A Congressman on Trial – Part 3

It took a while to assemble the prosecutor, defendant, defense counsel, and various members of the press to hear the jury verdict. When I entered the courtroom and took the bench, the tension was palpable. The jury came in and I instructed Lukens to rise. His lawyers stood with him.

I sent my bailiff to retrieve the verdict form from Juror 5, who had been elected Foreman. She brought it to me.

According to the Los Angeles Times, "Lukens stood still, his hands pressed on the defense table and his mouth slightly open, as Franklin County Domestic Relations Judge Ronald Solove read the verdict."

Guilty of Contributing to the Unruliness of a Minor.

I referred the case to the court's probation department for a pre-sentence investigation, and set the sentencing date for July 1, 1989. A few days later, I got a call from the probation department informing me the Rep. Lukens was refusing to come in for an interview unless his lawyer could come with him. I called defense counsel and told him that I would revoke Luken's bail unless he cooperated, which he then proceeded to do.

Again, from the LA Times: "Lukens' face appeared ashen as Solove sentenced him to the maximum penalty on the misdemeanor charge of contributing to the unruliness of a child--180 days in jail and a fine of $1,000. The judge then suspended all but 30 days of the sentence and $500 of the fine and placed Lukens on probation for one year. The terms of probation require Lukens to participate in sex offender programs and submit to testing for sexually transmitted diseases."

Lukens was released on an appeal bond. The Franklin County Court of Appeals announced its decision on June 12, 1990, determining that there was no error in refusing to admit evidence of Rosie Coffman's juvenile record.

On January 2, 1991, Buz Lukens went to jail. After 9 days, on the petition of his lawyer, I agreed to suspend the balance of his sentence in order for him to participate in residential sex offender treatment in a facility in Washington D.C.

Some postscripts:

Congressman Lukens ran for reelection in 1990; however, he was defeated in the Republican primary by a young politician named John Boehner – now the Speaker of the House.

On October 5, 1990, Rep. Lukens resigned from Congress before his term ended as a result of an accusation that he had fondled a House elevator operator.

In March of 1996, Lukens was convicted of taking $15,000.00 in bribes from the operators of a trade school while he was a congressman. He was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison.

Donald "Buz" Lukens died in May of 2010, at the age of 79. His New York Times obituary is at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/us/25lukens.html?_r=0.

I, by the way, am a Democrat!

A Congressman on Trial – Part 2

           As soon as the indictment of Congressman Donald "Buz" Lukens was announced and a trial date was set for May 24, 1989, the calls started. All the major news outlets, including television and the press, contacted Franklin County Domestic Relations Court for information and to inform us that they would be covering the trial. Even in those days well before Cable News, it became apparent that we were going to be overrun by reporters and cameras.

            The first problem we had to solve was where to conduct the trial. None of the courtrooms available to us were sufficient to conduct a trial garnering this much attention. I contacted my friend, Judge Frank Reda of the General Division and asked to "borrow" his courtroom for the trial. It had plenty of seating and a jury box. He graciously agreed.

            Rep. Lukens hired Tom Tyack, another old friend of mine and one of the finest defense lawyers in Columbus, to represent him. Mike Miller, the Franklin County Prosecutor assigned Assistant Prosecutor Rita Mangini to the case. The two experienced, capable lawyers helped the case proceed as smoothly as possible.

            The alleged victim, Rosie Coffman, was clear concerning her recitation of the events that brought us to the trial. But the pivotal witness turned out to be J. D. Caudill, a private investigator hired by Lukens. Caudill testified that, during a conversation with Lukens, the Congressman admitted having sexual intercourse with Coffman, and generally corroborated Coffman's description of the evening's events.

            During his cross-examination of Rosie Coffman, Tyack attempted to enter into evidence her prior, and rather extensive, juvenile record, setting up the central legal issue in the case. Tyack's theory was that her juvenile record clearly indicated that she was unruly and delinquent prior to her involvement with Lukens; thus, he could not have contributed to her delinquency.

            I took a recess and did some research, which indicated to me that the proffered evidence was inadmissible. The concept of the "throwaway delinquent" – a child who was already so bad that she could not be made worse – had been rejected by the courts of Ohio. I knew that my ruling would be reviewed by the Court of Appeals, so I was very clear about my reasoning when I announced my decision from the bench.

            The jury was instructed and began its deliberations at 10:30 on May 26. At noon, the light above the jury room door lit up, indicating that the jury wished to communicate with the Court. Assuming that the jury members wanted to inquire about lunch, I sent my bailiff to inquire. She returned to my office rather breathlessly and said, "They have a verdict."

A Congressman on Trial – Part 1

           Born in small town Ohio, Donald "Buz" Lukens had a varied and largely successful political career. Graduating from Ohio State in 1954, he served in the U.S. Air Force for over six years. In 1961, he went to work for the Republican staff of the House Rules Committee.

            In 1966, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from the 4^th District in the Cincinnati area. He served two terms. In 1970 he left Congress to make a run for Governor of Ohio; however, he lost the GOP primary. He was appointed to the Ohio State Senate in 1971, and served until 1986, when he ran for and won election to an open seat in the House from his District. He won re-election in 1988.

            Lukens had maintained an apartment on 5^th Street in Columbus after he left the Ohio Senate. It was in that apartment that he had sex in January of 1989 with Rosie Coffman, a 16-year-old African American girl, after paying her $40.00 and giving her gifts which included a small American flag pin. Rosie went home and reported the liaison to her mother, Anna Coffman.

            Anna Coffman made two calls. The first was to Congressman Lukens, during which she asked that he meet her to discuss his relationship with her daughter. Lukens agreed to meet her at a Columbus McDonalds. The second call was to Columbus television station WSYX to arrange a secret videotaping of her forthcoming meeting with Lukens.

            During the videotaped conversation, Anna asked Lukens why he was "messing around" with her daughter. Lukens admitted the sexual encounter, but denied knowing she was a teenager. Then he said to Anna, "Let me go back (to Washington) and see what there is part time." Anna interpreted this statement as an attempt to buy her silence. WSYX ran the video on the evening news, and all hell broke loose.

            Shortly thereafter, a Franklin County grand jury indicted Lukens on a misdemeanor charge of Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor. At that time, contributing charges were tried in Juvenile Court with all adult rights, including the right to a jury trial, preserved to the defendant.

            Following the indictment, the judges of the Franklin County Domestic Relations and Juvenile Court met to discuss how the matter would be handled. Since I had served a brief term on the Municipal Court and had conducted a couple of jury trials, the Administrative Judge assigned the Lukens trial to me. The circus was about to begin.

Love on a Dairy Farm

           The couple met a young man at a church function and they became friends. Close friends. So close, in fact, that their friendship grew to the point that they spent evenings together at the couple's home, talking about their lives and past history. Particularly about their past sexual experiences. Eventually, the relationship grew into three-way sexual encounters.

            At some point, Wife decided that Friend was preferable to Husband and decided she wanted to terminate her marriage. The point of contention when the case showed up in my courtroom was custody of Husband and Wife's three-year-old daughter.

            Husband's argument for granting him sole custody of the child was based upon the fact that Wife had moved in with Friend. During the trio's discussions of their previous sexual histories, Friend had revealed that, as an adolescent growing up on a dairy farm in northern Ohio, he had a sexual relationship with a heifer. (For those of you without knowledge of bovine facts, a heifer is a young cow before she has had her first calf.)

            This youthful indiscretion on the part of Friend, Husband argued, demonstrated that he was not fit to be around a young child. This was the sum total of his claim that the child's best interest would be served by naming him as the sole residential parent and legal custodian, and that it was necessary to limit Wife's visitation to times when Friend was not around. Since Wife had professed her intention to marry Friend upon the granting of her divorce from Husband, the situation would be very complicated.

            The balance of the evidence clearly demonstrated, however, that Wife had much greater involvement in the care and nurturing of the child, and, in fact, that Husband was quite remote, had never been to the child's medical appointments, and that he couldn't even tell me the name of the woman who provided in-home child care for the daughter.

            After I ruled from the bench that I would designate Wife as the custodian for the child, the parties and their lawyers left the courtroom. My bailiff, the irrepressible Harriet, followed me to my office and declared: "Well, I guess you could call that case mooooo-t!"

Lost in Translation

Franklin County is a very cosmopolitan place with a diverse population. This can present issues in Domestic Relations Court as well as other courts when people with little or no mastery of English appear before the bench. As a result, the courts often find the need to avail themselves of the services of translators/interpreters who can assure that everyone knows what is going on and that information is appropriately communicated.

Normally, this does not present any real difficulties, since interpreters are readily available for commonly encountered languages such as Spanish, French, and even many African languages. On one occasion, however, I did have a real problem of translation to solve.

The Hmong people, native to mountainous regions of Vietnam and Laos, were heavily recruited by various nations' military during the wars in Southeast Asia, including the United States military, to assist in the wars conducted in that region during the 20^th Century. In the late '70s, many Hmong refugees settled in the United States.

According to a Hmong Culture website, the Hmong language is linguistically unrelated to any other spoken or written language on Earth. Only about 4 million people speak the language, and only about 200,000 live in the United States, most of those in Minnesota, California, and Wisconsin.

It is not, therefore, difficult to understand the problem we encountered when a Hmong couple was scheduled to appear in my courtroom for the final hearing of their Petition for Dissolution of their marriage. A lawyer came to talk to me about the case a few days before the hearing was scheduled to occur. Although the documents they had filed were in English and had been prepared by the lawyer who was employed by a clinic at a local law school, the attorney informed me that he was very uncomfortable because he did not believe that the parties had really understood what was going on and what the documents said and meant. He said most of their communication with the husband, his client, had been a mixture of sign language with very few English phrases thrown in.

He also told me that he had been unable to locate a member of the Hmong community who was fluent enough in English to provide reliable interpretation for the parties at the hearing. He had, however, located a member of the community who spoke both Hmong and limited French, as well as an interpreter who could translate French to English. "Could we," he asked, "conduct the hearing by translating from English to French to Hmong and back again?" I saw no reason why not. At least we could try.

So, we had the hearing. I conducted the inquiry trying to ascertain that the parties understood that the proceedings would end their marriage and that they understood the nature, content, and import of the documents they had signed. I would ask a question, it would be translated from English to French, and then from French to Hmong. The parties would answer and the process would reverse. Of course, no one in the courtroom could really ascertain the accuracy of this chain of interpretation. I was reminded of the childhood game of "Telephone" and remembered just how garbled the message entered at one end of the chain came out at the other.

Finally, we finished the hearing. The parties were granted the dissolution they apparently sought. Everyone smiled and shook hands. The assemblage exited the courtroom, leaving my bailiff and me alone, hoping that some sort of multilingual justice had been served.