This blog is a collaborative between Judge Deborah J. Nicastro and Robert G. Walton, Esq.
JUDGE DEBORAH J. NICASTRO has served as Judge of the Garfield Heights Municipal Court, Cuyahoga County, Ohio since 1994. Judge Nicastro has taught for the Ohio Judicial College, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law CLE Program, the former Cuyahoga County Bar Association, the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association, and other organizations in many areas of law. Judge Nicastro currently serves as Co-Chair of the Ohio Judicial Conference’s Publications Committee. As Chair of the Collaborative on the Local Budget Process, she is the editor of the Budget Process Handbook for Judges and Local Funding Authorities. As Chair of the Judicial Administration and Practice Committee of the Association of Municipal and County Judges of Ohio, she is leading the redrafting of the Judges’ Bench Book. In 2016, Judge Nicastro was awarded the International Kiwanis Walter Zeller Fellowship Award and in 2010 was awarded the International Walter Hixson Fellow Award. In 2014, Judge Nicastro received the Freedom Award from the American Nationalities Movement and in 2013, she received the Ohio Association of Municipal and County Judges President’s Award for Judicial Excellence. A graduate of the Case Western Reserve School of Law in 1979, Judge Nicastro actively practiced law from 1979 through 1993 in the areas of criminal defense and prosecution, real estate law, contracts, taxation, civil rights, and municipal law.
ROBERT G. WALTON has successfully defended clients in many jury trials and cross-examined police officers and other witnesses at more than 200 suppression hearings. The focus of his practice is defending persons charged with alcohol and drug related vehicular crimes. He has spoken at more than 50 CLE seminars for lawyers and judges on the subjects of OVI, cross examination, search and seizure, motions to suppress, driving under-suspension and reinstatement of driver licenses. For more than 20 years Mr. Walton has served as an acting judge in the Shaker Heights Municipal Court. Mr. Walton and Judge Deborah Nicastro are co-authors of the Ohio Driver’s License Suspensions and Reinstatement Handbook. In 2013, Mr. Walton was named University Heights Citizen of the Year. From 2015 to 2018 he has been named a Super Lawyer by the Ohio Super Lawyers magazine in the practice area of Criminal Defense: DUI/DWI. Only two lawyers in Cuyahoga County have earned that distinction. He is a graduate of Cleveland-Marshall College of Law.