Olivito Wins Once Again in the Southern District of Ohio

After nearly a decade and the first fully investigated nationally recognized DOJ consent
decree later, [see Consent Decree link @ left box] attorney richard olivito took a case from Steubenville, Ohio, his ground zero with the issue of police and prosecutor misconduct.

In doing so, this case, Dan Thorne Jr. vs. John Lelles, et. al. was the first federal
case filed in 2005 in Columbus' southern district court. It was Attorney Olivito's 'return'
case to the very ground zero of his initial groundbreaking work on police misconduct
inside his hometown where his father was a highly respected veteran senior trial judge.

Judge Marbley was assigned to hear the case and the case proceeded thru
an almost two period where the parties litigated the case intensely thru
discovery.

In December of 2006, Judge Marbley issued his opinion on the summary judgment
motion that the city had filed against the plaintiffs seeking to obtain a complete
dismissal of this lawsuit on federal legal grounds which provide official immunity
for defendants in such cases.

As a result of the ruling, the plaintiff came out a clear winner, by wining both of the
excessive force claims and the false arrest claims which were first plead and then developed by Attorney Richard A. Olivito.

The judge wrote a 36 page opinion in this ruling, at the district court level, somewhat
unusual in the sense most of these types of rulings do not extend beyond 15 or 20 pages.

Most of the opinion, which is a published opinion and can be found on lexis , is clearly and strongly worded in the plaintiff's favor over and against that of the defendants and their Columbus insurance defense counsel, Maznec, Raskin and Ryder.

This case represents the strongest indication to date, that Attorney Richard A. Olivito
has done recent solid legal work for his clients and despite many false and misleading comments posted on the net and in public about his work by those in high places who oppose him and his
legal advocacy for those who have been clearly abused by their local police and governments.

Nonetheless, Judge Algenon Marbley's opinion clearly supports Richard Olivito's arguments and briefing on the official immunity claims and also pays a tribute to his hard fought efforts by listing his name on the published opinion of the Southern District Court of Ohio.

It is clearly a victory for the Thorne family and the historical efforts of Mr. Olivito in bringing to light serious police and human rights violations which are occuring right inside of Southern Ohio again it appears.

The case has been partially appealed by Maznec and the City of Steubenville, but ONLY on the false arrest claim. Experienced Columbus civil rights Attorney James McNamara who is now on the case, has written the appeals briefs and within his own public, various in court statements has clearly given credit to the hard work and detemination of Mr. Olivito in getting the case to the point it is today, before the both the U.S. Southern District Court and before the Sixth Circuit, in Cincinnati.

The case will heard on oral argument on September 14, 2007 in Cincinnati, at the Sixth Circuit
Court of Appeals on the false arrest claim appeal filed by the City in light of the clear win afforded to both the Thorne family plaintiffs and for Mr. Olivito as their original lead counsel

The exceesive force claim was NOT appealed by the City and thus, this claim was basically "admitted" or "acknowledged" by the city as not only being a valid one, but one of a constitutional level violation which needs to be either settled or further litigated into trial. By NOT appealing this issue, at this stage, the City clearly demonstrated the validity of both the lawsuit, and the truth behind the excessive force claim which the family brought with the sole legal assistance and professional acumen of Attorney Richard A. Olivito.

The results are to follow here, once this case concludes later this year. This was the second major civil rights case Mr. Olivito has won before the southern district of columbus; the first
Hython v. City of Steubenville et. al. including Raymond Terry and Steve Stern, helped to set the stage for one of the most important consent decrees in U.S. History, a case over a decade old but still causing an impact in the region and upon the way policing is performed in this southeastern Ohio region.

This article is placed here with the aim to counter some of more blatant false light descriptions of Mr. Olivito's law practice and professional constitrubtions to both citizens of Ohio and elsewhere and to his clients, and to the profession and communities he worked within, itself.

Prologue: Update on the Efforts of the Disciplinary Counsel of the Ohio Supreme Court: Taped Conversations reveal illegal and highly unethical conduct between high ranking Supreme Court lawyers and their "inside" highly placed republican friends regarding the person of Attorney Richard A. Olivito {This will be subjected to further blogging here and on related site links see link to 'Supreme Lies'}

What also is interesting, is the Ohio Supreme Court's disciplinary counsel Lori Brown and its investigators within 30 days after this opinion was written, committed a highly unethical if not illegal act by performing an ex parte communication with a judicial officer inside an official proceeding in which Ms. Brown, the ODC first assitant prosecutor and the former panel chair, a corporate insurance defense counsel and key republican party and close friend of Tom Moyer's together conspired to seek to have Mr. Olivito submit to a 'mentally evaluation' by judicial fiat, without any medical basis to do so, just on Ms. Brown's own determination and whims...

This move against Mr. Olivito was brought on the basis that Mr. Olivito was
supposedly, "not able to function as a lawyer" as per the Supreme Court's Ms. Brown and her numerous republican and large firm allies inside their twisted and distorted disciplinary attack on him.

This bizarre allegation was brought against him in early 2007, within one month immediately after the United State's Southern District of Ohio Thorne opinion was formally published by Judge Marbley of the United States Southern District Court in Columbus, Ohio granting Olivito's clients a clear legal victory on this complex federal civil rights claims.

This very opinion clearly indicates, contra those at the Ohio Supreme Court's disciplinary office, working for an all republican supreme court, that Mr. Olivito is not only competent to manage and achieve a very serious victory over great odds for his civil rights clients, from within a very rarified enviroment but that he is also very capable of doing the kind of serious litigation that most lawyers in a solo practice would not even begin to attempt; much less succeed within;

[As indicated on the record and above, Attorney McNamara acknowledged Mr. Olivito did all of the initial heavy work on the Thorne case; investigating the claim, creating and filing the pleadings, doing all the discovery and then did all of the heavy lifting in written and deposition phases of the case on up to the initial critical briefing of the serious legal issues on summary judgment implicated in this Section1983 litigation case; once again, taking on considerable burderns and related risks just in doing the same again in a case arising out of his hometown area, Steubenville. ]

For his legal career, this was yet another case which simply once again, demonstrated his unique ability and committment to the fundamental civil rights of every individual american citizen, white or black or yellow or red.

Olivito's ability to create the type of litigation which results in serious favorable consequences inside the federal courts of the United States [both in Ohio and elsewhere] is clearly both supported and demonstrated, and contra to a few opinions published on google and those done in a very falsely derived and extremely infirm, if not, false light, if not wholly defamatory conclusory manner drawn by the current heavily insurance driven Ohio Supreme Court and its "official findings and records".

{See Supreme Lies link here inside the link box for the New York Times 10/1/06 article on the Ohio Supreme Court and its Serious Major Donor Money Trail and Ohio Municipal chamber of commerce and major insurer's Donors who put this present Supreme Court's campaign funding together like it was a jigsaw puzzle]

Mr. Richard Olivito's work remains unique, to those who are famililar with the same and in this decades old tradition, inside the Thorne case, by doing the courageous thing and taking a case many declined and did not wish to touch, even where a federal consent decree had been in existence for over 7 years, we [the Thorne family, & particularly Dan Sr. ] were making the concept of american human rights and the ideal of freedom for all mean something other than nice a historical sentiment and empty phrase inside America's important jurisprudence, right here in the heart of it all.

Olivito says of this important case:

"Without any kind of the funds or resources that these stubborn officials have had at their finger tips to both oppose my efforts and that of my client's cases, both at the supreme court -ODC- office investigation level and/or at the litigation site of large municipal insurer defense law firms and their deep pocket city clients, with this win, we have overcome...."

he also adds, "Dan Thorne Sr. is also to be given strong recognition here for his critical ability, insight and action taken early in defending his son's civil rights, as well as his courageous standing up for his family and for 'simply' enduring some of the most intense kind of litigation possible today in America."

Dan now understands just how complex and how difficult it is for an American citizen to vindicate his important fundamental Bill of Rights based constitutional claims inside a federal court of law today in America in Ohio.

Together, the plaintiffs and their counsel have already overcome...despite the next moves by either the city of Steubenville, their lawyers, and/or the ODC Supreme Court. The public awaits this case's important outcome despite the best efforts of the insurance industry's and their corporate lawyers corrupt ties to the present state system of judicial elections.

The influence peddling inside the State of Ohio's ODC lawyer disciplinary office is obviously a problem in this state.

Yet, this case, demonstrates that even when a lawyer and his modest clients are willing to go up against very heavy monetary and political odds and influences, the individual with the right case, can, if willing to suffer and endure much, still make a difference in enforcing his contitutional rights inside the USA today.