Frank J. Battisti - Judicial Controversies

Judicial Controversies

On the bench, Judge Battisti earned a reputation as a jurist who was willing to take on the most controversial cases. Some of his rulings generated heated debate, including his acquittal of eight former Ohio National Guardsmen implicated in the shooting deaths of four students at Kent State University on May 4, 1970. As his obituary in The New York Times stated, "The Kent State case came to an abrupt halt when dismissed it on the ground that Government prosecutors had failed to prove 'beyond a reasonable doubt' that guardsmen had willfully intended to deprive the students of their rights".

He is primarily remembered, however, for his historic ruling in Reed v. Rhodes, which found that the Cleveland school district had violated the law by practicing racial segregation. The 1976 ruling came three years after the filing of a class action in the U.S. District Court. Judge Battisti's comprehensive order for desegregation featured 14 components, including a provision reassigning students to achieve integration. This component precipitated an outcry among local opponents of "court-ordered busing." While Judge Battisti was lauded by supporters for what they termed as his courage and fortitude, he faced criticism from the Cleveland Board of Education and segments of the larger community. His landmark ruling in the Cleveland desegregation case later prompted fellow Youngstown native Judge Nathaniel R. Jones, of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, to characterize Judge Battisti as "an unlikely hero" of the civil rights movement. Judge Jones said, "He withstood much of the hostility and acrimony, bitterness and ostracism of the community in order to be true to his oath and the Constitution". Even critics of the ruling were disinclined to question Judge Battisti's motives. Colleagues described him as a deeply religious man whose abhorrence of racial injustice was profound and sincere.

In the decade of the 1980s, Judge Battisti found himself, once again, at the center of controversy. In 1986, he ordered the deportation to Israel of Ukrainian immigrant John Demjanjuk, whose conviction on charges of war crimes was later overturned by an Israeli court. The case, which garnered national and international media attention, proved to be an unusually protracted one. An obituary noted that, upon Judge Battisti's death, "scores of cases remained on his docket, including a rehearing of the Demjanjuk case ordered by the United States Supreme Court". The controversial Demjanjuk case unfolded in the wake of a widely publicized dispute involving Judge Battisti and nine members of the 11-member court in Cleveland who contended that the judge had assumed too much power in decision-making. "The nine had set up a system in which the majority decided court policy in May 1985", an obituary reported, "but Judge Battisti conceded that he ignored it on the ground that 'the chief judge must make the decisions'". In September 1985, a panel of Federal appellate judges determined that Judge Battisti "had indeed assumed too much power and ordered him to share it with his peers".