Let’s consider the case of Joseph T. Deters, the former Hamilton County prosecutor and now a Republican member of the Ohio Supreme Court.
He is the least experienced justice on the Ohio Supreme Court, having never served a day as a judge before being appointed by his friend and political ally, Gov. Mike DeWine, in Dec. 2022.
He was appointed to the associate justice position when it was left open by the Nov. 2022 election of Sharon Kennedy as chief justice.
He took over a seat on the court that had four years left on Kennedy’s six-year term as an associate justice.
You might think the 67-year-old Deters might just run for the remaining four years of Kennedy’s term and call it a day.
You would be wrong.
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Instead, he is taking on one of the most popular and most respected members of the court who happens to be a Democrat — Justice Melody Stewart of Cleveland, the first African American woman to be elected to the Ohio Supreme Court.
Stewart was raised by a single mom in Cleveland in a working class neighborhood.
She is a classically trained pianist; and a graduate of the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music.
She worked night jobs to put herself through law school; and later taught at the school where she earned her juris doctorate.
She served for 12 years on Ohio’s Eighth District Court of Appeals before being elected to the Ohio Supreme Court in 2018.
Deters, meanwhile, grew up in Cincinnati as a descendant of Dan Tehan, a former Hamilton County sheriff. He went to the University of Cincinnati where he ultimately earned his law degree. In 1982, he began his law career, where he became the protégé of one of the biggest names in Cincinnati politics, Simon Leis Jr. He joined the Hamilton County prosecutor's office; then the Clerk of Courts; then returned to the prosecutor's office; became state treasurer; and again returned to the prosecutor's office in 2004, a post he held until his appointment to the Ohio Supreme Court in 2022.
Stewart has 18 years of experience on the bench, while Deters has barely 18 months.
Yet Deters chose to run against her for a six-year term instead of running for the unexpired term.
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“It was nothing personal against Melody,” Deters said in a text message. “It was always going to be the case that I would be running for a full term. So it was going to be either Mike (Justice Michael Donnelly, also a Democrat) or Melody.”
Deters said the decision was made after consulting with his old friend Alex Triantafilou, chairman of the Ohio Republican Party.
Triantafilou said that around May 2023, the state party endorsed its candidates for three Ohio Supreme Court seats “and empowered the chair (me) to slot candidates into races.”
“I consulted with many people and finally asked Justice Deters to run for the full term,” Triantafilou said.
Yes, but why Stewart and not Donnelly, we asked?
“I will politely choose not to disclose our internal strategic conversations,” Triantafilou said.
His opposite number in the Ohio Democratic Party, Chairwoman Liz Walters, was more than happy to discuss the Republicans’ strategy, as she sees it.
“Deters has a long history with Mike DeWine and with his son, (Ohio Supreme Court Justice) Pat DeWine,’’ Walters said. “Joe Deters and the DeWines have been doing each other favors for a long time now.’’
Deters had to run against one of his colleagues if he wanted to be there for six years, Walters added.
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It had to be either Donnelly, who is white, or Stewart, who is Black.
“To me, the racial overtones of this are much easier to see,” Walters said.
Whatever the motivation, Deters is going to have his hands full explaining to Ohio voters why Melody Stewart, an accomplished and respected justice, needs to go.
After all, his much ridiculed written opinion in a recent case, where he declared that boneless chicken wings can have bones, did not add anything in the way of judicial gravitas to his resume.
