VOTE411 Voter Guide

I have served as a trial judge for more than 16 years. I am currently a judge on the Court of Common Pleas in Delaware County, where I handle felony criminal cases and a wide variety of civil cases. I was elected in 2014 and began serving on that court in February 2015. I was reelected in 2020.

From January 2008 until February 2015, I served as a judge on the Delaware Municipal Court, where I handled misdemeanor criminal cases, traffic cases, and civil cases. I was elected to that job in 2007, and I was reelected in 2013.

My trial-court experience will be extremely valuable to me at the court of appeals. Having presided over more than 160 jury trials, I understand the tough calls that trial judges must make during jury trials and in their other work, I have imposed sentences in thousands of criminal and traffic cases, and I think I have earned a well-deserved reputation for being a fair, hard-working, courteous, and humble judge.

I served for four years (2004-2007) as the Director of Legal Resources for the Supreme Court of Ohio, which means that I was the in-house legal counsel there. While in that role, I worked closely with then-Chief Justice Thomas Moyer, who was a wonderful mentor for me.

From 1997 until 2003, I worked in the Ohio Attorney General’s office under then-Attorney General Betty Montgomery. From 2000 until 2003, I served in that office as the State Solicitor of Ohio, which means that I oversaw the office’s appellate work in the Supreme Court of the United States, the Supreme Court of Ohio, and other state and federal appellate courts.

From 1993 until 1997, and then again for several months in 2003, I served as an assistant prosecuting attorney for Delaware County. In that role, I prosecuted many felony cases including a death-penalty murder case, and I also represented county elected officials.

Earlier in my legal career (1991-1993), I served as an associate at the Jenner & Block law firm in Chicago. And during the first year after I graduated from Harvard Law School in 1990, I served as a law clerk for Judge Albert Engel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

I bring a broad range of judicial and legal experience to this race, and I think that my work as an appellate lawyer will be particularly helpful to me on the court of appeals.

I think that the public expects judges to be knowledgeable about the law, to be level-headed and patient, to be good listeners who are open-minded, and to issue prompt and well-reasoned decisions. I bring to this race a track record of serving as that kind of judge for 16 years, and there is no better way to evaluate how a judge might handle his or her work in the future than to examine how that judge has performed in the past.

I also bring the kind of academic credentials and legal experience that the public rightly expects from judges on our most important courts. I was the valedictorian of my high-school class in 1983, and I graduated from Harvard Law School in 1990. I’ve argued before the Supreme Court of the United States, I’ve handled numerous high-profile and complex cases as a lawyer and as a judge, and I’ve demonstrated time and again that I approach my work in a non-ideological way and without any bias or prejudice.

I enjoy intellectually challenging work, I think that I’m a strong writer, and I like handling a variety of civil and criminal cases. My experience of working in the public sector and in the private sector, of handling trial work and appellate work, and of serving as both a lawyer and as a judge will equip me well to take on the important work of reviewing trial-court decisions at the court of appeals.