Judge rules against moving Claudia Hoerig case
Trial will be held in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court
WARREN — A judge Thursday refused Claudia Hoerig’s request to move her case out of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court to federal court.
There is no jurisdiction for the federal court to intervene, United States District Court Judge Dan Aaron Polster ruled.
Hoerig is facing murder charges in connection to the 2007 shooting death of U.S. Air Force Reserve Maj. Karl Hoerig, to whom she was married.
After Karl Hoerig was killed in their Newton Falls home, she used his status as an airline pilot to fly to Brazil, her native country. She was extradited to United States to face trial at the beginning of the year. She is scheduled to go on trial Jan. 14.
In a handwritten motion, Hoerig alleged the county court is part of a conspiracy to violate her constitutional rights by having her arrested and extradited.
The motion arrived Nov. 9 in Youngstown, where the United States District Court Northern District of Ohio Eastern Division is housed.
Trumbull County Common Pleas Court Judge Andrew D. Logan is presiding over Hoerig’s case. In her request for the removal of her case to federal court, Hoerig claims Logan refuses to be impartial and he is part of a conspiracy to violate her Constitutional rights, which led to her “illegal arrest” and “illegal extradition.”
Judge Polster doesn’t address the second claim by Hoerig, that 50 percent of her mail is not being delivered to her.
But Polster states in his ruling the federal court has no jurisdiction over the criminal case against Hoerig.
“In very rare and extreme circumstances, state criminal cases can be removed under 28 U.S.C. 1443; however, this petition does not satisfy those narrow criteria,” Polster’s ruling states.
This isn’t the first time the federal court has denied one of Hoerig’s handwritten petitions or motions.
In September, Hoerig asked the federal court to intervene with petition for relief for unlawful dentention.
In the Oct. 24 denial, U.S. District Court Judge John R. Adams wrote an effort to dismiss a state court case on speedy trial grounds before the case is actually argued may be seen as an attempt to litigate constitutional defenses prematurely in federal court.
“Exhaustion of state remedies is required to protect the state courts’ opportunity to resolve constitutional issues and to limit federal interference in state judicial proceedings,” Adams wrote.
Adams stated Hoerig has not gone through a trial at the county level and at this time cannot pursue this kind of federal appeal.
Hoerig spent years fighting extradition to the U.S. In her Oct. 1 writ of habeas corpus filing, Hoerig claimed her April 20, 2016, arrest was the result of “an unlawful affidavit” that was “fabricated” by Ohio authorities outside compliance with the U.S. Constitution. The filing also states the treaty between the U.S. and Brazil that allowed for her extradition was violated because of the “unlawful affidavit fabricated in Ohio.”
She claims the gag order on the case, preventing attorneys from commenting, is also enabling a “conspiracy” against her.
A judge has not ruled on her motion to lift the gag order or a motion requesting protection “against retaliation from jail staff, prosecutor and Judge Logan,” filed in the days after the Oct. 24 refusal for a writ of habeas corpus.
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