Sonja Taulbee staked out the courthouse seeking the 4,526 necessary signatures.
The judge, Mark K. Wiest of Wayne County Common Pleas Court, said an unpopular decision is not legal grounds for recalling a public official.
"We'd be replacing people every week,'' Wiest said. "I understand her anger. I understand she does not like the sentence I imposed. It's certainly not a reason for removing a public official.''
The family's protests started within days after Wiest sentenced Gerald Bess II, 30, of Wooster on July 13 to three years' probation.
July 24, 2001, background:
The sentence enraged Taulbee, so much she has dedicated her time to collecting the signatures needed to recall Wiest, whose term as a Common Pleas judge runs through January 2005.
"Every day that I'm here, it'll be here," Taulbee said of the petition. "I'm gonna do something because I have so much support. I never realized this much was going on in this town."
That effort will take more signatures than Taulbee originally thought, though. According to Patty Johns, director of the Wayne County Board of Elections, Taulbee must collect the signatures of 4,526 registered Wayne County voters. Taulbee thought she needed just 3,012. By the end of last week, she had more than 1,000.
"You have to put on the petition the reasons why (it is being circulated)," Johns said, "and it has to be signed by 15 percent of those who voted in the gubernatorial election. In Wayne County, that's 4,526.
"If it is a judge of the common pleas court, then it goes to the district court. It's filed in the court of appeals."
In this case, the petition would be filed in the Ninth District Court of Appeals. Once the complaint has been received, a hearing must be set within 30 days. The court must notify the person whom the complaint was filed against at least 10 days before the hearing.
The procedure can be heard by a judge or a 12-person jury. If the defendant wishes to have a jury trial, he must notify the court in writing.
"If nine or more of the jury finds one or more of the charges in the complaint is true," Johns said, the judge would be removed from office.
"If it is less than nine," she said, "the jury returns a finding that the complaint be dismissed."
Wiest did not return a call seeking comment on the petition.
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GREER and the other incompetents who deny Terri and, by extension, all disabled people their rights should be given the boot! A resident of Pinellas County has to initiate the petition.