Marvin Fong, The Plain Dealer

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Episode two of the third season of Serial introduced listeners to Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Daniel Gaul, perhaps the most controversial of the 34 judges on the bench.

It also brought into sharp focus his treatment of black defendants.

In the months that Serial co-producer Emmanuel Dzotsi sat in Gaul’s courtroom, he heard the judge routinely use racial stereotypes, threaten to throw people in jail if they had children out of wedlock while on probation in his courtroom, and refer to black defendants as “brother.”

Cleveland.com has covered some of Gaul’s courtroom behavior before, including last year when he compared a man acquitted of a murder to Stephen Paddock, the Las Vegas mass-shooter who took his own life after killing 58 people at a concert outside a hotel.

The episode examined Gaul’s behavior in-depth and compared it to that of other judges, of whom the show’s host, Sarah Koenig, points out 32 of 34 total are white. The show also pointed out that there are hardly any efforts to track the success of sentencing efforts in Cuyahoga County or around the country, so judges have no way to know the collective success.

It ended with a 2015 case where an appeals court found Gaul coerced a man, Carlton Heard, into pleading no contest to attempted murder, felonious assault and other charges in a shooting in Cleveland, and overturned the plea. The court ordered the case assigned to a different judge, and, when Heard went back to trial this summer in Judge John J. Russo’s courtroom, a jury acquitted Heard.

Russo, the court’s top judge, said Gaul’s efforts were wrong, but, as the podcast pointed out, the judge suffered no repercussions.

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Marvin Fong, The Plain Dealer (2015 photo)

Gaul’s behavior

Gaul is captured lecturing defendants about the welfare state and how personal responsibility has fallen by the wayside. He also was heard telling one defendant he is not going to put taxpayers on the hook if he fathered another child out of wedlock.

Dzotsi noted there’s no evidence that Gaul has ever actually followed through on that threat, which would certainly raise constitutional challenges.

Gaul does get a chance to tell his side of the story, and he comes across as genuine in his beliefs, Koenig and Dzotsi point out. They also note that, for all of his lecturing, the punishment he metes out is generally reasonable.

Gaul said he likes to dish out probation so he can have more control and supervision over his defendants. The podcast tells the story of a woman arrested for cocaine possession, and Gaul’s dealings with her after she violated her probation more than six times.

Serial almost pulls listeners back toward Gaul’s side, until it brings up Heard’s case.

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Lynn Ischay, The Plain Dealer (2010)

Heard's case

The 8th District Court of Appeals decision laid into Gaul’s actions, saying he overstepped his boundaries as a judge, predetermined Heard’s guilt and sentence before his trial and left Heard with the belief that he couldn’t get a fair trial.

Heard was charged with attempted murder, felonious assault, aggravated robbery and other charges in the October 2015 drive-by shooting.

His trial date was delayed a few times and, on a day in August 2016 when he was set to begin trial, his lawyer asked for another delay because Heard had claimed to know the identity of the true shooter. His lawyer, Michael Cheselka, asked for time to investigate the new claim.

Prosecutors objected on the grounds that delaying the trial could intimidate the victim and keep him from attending the trial.

Gaul said he didn’t believe Heard, and said he believed the move was just a ploy to get his trial delayed.

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Judge's deal

Gaul, not the prosecutor on the case, made Heard an offer. If Heard pleaded no contest to the indictment, Gaul said he would sentence Heard to 14 years in prison. But, if Heard went to trial and was convicted of the same charges, Gaul would sentence him to decades behind bars.

“You deserve to spend what could be the rest of your life in the state penal institution,” Gaul said.

Heard said he didn’t do it and he wanted to go to trial. His mother stood up in the back of the courtroom and said “listen to what he’s saying.”

Gaul then pushed Heard to make a quick decision. He told him the jury was on its way to the courtroom and said that, once the jury enters the room, “my deal with you is off.”

Heard then said he would take the deal, and Gaul sentenced him to 14 years in prison.

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Reversed on appeal

The 8th District noted in its 2017 decision vacating Heard’s plea and sentence that courts have ruled in the past that judges should avoid participating in plea deals but, if a judge does so, it does not automatically sour the plea. That only happens if the judge’s involvement could have made defendant feel like he couldn’t get a fair trial or sentence, or if the involvement effectively coerced the defendant into pleading.

The court found Gaul did both.

Gaul’s comments that Heard “deserved” to serve a lengthy sentence could easily have led Heard to believe he couldn’t get a fair shake, and Gaul’s use of the jury likely pressured Heard, the court found.

“The judge’s ultimatum could only be considered coercion,” the decision said.

The case went to trial in July in Judge John J. Russo’s courtroom and, after two days of testimony, a jury found Heard not guilty on all counts. Russo also found Heard not guilty on a single weapons charge that Heard elected to have tried to the bench instead of a jury.

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Cory Shaffer, cleveland.com

'Woman calls judge racist, gets life sentence'

Koenig noted Gaul's February 2017 sentencing of Shelia McFarland, who was convicted of participating in a murder-for-hire plot of a witness against her and her then-boyfriend, Eddie Brownlee, in a drug case. McFarland, who faced life in prison, professed her innocence throughout the trial and at her sentencing hearing. She called Gaul racist, to the chagrin of her defense attorneys.

Gaul stood up from his seat behind the bench, unzipped his judicial robe to reveal a shirt and tie and paced back and forth, giving McFarland a tongue-lashing for “playing the race card,” before he imposed the harshest penalty he could: life with no chance at parole.

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Cory Shaffer, cleveland.com

Judge compares man acquitted in murder to Las Vegas shooter, calls him 'brother'

In October 2017, Gaul called a man acquitted of murder charges in a deadly Cleveland shooting a murderer and compared him to Stephen Paddock, the man who opened fire from a Las Vegas hotel onto a crowd at a country concert and killed 58 people before he took his own life.

Gaul also called the defendant Demario Callahan, who is black, a “brother” and said he would have “busted a cap” in the defendant.

Gaul then sentenced Callahan to nine years in prison, the maximum.

The judge also came into hot water in 2010, when the Ohio Supreme Court suspended Gaul’s license for six months for threatening to jail a defendant he thought was intimidating an elderly witness. The court stayed the suspension pending good behavior by Gaul, which allowed him to stay on the bench during the period.

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Voters to choose

Koenig expressed frustration at the end of the episode that Gaul’s behavior in the courtroom has gone largely unchallenged. In a phone interview with Russo after Heard’s acquittal, Koenig said she didn't know why there wasn’t an automatic review or investigation of Gaul’s behavior in the case, and said that she had seen Gaul push plea deals before.

Russo, who has no disciplinary authority over any other judges in the courthouse, said there is a process in place to address that and, if that was the case, somebody would have to start that process.

“Russo is a somebody,” Koenig said.

She also noted that, among the lawyers on the case and other judges, no one filed a complaint with the Ohio Supreme Court over Heard’s case.

Despite Gaul’s headline-grabbing actions, he keeps winning elections and is likely to stay on the bench until voters kick him out. Gaul, whose father was a former city councilman and longtime county treasurer, isn’t worried, Serial noted.

Gaul, a Democrat, is up for re-election in November.

's editorial board on Thursday announced its endorsement of his challenger, Republican Wanda Jones.