BY KRISTEN DELGUZZI
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Norbert Nadel
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After clinging to the high-profile Larry Flynt case for a month, Judge Norbert Nadel did an about face Monday and stepped aside so the obscenity matter can be randomly assigned to another judge.
The new judge will be chosen at noon today under the watch of the court administrator, assignment commissioner and defense attorneys.
Judge Nadel's ruling came four days after a hearing in which attorneys on both sides of the Flynt case asked him to get off the case, and nearly four weeks after they began asking him to give up the matter.
"I'm glad he came to his senses," said H. Louis Sirkin, one of Mr. Flynt's attorneys. "He had his moment."
Attorneys wanted him to step down because of the way he bypassed court rules requiring random assignment and grabbed the case for himself. An attorney for the Ohio Supreme Court also has said the judge improperly snatched the case.
"I think it's the right decision," Hamilton County Prosecutor Joseph Deters said. "I think he's a good judge. I hope he gets rolled the case. But it has to go by the rules."
In his one-page written decision, Judge Nadel said he still thinks he has the authority, as Hamilton County's presiding common pleas judge,
to take the case for himself.
"The court finds that the re-assignment of April 21, 1998 was in accordance with relevant case law and the proper exercise of the Supervisory Powers of the Administrative Judge," he wrote.
"However, in order to effect a speedy resolution of this matter and at the joint request of the parties, the Court in the exercise of discretion hereby orders the reentries of re-assignment ... set aside."
The original controversy began last month when the original judge, John O'Connor, stepped down because he once was represented by Mr. Flynt's lawyer. Before the case could be reassigned, Judge Nadel assigned it to himself.
