While Democrats were shut out of statewide offices at the top of the ballot in the Nov. 6 election, they did pretty well when it came to scoring seats on various courts at the state and Hamilton County level.
Democratic Party-endorsed judges won both seats up for grabs on the Ohio Supreme Court, a seven-member body that was previously entirely Republican. Judges with the Democratic nod also took three out of four open spots on the First District Court of Appeals, which covers Hamilton County. That six-member court is now evenly split between the parties. Democratic Party-endorsed judges also grabbed two more seats on the Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas, chipping away at long-time Republican dominance there.
In one of the Ohio Supreme Court races, Michael Donnelly, a judge for 13 years hearing civil and criminal cases in Cleveland, bested Republican-endorsed Craig Baldwin, a five-year veteran of the Fifth District Court of Appeals. Donnelly has spent a good deal of his time on mental health cases for the last seven years. Before his stint on the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, Donnelly was an assistant county prosecutor. He also serves on the state Supreme Court’s Death Penalty Task Force, which has recommended reforms to Ohio’s capital punishment policies. Baldwin was previously a judge in domestic relations court and director of child support enforcement in Licking County. The two were vying for a seat vacated by Terrance O’Donnell, who cannot run again due to age limits. Donnelly handily outpaced Baldwin, netting himself 61 percent of the vote statewide and an even higher percentage in Hamilton County.
In the other race, Melody Stewart beat out Republican-endorsed Mary DeGenaro with 53 percent of the vote to DeGenaro's 47 percent both statewide and in Hamilton County. She's the first black woman to serve on the Ohio Supreme Court or any statewide office, and has served on Ohio’s Eighth District Court of Appeals since 2006.
Stewart is a member of a state group, the Ohio Criminal Justice Recodification Committee, that is suggesting updates to Ohio’s criminal law. Stewart has also taken a stint as a visiting justice on the Ohio Supreme Court. DeGenaro was the incumbent in this race. She was appointed by Gov. John Kasich in January to fill the seat of Justice William O’Neal, who left to seek the Democratic Party’s gubernatorial nomination. Her nomination made the court a seven-member Republican sweep. Prior to that, DeGenaro served in Ohio’s Seventh District Court of Appeals for 17 years.
Among the races for First District spots was an upset: Democrat Candice Crouse beat out Republican Dennis Deters, the incumbent on the court recently appointed by Ohio Gov. John Kasich. Deters was appointed to his position in March last year, his first stint as a judge, after losing his brief, appointed seat on the Hamilton County Commission to Democrat Denise Driehaus. He was appointed to the commission after former commissioner Greg Hartman retired. Deters, the brother of Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters, was previously a Colerain Township Trustee and private attorney. Crouse, got about 53 percent of the vote statewide and in Hamilton County. She has 17 years of legal experience, including time as a federal law clerk and work as a defense attorney for low-income clients. Crouse has litigated cases on a number of different issues at the state and federal levels and is currently a partner at the law firm of Pinales Stachler Young Burrell & Crouse.
Pierre Bergeron, an appellate attorney with Squire Patton Boggs who has argued before the Ohio and U.S. Supreme Court, is another endorsed Democrat who grabbed a seat from a Republican incumbent, Judge Charles Miller, who has been on the bench at the First District Court since last year. Miller has also appeared before the Ohio Supreme Court in his previous role as an attorney with Keating Muething & Klekamp. He also served as the head of the Hamilton County Public Defender Commission, which oversees the county 's public defender's office. Bergeron prevailed with 51 percent of the vote statewide and a similar margin in Hamilton County.
Meanwhile, incumbent Democratic Party-endorsed Marilyn Zayas was able to hold onto her seat in a contest with Republican-endorsed challenger Dale Stalf. Zayas has two decades of various courtroom experience, including a stint as a visiting justice on the Ohio Supreme Court. Stalf is a self-described conservative and military veteran who spent time as an Army prosecutor and legal advisor to the Department of Defense before going into private practice in Hamilton County. Zayas took roughly 60 percent of the vote.
Republican-endorsed Robert Winkler, meanwhile, outpaced Democratic Party-endorsed attorney Ginger Bock. Winkler has served as a Hamilton County judge since 2006, and was previously a judge on the Hamilton County Municipal Court. He's also spent time in private practice and as an assistant Hamilton County Prosecutor, a role he started in 1990. Bock began her legal career clerking in the First District Court of Appeals. From there, she pursued work in private practice appellate law, eventually arguing case before the Ohio Supreme Court. For the last year, she has been an attorney at the Moore Law Firm. Winkler walked away with roughly 52 percent of the vote statewide.
Hamilton County judicial races are often overlooked by voters and the media, but recent situations show how vital they can be. Consider, for example, the tense and nationally-watched trial of former University of Cincinnati Police officer Ray Tensing for the shooting of an unarmed black motorist, presided over by Hamilton County Common Pleas Court Judge Leslie Ghiz, who won reelection. Ghiz made multiple decisions about evidence admissibility, what documents and information would be released to the media and other choices that influenced how the trial would proceed, what the public would learn about it and when.
In a race where voters had to pick two candidates, Ghiz and Leslie Allen, both incumbents endorsed by the Hamilton County GOP, beat out Democratic Party-endorsed challenger Pavan Parikh as well as Arica L. Underwood to gain another set of six-year terms. Parikh is an attorney who is heavily involved in Greater Cincinnati’s legal community. Underwood is felony trial counsel for the Hamilton County Public Defender’s Office.
In other Hamilton County Common Pleas Court races, however, Democratic-Party endorsed candidates made inroads into the Republican-dominated courthouse. Deputy City of Cincinnati Solicitor Terry Nestor upended incumbent judge Steven Martin, who had the county Republican Party’s endorsement, with 51 percent of the vote. Nestor has proposed three reforms to the county’s justice system: increasing the depth of the county’s jury pool by pulling jurors from driver’s license lists as well as registered voter lists, aggregating and publishing statistics on court rulings so the public can better understand the decisions made in the courtroom and increasing partnerships with drug treatment facilities to try and address the opioid addiction crisis with more than just jail sentences.
And Democratic Party-endorsed Thomas O. Beridon narrowly unseated GOP-endorsed incumbent Curt C. Hartman in another county common pleas court race. This one was close — Beridon received 50.09 percent of the vote to Hartman's 49.91 percent. The contest came down to less than 500 votes.
Beridon, currently chief hearing examiner with the City of Cincinnati, has also served as a public defender and an assistant city solicitor. He received endorsements from the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers, the Fraternal Order of Police Queen City Lodge, the National Association of Social Workers and a number of labor unions.
Hartman, a Navy veteran and former law clerk for Judge Rhesa Barksdale in the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, touted his experience as an attorney and as special counsel to the Mason Municipal Court. He served as a delegate at the 2016 Republican National Convention before Gov. John Kasich appointed him to the Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas in 2017.
