Daniel Gaul Suspended

Daniel Gaul, a Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas judge who had served since 1991, was suspended for one year by the Ohio Supreme Court after the state's Board of Professional Conduct found he committed 30 ethics violations across eight cases over a five-year period. The findings included coercing no-contest pleas, abandoning his role as an impartial arbiter, demeaning litigants and spectators in his courtroom, unlawfully jailing people, abusing his contempt power — including jailing someone for contempt because they said he "made himself look stupid" — and using the prestige of his office to advance a litigant's personal interests in a federal case. The court's opinion also cited comments with racial overtones, including Gaul referring to a Black defendant, Demagio Callahan, as having "an Italian first name, an Irish last name, but he's a brother." The suspension effectively ends Gaul's career as an elected judge; he was already set to retire at the end of his term under Ohio's judicial age limit.