Submitted by:  Ed “Flash” Ferenc, PIO / Cleveland Municipal Court
Date:  January 23, 2012

(Cleveland) -- Judge Pinkey S. Carr began her first day Monday, January 23, 2012 with a total of 26 cases on her Cleveland Municipal Court docket today.  The cases were typical, mostly traffic and probation violations. 

At one point, a woman claiming to be the sister of a defendant asked Judge Carr for a continuance, because he suffered chest pains last night and was admitted to MetroHealth Medical Center.  When Judge Carr asked the bailiff to call the hospital to verify her claim, the woman said she needed to put some money in the parking meter.

“Unsurprisingly, she did not come back and we found out the man who was supposed to be her brother was never admitted,” said Judge Carr.

Judge Carr, elected to the bench November 8, 2011, is a Cleveland native, having grown up in the Harvard-Miles neighborhood as the youngest of four siblings. She attended and graduated from John F. Kennedy High School and Baldwin-Wallace College, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science in 1987, with a double minor in Business Administration and Communications.

Judge Carr earned her Juris Doctorate Degree from Cleveland-Marshall College of Law in 1992, and was admitted to the Ohio bar in May of 1993.  During her 18 year legal career, she sought justice as a prosecuting attorney for the City of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County for 13 years. While employed as an Assistant Prosecuting Attorney for the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office, Judge Carr spent seven of her nine years working in the elite Major Trial Unit. In that capacity, she prosecuted murder and rape cases, including, but not limited to the Anthony Sowell serial murder case which received international attention. She won a conviction in what is considered the highest-profile criminal case in Cuyahoga County’s history. Judge Carr was also deputized as a Special Assistant United States Attorney for the Federal prosecution of Anton Lewis who was found guilty of igniting one of the deadliest fires in the history of Cleveland - the East 87th Street arson which claimed the lives of nine victims.