More Help for Civics Teachers

Once again, I would like to highlight a new link – Constitution Classroom – that has become available for teachers who plan social studies classes at the middle and high school levels. The Ohio State Bar Foundation has created a number of tools to help teachers plan programs around the constitution.

The 2010 Fellows class, all practicing members of the Ohio bar, prepared PowerPoint segments on a variety of constitutional topics.

The topics include:

• Free Speech, Religion, Press, Assembly, Petition – We’re Number One! Search and Seizure – A Reasonable Test

• Due Process – Respecting Our Rights

• Three Branches of Government – A Constitutional Blueprint

Each topic also has case materials for mock trials and other information to help with several lesson plans.

Constitution Classroom can be found here: www.osbf.net/what-we-do/constitutionclassroom/

The attorneys who prepared this site hope that it will help promote classroom conversations. Let them know if their work was useful.

What Cases Are Heard by the Supreme Court?

You may be surprised to learn that not every case appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court is accepted for review. Our jurisdiction, meaning the scope of our work, is defined in the Ohio Constitution. The constitution provides that we are to decide cases with constitutional questions, death penalty cases and those from administrative agencies such as the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio. But that is just a small portion of the 2,000 cases that are filed in the court every year.

Most of our work comes through “discretionary review” of court of appeals’ cases. This is another way of saying that we ourselves choose the cases that we will hear and decide. We call these “jurisdictional” cases, and at least four of the seven justices must vote to accept a case before it is accepted. Otherwise, we decline jurisdiction and the case stays settled as it was by the court of appeals.

How do we decide whether a case should be heard?

The constitution tells us that discretionary appeals should involve felonies or questions of “public or great general interest.” Before voting on the jurisdictional cases, each justice reads and considers the legal arguments prepared by the attorneys pro and con on whether the case has public or great general interest.

Of course each case is the most important case to the parties involved, but it might not have great general interest because the facts are so limited. Many times the rule of law has already been settled and the court does not need to repeat what has been declared already. On the other hand, if the legislature has enacted a new law that seems to be unclear, or if the 12 courts of appeals are ruling differently in the same type of cases, or if a new situation appears that seems to be unprecedented, we may find that four justices vote to take in that case and review it further .

How easy is it for a discretionary appeal to open the Supreme Court’s door? Our statistics show that we have accepted only about 7 percent of the cases seeking review.

Labor Day Reminders Adorn the Ohio Judicial Center

Labor Day is this Monday, and of course we celebrate the traditional end of summer with picnics and family relaxation. But sometimes amid the hotdogs and last dips in the pool we forget that  Labor Day was created to remember the workers who built our nation and continue to make it prosperous and productive. A visit to the Thomas J. Moyer Ohio Judicial Center would serve as a good reminder of labor’s importance to the United States and the Buckeye State.

Throughout our historic building there are great works of art that recognize what we celebrate on Labor Day. It is a building that remembers labor, both inside and out.

On the exterior of the building for example, marble bas relief sculptures illustrate dozens of industries from woodworking to beekeeping. On the northeast corner of the center’s exterior, a carved saying proclaims in stone what could be the Labor Day motto: “The whole fabric of society rests upon labor.”
When you enter the building and visit the North Hearing Room you will see the area of the Judicial Center with the most obvious labor theme.

Architect Harry Hake designed this room to be used by the Industrial Commission for workers compensation hearings. John F. Holmer created 11 murals titled The Progress of Industry, which realistically depict the dignity of physical labor. They reflect a style of public art popular throughout the 1930s known as American Realism.

The center panels on the north and south walls to the right and the left as you enter the room are the major paintings in the series. On the right, in the center of the north wall, early Ohio industry is depicted. Men are shown plowing, driving an oxcart, digging, and hauling lumber for a building under construction in the smaller panel to the right. Women are spinning, churning, and carrying water.
Across from this painting, on the south wall is a contrasting scene of a modern steel building being erected.

The rest of the murals are divided between early scenes of Ohio labor and modern work. Flanking the center mural on the left on the north wall, is a scene depicting the early pottery industry, including workers at a potter's wheel, a kiln, and pots drying in the sun. The right hand panel on the west wall shows a blacksmith shop.

A three-panel mural covers the east wall. Pioneers arrive in Ohio in Conestoga wagons toward the  center panel,  a rural scene, while on the right, miners, a coal tipple, and oil derricks symbolize the modern period.  At the west wall on the left side of the window, men work with various machines, in contrast to the blacksmith who uses older hand tools in the scene on the right. The south wall’s  main mural is accompanied by a modern steel mill on the left and   a modern stone quarry on the right.
 This room is now used primarily for hearings by Supreme Court commissions such as the Board of Commissioners on Grievances & Discipline.

As you relax this Monday, take a moment to remember the reason for Labor Day. And if you need a reminder, come and visit the Moyer Judicial Center.

Recess is Over

If you have been following the court schedule, you may have noticed that from July 11 until August 21 the Supreme Court took a bit of a recess in hearing new cases. Of course, in the meantime we justices handled administrative matters and continued to work on our opinions for cases that we have already heard. But the Supreme Court of Ohio is unlike the U.S. Supreme Court in that we do not begin a new term on the first Monday in October and do not have three months off in the summer.

This fall we will again travel for Off-Site Court – this time to Cleveland. We will hear four oral argument cases at the Case Western Reserve University Law School on Tuesday, September 25, and then convene at the Cuyahoga County Courthouse on Wednesday, September 26 to hear four more cases. Both sessions will begin at 9 a.m., and just as in the past, will be attended by local high school students who have been briefed on the case they will attend by their teachers and volunteer attorneys. Law students will attend Tuesday’s oral arguments. A summary of the eight cases (four civil and four criminal) can be found here.

As always, I look forward to sharing thoughts about the court process beforehand with my colleagues to all students. We enjoy the questions asked by the student participants.

You Be the Judge

The 2012 Summer Olympics has ended but interest in athletics remains timeless. Athletics inspired a legal issue for Ohioans to think about.

Is playing high school sports a right or a privilege? That’s a question being posed to students at a newly revised display in the Visitor Education Center here at the Moyer Judicial Center.

This case came before the Ohio Supreme Court in 1981 after high school students who attended a Cincinnati private school but lived in Kentucky were prevented from playing junior varsity or varsity sports because a state rule limited eligibility to children of Ohio residents. The Kentucky students went to court claiming the rule violated their constitutional right to education and equal protection under the law.

What do you think? Is playing school sports part of the right to an education?

You can book a tour with the Visitor Education Center to find out what the Ohio Supreme Court justices decided in this case.

More Judges Using Facebook and Twitter Nationally

While students are more than comfortable with social media sites, a new national survey says more judges and courts are using Facebook and Twitter now too.

The 2012 Conference of Court Public Information Officers’ New Media and the Courts Survey shows how social media and broader technology changes in the media industry are affecting state and local judges and courts.

For instance, the percentage of judges who strongly agree that their own use of technology poses no threat to professional ethics has doubled since the first year of the survey. This applies whether the new media is used personally or professionally.

The complete project report, “2012 CCPIO New Media Survey, New Media and the Courts: The Current Status and A Look at the Future” is available on the CCPIO website at www.ccpio.org.

Supreme Court case had an Olympic connection

With the official Opening Ceremony today for the London 2012 Olympics, it’s interesting to note that the Ohio Supreme Court decided an Olympic-related case in 1984.

The dispute centered on the American Can Company, Coca-Cola Company and Minute Maid Corporation promoting the likeness of Olympic athletes on disposable Dixie cups in commemoration of the 1980 Olympic Games.

Ohioan Charles Vinci, an Olympic gold medal winner in 1956 and 1960 in weightlifting, sued the companies in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court for using his name and likeness without his permission. He asked the trial court to certify the case as a class action, which it did.

The appeals court affirmed the trial court’s class action certification, and the Supreme Court affirmed the appeals court.

As for the eventual outcome of the case, the Eighth District Court of Appeals ruled in 1990 that the reference to the athletes’ names, likenesses and identities was merely incidental, historical information. The appeals court agreed with the trial court and affirmed its ruling.