanction

Having considered Judge Elum’s ethical infractions, the aggravating and mitigating factors, and the sanctions imposed in comparable cases, we adopt the board’s recommended sanction. Judge Edward Joseph Elum is hereby suspended from the practice of law for one year, with the entire suspension stayed on the condition that he commit no further misconduct. If Judge Elum fails to comply with this condition, the stay will be lifted and he shall serve the entire oneyear suspension. Costs are taxed to Judge Elum.

The earlier disciplinary case – with its colorful language recited in full – is linked here. (Mike Frisch)