In her first year as Hamilton County prosecutor, Connie Pillich has decided controversial cases.
And she’s faced criticism for her decisions on several of them — from a neo-Nazi protest to officer-involved shootings and a 1995 capital murder case.
On Cincinnati Edition, we discuss those cases, the backlash she’s faced, and how she approaches politically charged issues.
A full transcript of this conversation is below.
Guest:
- Hamilton County Prosecutor Connie Pillich
Beginning at noon, call 513-419-7100 or email talk@wvxu.org to have your voice heard on this topic. You can catch a recorded replay at 8 p.m.
Subscribe to our podcast
This episode was transcribed using a combination of AI speech recognition and human editors and has been lightly edited for clarity. It may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print.
In her first year as Hamilton County Prosecutor, Connie Pillich has decided controversial cases, and she's faced some criticism for her decisions on several with some people expecting a different take from her as the first Democrat to hold the office in nearly a century. This is Cincinnati Edition on WVXU, I'm Lucy May. Hamilton County Prosecutor Connie Pillich joins me now to talk about her first year in office. Welcome back. As I mentioned, you've dealt with a lot of high profile and controversial cases over the past year. I want to start with your decision in December to dismiss the capital murder case against Elwood Jones. Why a dismissal and not a new trial? I know there was a lot of talk about new medical testing. What did that really show?
Connie Pillich: So this case has been in certain news outlets over the years. I was aware of that. I didn't read them. I might have skinned some. I heard there was a podcast. I've never seen it, not have I've never found it. I got some in from some correspondence from local community residents asked me to look into it, but, and I know people should, should feel free to contact me or tell me what they think that's important to me, but when I'm going to review something, I have to put all of those communications aside because I want to follow the law. I think that one of the reasons people elected me is because I've had a long reputation of trying to follow the law and trying to do these things with integrity. And so I approached this case as well. We had two appellate cases on Mr. Jones's case in 2025 one came out in, I want to say, September, the other one came out December 4, and both of them touched on some important, important legal technicalities that I thought were important for the future of Ohio and likely would affect every county prosecutor in the state. So before that time, I was not ready to make a decision on what to do with Elwood Jones. So when I decided it was time to start looking into this, this was early in September. I think it was so I gave my chief criminal prosecuting attorney the directive to dive, take a deep dive into the case. And I did the same. And what we found was that 30 years ago, a woman was brutally murdered, murdered in Blue Ash. And there was an investigation done when the trial came up and Elwood Jones was deemed to be the only suspect. There were a lot of pieces of information that were never disclosed to the defense, and when I found those in the file, those were later disclosed years after his conviction, when I found those and I saw a dozen witness statements that pointed to someone different, specifically someone white rather than a black man. There were other witness statements that pointed to a different black man, and these were people who knew Elwood, so that, to me, pointed to a lot of doubt. We also saw among within the case notes that the poor victim was given a hepatitis B test, found to have to have been tested positive, and they took Mr. Jones's blood and found a negative Hepatitis B test. That was about 10 days after the murder,
And she was, she was violently and brutally beaten, so there was a lot of blood at the scene, as I understand it, and this is a hotel room.
Connie Pillich: And Mr. Jones had, when they picked him up, he had a, according to the photos I saw, he had a big gash on the back of his hand, not on his knuckles, but on the very back of his hand, and from those pictures and seeing what the description of the attack was, those put a lot of doubt in my mind too. He even he said he cut his hand on a dumpster and it got infected, and he filed a worker's comp claim to get treatment for it, that some of the other questionable information was how he handled himself, according to the police interview notes and some of the case transcripts that we saw that I read through this to me was just so much doubt that I as the prosecutor. I'm not ethically allowed to bring a case where I don't think I can prove it. And given what happened here, the man spent 27 years on death row and at this point in his life, hoping he doesn't get executed. Given this kind of doubt, I think there was only one possible decision for me to make, and my chief criminal prosecutor, who did his independent dive into the case, came to the same conclusion. So when the both of us came to this conclusion, that was what made me convinced that we had to dismiss the case
And the medical testing that has been referred to so much in reports about this. That's the Hepatitis B discrepancy that you're talking about.
Connie Pillich: Yeah, and there were some, there was some expert testimony at the trial, but in the motion for a new hearing. So after the after the state, whoever the state is could have been the police could have been the prosecutor. Were deemed the same in this case. And after they turned over those nearly 4000 pages of documents, and the defense counsel started looking through these, they decided to test get some testimony from an expert, and so they got the I can't remember exactly his title, but he's the chief of blood tests at Wright State Medical School. So he's got great credentials. And in his opinion, that if there had been any connect, contact between the blood of the victim and that of Elwood with this large gash on his hand that he would have contracted hepatitis C. Pardon me, hepatitis B. Gotta say the right letter.
So former Prosecutor Joe Deters, who's now a Ohio Supreme Court Justice, has been very critical of your decision, and he argued in that the in the original trial, a medical expert for the defense said there was only a 33% chance of Elwood Jones had to contract Hepatitis B if he had committed the murder. Did that? Did you see that in the case you reviewed?
Connie Pillich: I think that was in the motion for a new trial. Yeah, I saw that too, and I understand that the Justice has a takes a lot of pride in the work he did when he was prosecutor, and he's good friends with the prosecutor who actually tried the case in the in the courtroom, but to to question my decisions, I thought was pretty unusual and actually probably absolutely unheard of in The entire history of of the criminal justice system in the United States. I did what I thought was correct. I used my judgment based on the evidence I was able to to read. I tried to do this with an open mind. And frankly, when I started to look at this case, I didn't know what I would decide. I decided to do it with a completely fresh set of eyes, and when someone's involved in the case, they they might not be able to do that with a fresh set of eyes. And this is certainly no no criticism of him, but I'm the prosecutor.
We got a question from Steve in Oakley. He writes Now that Mr. Jones's conviction is overturned, is this murder case considered a cold case requiring additional investigation.
Connie Pillich: Yes, it is because it excludes Elwood Jones as a suspect. And I know those are very difficult things for investigators. I know that they did some really good work based on the evidence I was able to review, on my review, but if we had turned over all these pages of notes, as the Supreme Court said in Brady v Maryland back in 1963 that we're obligated to do, then maybe we would have come to a resolution for the victim and her family long ago.
This had to have been painful for the family of Rhoda Nathan, the woman who was murdered in 1994 I know a son of hers told a local news station he disagrees with the decision. I wonder, did your office consult with the family when you were reviewing the case? And maybe you could talk to us about how your office works with fam that with families and victims of crime.
Connie Pillich: Well, the first thing we did was take a deep dive into the evidence, the transcripts, the court decisions, the things that we had, we can look at documents, photos and other types and reports. I did talk to both of her sons, and they had spent 30 years firmly believing in the results of the first trial, and I don't blame them for that. They should they should be able to trust the process. We want everyone to trust the process, but they were unaware of all the things that had not been disclosed that created such enormous doubt that. That I could not prove this case, and it was very I think it was hard for them, and I feel I've grieved for them, because their mother has never gotten justice. She didn't get it back in the 90s when the trial happened, and she still doesn't have it.
I'm talking with Hamilton County prosecutor Connie Pillich about her first year in office. Can you talk a little bit more about how your office interacts with victims and families of victims? I understand you've made some changes along those lines?
Connie Pillich: Well, we've done a few things, but just in general, when, when we go to take a case to court, I think your listeners should know that the overwhelming number of criminal cases are pled out by the defendant, and maybe six to 10% go to trial. And that's one of the reasons, is because usually the police do the right thing. And another reason is that defendants don't want to risk a large, longer sentence there, I can't read their minds, but this is my experience. But victims, we do consult with the victims before we before we offer or agree to any plea with the defense. But keep in mind that we have victims come in and testify, and we have a nice team of victim advocates. We just got funding to hire an additional one from our county budget. But one of the things we've done in my office, in my building, which is outside the main courthouse, we the grand jury convenes, and we have two grand juries at any time, and they they hear all the cases and a lot of the witnesses who testify the grand jury are police officers, but there are also victims or family members who witnessed the situation, and that is very, very hard. So we've done a couple of things. Besides hiring an additional victim's advocate, we also got a therapy dog. His name is Basil. He's seven months old, so he's just wonderful, and he's going to be very big dog, but he goes and visits the grand jury every day. Now keep in mind that you might read about two or three cases a week that are pretty rough, that the news has time to report about, but our grand jury hears 20 cases a day, sure, sometimes more trauma for them, yes, back to back. So having a dog come in and give them a little reprieve, it's a he's a little ray of sunshine that helps, helps them, but the dog is also available to our witnesses who are testifying. A second thing, we pardon me, a third thing we've done is we have found space on that same floor in our building to create a victim victim's waiting room. We're still awaiting a potential grant from the Attorney General to put the furniture in there, but we already have it stocked with toys and books and markers little teddy bears, and that's a safe and calm space away from the excitement of the grand jury waiting room for our victims to go and just wait for it to be their time, and that's particularly helpful for the victims who have children with them.
That is wonderful. We do have a caller on the line. Let's hear from Julia. Hi, Julia, thanks for calling. What's your question or comment?
Caller: Thank you. What a great show. Thank you so much. I really want to thank the prosecutor for taking the time to really look at this case. There are so many people in prisons that need to be exonerated because cases weren't handled correctly. So I know that I just really want to thank her for having the political will to look at this through another lens. And I don't know anything about this case, quite honestly, but it's refreshing to hear that we're not just trying to throw the book at someone to make sure that somebody is in jail for something, rather than making sure we have the right person. So thank you for that work. I appreciate that new lens.
I appreciate that call and that comment. Thanks.
Connie Pillich: Thanks from me too, Julia. It certainly took a lot of backbone to decide to review the case and then to realize the decision I needed to make. I do want to let you know that we hope to do more of this review in the future.
I'm going to interrupt you. I'm sorry. We got to take a quick break, and when we come back, we'll talk more about this, and also the fatal shooting of Ryan Hinton. This is Cincinnati Edition.
You're listening to Cincinnati Edition on WWVXU, I'm Lucy May. We're continuing our conversation with Hamilton County Prosecutor Connie pillage, about her first year in office. Prosecutor Pillich, I interrupted you before our break.
Connie Pillich: Our Conviction Integrity Unit, for which we got funding from the county in our budget, we will be starting our search for its director this week. The Conviction Integrity Unit will be a dedicated unit to review the types of cases such as Elwood Jones. So I want to make sure people know where I'm taking it very seriously.
Well, I appreciate that. I want to talk about another serious case that you've had to review, and that's the fatal shooting of Ryan Hinton this past May. Your office had to decide whether to pursue criminal charges against the police officer who fired the fatal shot. How did you reach your decision, and why didn't you send that case to a grand jury?
Connie Pillich: Well, that, of course, was a pretty volatile situation and caught the attention of the community, but what I did was I had to get all the information from Cincinnati Police Department, and then I painstakingly reviewed it with my chief criminal attorney to to go through and piece together what happened. But a key part of this was to thoroughly understand the law in situations such as this, and part of that law is to make sure you put in into the situation something we call a reasonable officer, and doing that and looking at all the evidence frame by frame, and just listening to the sound of the body worn camera led me to that conclusion. And look, we did a big press conference on this with 45 slides to let and audio to let the public know why I made this decision and how I got there, it wasn't willy nilly. It wasn't due to any kind of pressure. I decided when I got here I wouldn't listen to outside pressure, and I was just going to have the backbone to do what I think the law told me to do.
Did you consider sending it to a grand jury to get their input?
Connie Pillich: Well I couldn't, because I think some other prosecutors might do that in their counties. But my reading of our ethical obligations is that we can only send a case, we can only present a case to the grand jury that we believe a has probable cause and B that we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt at a jury trial.
Okay, well, and then, of course, Ryan Hinton's father, Rodney Hinton Jr, is accused of driving a car into a Hamilton County Sheriff's deputy and killing him. That was hours after Rodney Hinton Jr had seen the video of his son being shot fatally by police. There were questions around whether he would face the death penalty. T I know your office is no longer pursuing that. Can you explain briefly why?
Connie Pillich: Yeah, we initially got the death penalty from the grand jury. Is something we requested as time has gone on. He his attorney, requested evaluation for whether or not Mr. Hinton had serious mental pardon me, serious mental illness. And keep in mind, this law has only been in force in Ohio for about four years, so it's pretty new and not much tested. So what happened was the judge appointed a forensic psychologist. The defense got their own expert psychologist, and my office got our own expert psychologist, and all three of those agreed that Rodney Hinton Jr had a serious mental illness, which, by law, removes the death penalty from the potential sentence.
And I mentioned he had hours earlier, had reviewed this video that you looked at frame by frame by frame. I want to circle back to that was there one piece of evidence in that you reviewed that made you decide the officer was not at fault, or that there was no crime to charge the officer with?
Connie Pillich: Well, what I saw was the officer who did the shooting responded to the scene, and he ran with his hands open. We could see his hands in the body worn camera, no weapon in his hand, so he didn't expect to be coming in shooting with guns blazing. But we also saw that the young man, Ryan Hinton, had tripped in his desperate effort to get to escape. He dropped his gun. We saw the gun. We saw him pick up the gun. This is all on the various body worn cameras in the in the vicinity. And we heard the officers that were close to Ryan yell, gun, gun. And we also heard the officer who ultimately shot. We heard him say, oh, gun. And that's when he armed himself. And we could see that the the way in which Ryan was running, his gun was pointed to the side, which is where the pursuing officer was. I mean, there were a lot of things like that. And again, the it was, but it was the law that convinced me that I had to put a reasonable officer into this position and see what any reasonable, reasonable officer would have done. Yeah, it was hard. It was very hard, of course.
Sure. I want to talk about another case. Last February, there was a neo-Nazi protest on an I-75 overpass near Lincoln Heights, there were a lot of residents in Lincoln Heights who were hoping your office would pursue criminal charges against those protesters. You didn't. What were some of the possible charges you reviewed? Was there any evidence that these protesters broke any laws?
Connie Pillich: Well, keep in mind that my office is not an investigation place we rely on the local police force, and in this case, Evendale Police and the sheriffs, Hamilton County Sheriff to do the investigation, to pull together the evidence and to send it, to send it to us with a charging document. They did not do so. I know that even Dale got an independent expert to study what they you know, their response, and it was a pretty good report. And the Sheriff asked us to just look at some laws given the evidence that they presented to us. And this was what they presented to me, not what everybody took on their own cell phones, but we looked at a bunch of different things. I have a list here, disorderly conduct, inducing panic, Riot, ethnic intimidation, criminal damaging. There's a old, old anti mask law, advertising on a public highway, riding in the cargo storage area, protesting without a permit, parade and assemblage, which is an evendale ordinance and unlawful congregation on sidewalks. So that was also an evendale ordinance. We looked at those possible things and based on the evidence that was shared with us, we did not advise that they file a criminal complaint. Now keep in mind that this was a pretty high temperature situation. And to my knowledge, no one knows who these these protesters were, because they had masks on.
Do you think police followed protocol in that case?
Connie Pillich: I don't know specifically what the protocol in Evendale is, but I know they brought in that independent reviewer, and I thought that was a very smart thing to do. Keep in mind that these small suburbs, they have a good police force, but they don't usually encounter the stuff that happens in the city of Cincinnati, where we have excellent training and we have lot of more, lot more stuff happening. So. Hard to say. I'm not going to criticize them either way. They I think they tried to do the best they could. And if you know this case is still not dead, if someone wants to file a police report, we'll certainly look at it.
How do you think about your office's relationship with with the police generally, either when you're looking into officer involved shootings or, you know, protests, things like that? I ask because we had a law professor on yesterday, and he said he thinks prosecutors generally, not you specifically, but prosecutors generally, often show some deference to police officers, just because their offices work so closely with the police. And I was hoping to get your thoughts on that.
Connie Pillich: Well, I think you're right. We do work closely with the police. They present the charges, they come in and testify at court, because oftentimes they're the ones who have witnessed an offense, or they had they were the ones who investigated the offense, and like I said before, most of the time, police do the right thing, and that's why we have so few trials. I think it's also important that we make sure we communicate very strongly with the leadership. And my chief criminal prosecutor in my office used to work for the city of Cincinnati, and her job was to train Cincinnati police officers on their excessive use of force policy, and so she's got a fantastic grip on successful de escalation techniques, and we saw some of these employed through those nine officer involved shootings last year. And I think we always need to question everybody, because we're all human, but we also need to be aware that this humanity stems can impact an officer's response.
Okay, well, I want to talk about the Bengals, because after years of negotiating, Hamilton County and the team finally agreed on a new peg horse stadium lease. Was that a big win for your office? How tough was it to get that done?
Connie Pillich: I think it was a big win, not just for us, but also the county commission. But what we did is we gave the county commission the tools they needed to have a successful negotiation. It was my understanding that the negotiations were at a standstill. Nobody wanted to talk to each other. We had brought in this professional negotiator who had done these deals all over the country, knew the standards, knew it was acceptable, but we were having trouble getting him to be able to speak with the Bengals, and so we decided to recommend to the county commission that we change horses, if you will, and bring in fresh Council. And I think they got the the basic negotiations done in about six weeks. So I'm really pleased that that they were able to work a deal, and I know this deal is a lot better than what we had the last time, and I think we do have some people looking out for us on the commission.
Yeah. Well, one more question for you. Enquirer opinion editor Kevin Aldridge, who was also on our program yesterday, he's written that some of your decisions have been both legally defensible and politically radioactive. You've had to make some tough calls in some very heated situations, and he's raised the question of whether they've alienated some of the voters who made you the county prosecutor, the first Democrat to hold that office in nearly a century. I guess do you feel like the prosecutor's office is meant to be a partisan position. How do you think of that?
Connie Pillich: I would very much like it to not be a partisan position. I don't think there's anything partisan about having a safe street to walk on, or being able to drive your car without someone running into you, or being able to shop safely, or being being able to have stores that are open near you, that if there's nothing partisan about that, but it is a sea change. I mean, the idea that we that someone would bring a fresh set of eyes and look at cases like Elwood Jones and take the step to create a conviction integrity unit, while at the same time making the decisions I did on these nine officer involved shootings, but what when I when I campaigned and when I took this position, I really wanted to focus on integrity, and integrity, as you say, may be politically radioactive, and believe Me, I've gotten it from all sides, but also, I don't care. My job is to follow the law, and that's what I'm going to do. It's not going to bother me. I mean, I want people to be pleased with what I'm doing, but I'm the prosecutor. I have to act like a prosecutor, and that prosecutors should for. Follow the law. That's what people should expect the best from.
I've been talking with Hamilton County Prosecutor Connie Pillich. Thank you so much for your time today.