Columbus Mayor, Judge Sued Over 'Troubled' Recorders Court Operations

Calling the city Recorders Court in Columbus “a troubled and dysfunctional institution whose judges and clerks routinely disregard the rights of defendants, including indigent citizens,” the Southern Center for Human Rights is suing the mayor of Columbus, the chief judge of the city Recorders Court and his clerk on behalf of two indigent women who contend they were unconstitutionally jailed and denied court records necessary to challenge their convictions.

The suit was filed Tuesday in Muscogee County Superior Court on behalf of Keiona Wright, a 25-year-old indigent mother with three small children who was on bedrest while pregnant with twins when Judge Michael Cielinski sentenced her to 60 months probation and ordered her to pay more than $2,000 in fines, $2,640 in probation fees and spend three weekends in jail for several traffic violations, including driving with a suspended license and no proof of insurance. The suit also named as a plaintiff Elizabeth King, 58, who suffers from schizophrenia and subsists on $900 a month in Social Security benefits, according to the suit. She was jailed for two months in connection with misdemeanor convictions stemming from shoplifting food from a local grocery, at one point representing herself because she apparently did not understand she had a right to counsel, even if she could not afford to pay.