(Cleveland) -- On Monday, September 24, Luis Cruz III made history by being the first defendant fitted with a GPS monitored ankle bracelet, after pleading not guilty to a charge of aggravated menacing in front of Judge Charles Patton in the third floor arraignment room.
Contact: Ed Ferenc, Public Information Officer Cleveland Municipal Court
216 664 6787 / 216 789 2597
ference@cmcoh.org www.cmcoh.org
By Ed “Flash” Ferenc
(Cleveland) -- On Monday, September 24, Luis Cruz III made history by being the first defendant fitted with a GPS monitored ankle bracelet, after pleading not guilty to a charge of aggravated menacing in front of Judge Charles Patton in the third floor arraignment room.
Prior to this, Cruz would have been required to post a bond, but that has all changed with Pre-Trail Services, the Court’s first new department in 23 years.
In the first week, 19 people were placed on Court Supervised Release and four defendants were strapped with the GPS devices made possible by the City of Cleveland awarding $250,000 to Oriana House, a chemical dependency treatment and community corrections service agency that has been providing such services in Ohio since 1989. We are the first court in the county to use the GPS system for Pre-Trial Services.
“I thought it went very well for the first week and we received positive feedback from all the stakeholders, including Oriana House,” said Stephanie Pope-Earley, Director of Pre-Trial Services.
GPS services require the client to wear a tamper proof ankle bracelet for monitoring a person's exact location using satellite technology. If the ankle bracelet is tampered with or removed, Oriana House staff is notified immediately. There are three monitoring levels offered: active, intermediate, and passive. The Court is currently at the intermediate level, which monitors clients' movements and calls in their locations every four to six hours. Intermediate tracking has the added benefit of being able to selectively view tracking data that is no more than 10 minutes old, if necessary.
The mission of the Pretrial Services Department is to ensure pretrial justice and public safety through rational pretrial decision making protocols and transition services informed by evidence based practices. Pretrial services are critical to assisting the Court in making prompt, fair, and effective release or detention decisions including, where needed, treatment possibilities and the monitoring and supervision of released defendants.
Research shows that even a short stay in jail can have negative consequences for individuals, families, and communities. It can cause a person to lose a job, housing, and even custody of his or her children. Faced with these pressures, pretrial defendants often plead to crimes they may not have committed just so they can get back to work and their families.