Given the stakes involved, a judge’s criminal docket should always be a top priority.
According to a team of investigative journalists and attorneys, a Cincinnati federal judge neglected criminal cases for so long that he has a dead person on his docket, and just now ruling on inmate COVID release petitions filed in 2020.
Of the 15 motions the judge denied in late December, all but one had been outstanding for at least 22 months and most for three years or longer.
Some motions were so old, that they had become moot because the U.S. Bureau of Prisons had already released inmates months or years prior.
And another, Abdullah Luqman, died nearly a year ago but his criminal charge for selling fake luxury sneakers and sunglasses still appears as an open and active case on the court's docket. This despite an attorney filing his death certificate and notice with the court in November.