The Adults Convicted the Glenville Kids Before Any Judge Did

One cardinal rule of our system of justice is that every person accused of a crime is presumed innocent unless and until his or her guilt is established beyond a reasonable doubt. I can’t count the times I’ve given that instruction as a judge, or heard it given by a judge when I was an attorney. There was a time when I, like many of you, assumed that most Americans (with the exception of racist Southern segregationists) believed and accepted that as true.

In fact, a national survey by the Center for Prosecutor Integrity found that two-thirds of Americans, 66.8%, believe the presumption of innocence is being lost in our legal system. Even more telling, 74.8% believe our legal system often does not honor “equal treatment under the law.”

If there was any doubt about how far we have drifted from the protections the 14th Amendment promises every man, woman and child in the United States, we need look no further than the case against the “Glenville High School Eleven.” By now I’m sure everyone in Northeast Ohio knows the story: kids on the Glenville football team were accused of shoplifting from the Dick’s Sporting Goods in Grove City, just outside Columbus. The team had traveled to play Olentangy Liberty and was staying overnight at a hotel, because Cleveland is about 150 miles from Columbus. The team, coached by the legendary Ted Ginn Sr., often stays overnight when it plays teams more than 90 miles from Cleveland.

Long story short, about 30 kids broke the rules by leaving the hotel without permission or a chaperone. The hotel sat near the Dick’s. While about thirty of the kids were shopping, eleven of them helped themselves to items they didn’t pay for.

But that’s not the focus of this article. The kids have learned their lesson, and this case cost them a lot of embarrassment and shame, especially once they realized how much they had disappointed their coach and teammates.

This article is about what the Dick’s incident taught me about adults, and how quickly they abandon the presumption of innocence. If you followed the social media commentary, you watched a mob mentality develop fast. There were calls for the students to be jailed, suspended, and for the team’s season to be cancelled. Some characterized the kids as hoodlums beyond redemption, not worthy of any constitutional rights, including the right to remain silent. It was as if the adult population was a pack of vampires with a huge thirst for blood, and these kids were a fresh source to satisfy it.

The major media outlets in Ohio were no less guilty of fanning the flames of hysteria, especially local Cleveland outlets. Early coverage left the impression that the entire Glenville football team had ransacked and pillaged the store (not true) to the tune of $4,500. Then came the reports that the team was made up of adults. Yes, two of the suspects were 18-year-old seniors, student athletes on schedule to graduate with their class. But the way the media portrayed them, it was as if two grown men had enrolled in high school to play football. Very misleading, but consistent with the effort to sensationalize the story. The truth is that the Glenville football team did not raid that store. Of the 81 players who traveled to Columbus and the 30 who broke curfew, 11 were connected to the incident, and 9 of them have already resolved their cases without any long-term stain on their reputations. The two 18-year-olds are still going through the system.

Now here’s the rub. In 2023, football players from a suburban school (read: predominately white) stole merchandise from the gift shop at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. Yes, you read that right. White kids from a prominent suburb stole from the National Football League’s Hall of Fame. The story made the news, and then it died. Not even the resolution made the front page. You have to dig to find out that no police report was filed, no one was charged, the school handled it internally, and the players involved were not held out of their playoff game.

The point is that while popular opinion was to treat the Glenville kids like they had committed the unpardonable sin, they are still entitled to due process and the presumption of innocence. Too bad the adults in this community don’t know that.

What lesson did I learn from the Glenville–Dick’s incident? Justice is lost on a people unfamiliar with civics, and adults unfamiliar with civics are severely handicapped by not knowing the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the Constitution. Let me print the summary in larger print:

The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable search and seizure.
The Fifth Amendment protects against self-incrimination, against being tried twice for the same crime, and against the government taking property without just compensation.
The Sixth Amendment guarantees the right to a speedy trial, a trial by jury, and the services of a lawyer.

Yep. I learned a lot about the lack of knowledge among intelligent people when it comes to criminal justice, and that’s a dangerous thing.