Ohio Supreme Court Justice Andrew Douglas does not see any conflict in applying for a job to oversee police reforms in Cincinnati while continuing to sit on the state's highest court.

        Justice Douglas, who is 69 and will retire in January, said Thursday that he considered the monitor job out of a deep concern for the city.

        And if he is offered the position — he is among 11 applicants — it wouldn't be as a judge.

Douglas

        “It would depend on the timing. If they told me I had to start tomorrow, then the answer would be "No,'” Justice Douglas said. “It isn't anything I would start before the coming election” Nov. 5.

        Furthermore, the justice said he would do nothing to cause a conflict or “cause injury to the court” while finishing out his term.

        Legal experts say they don't remember a sitting judge in Ohio applying for a public job. But they stress that there is a life for justices after they step down from the state's high court.

        “This is an unusual situation,” said John Entin, professor of law and political science at Case Western Reserve University. “But the idea that somebody becomes a judge and then goes into a hermetically sealed environment. ... That Justice Douglas is going to do something after he leaves the bench shouldn't come as a big surprise.”

        Justice Douglas said he talked to Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Thomas Moyer before applying. Justice Moyer declined to comment Thursday.

        “It looks to me as if Cincinnati is being irreparably injured from within,” Justice Douglas said of the racial tension in Cincinnati. “It is one of America's great cities.”

        He is the only applicant from Ohio to seek to monitor the landmark settlements that ended a federal investigation of the police department and stopped a racial profiling lawsuit against the city. He also is the only individual to apply.

        The monitor will review police patterns and practices, including new ways to watch individual officers and track use of force, citizen complaints and discipline. The monitor will also oversee efforts by activists to help end crime.

        Justice Douglas said he was encouraged to apply by residents in and out of Cincinnati and initially turned them down. He would not identify them.

        “With my strong civil rights record and my knowledge and contacts with police agencies, my 19 years on the Toledo City Council, 20 years in private practice and with my judicial experience, I thought maybe I was qualified,” he said.

        Justice Douglas said he has deep appreciation for what Cincinnati is going through because of his experience with racial conflicts in Toledo. He says that when he joined the city government, there were no minorities in the city's fire department and only two in the police department.

        He acknowledged that his application is not filled out exactly as requested, saying he felt as if it was written with a party or system already in mind.

        The justice said he could not provide cost estimates for his services. But he said he wrote “a dozen representative opinions” and provided a synopsis on each one.

        “If they want a person who has spent his entire adult life building consensus over contentious issues among disparate parties, then I could be the person they want,” he said.

        Justice Douglas is generally part of a court majority that the Ohio Chamber of Commerce considers too amenable to trial lawyers and opposed to business interests. Justice Douglas joined the majority Wednesday in ruling that Cincinnati could proceed with a lawsuit against gun makers.

        In the next three months, one of the applicants will be selected jointly by the U.S. Department of Justice, the police union, the city and plaintiffs in the racial profiling lawsuit. If they cannot agree on a monitor, a federal judge overseeing the settlements will make the selection.

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