Week Two (1)

 To start off Week Two, I was able to move downtown to the County Justice Center. To lead off my project with the prosecutor’s office downtown, I was placed with Fallon Radigan and the ICAC (internet crimes against children unit). To briefly describe what the unit is, The Ohio ICAC Task Force is a federal anti-crime initiative funded by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. It is a collaboration of city, county, state, and federal law enforcement agencies across Ohio whose mission is to identify, arrest and prosecute individuals who engage in the online exploitation of children (Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office). The Task Force has more than 350 affiliate agencies statewide with at least one affiliate agency in each of Ohio’s 88 counties (Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office). In the morning, Prosecutor Radigan and I went up to Judge Peter Corrigan’s courtroom, my first criminal courtroom experience, to plea out a case. Before we went into the courtroom, we went back to the judge's office and I was fortunate enough to sit at the table with the prosecutor, public defender, and judge, as they discussed the direction they wanted to go with the case. This kind of meeting is something I have seen on TV, but an interesting difference I noticed was that the defendant himself was not present. This gives me the sense that the public defender will speak on behalf of the defendant then relay the message back to him and figure out his preference (whether to take the plea or go to trial). The plea in the courtroom was fairly simple. It started with Prosecutor Radigan describing the plea deal and what charges would be dismissed. As Judge Ryan did in his juvenile courtroom, Judge Corrigan asked the defendant a series of questions to make sure he fully understood the rights he was giving up by taking the plea deal. After the defendant demonstrated he understood, the judge sentenced him and Prosecutor Radigan and I headed back downstairs. I was lucky to be with Prosecutor Radigan for two days. I am grateful that she introduced me to the building downtown and showed me what being an ICAC prosecutor looks like in Cuyahoga County.