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Incumbents Stratton and O'Connor have performed well on state's highest court
Their combined legal and public-service experience is an asset that should be preserved on the court.
• Justice Evelyn Lundberg Stratton's public-sector career began as a judge on the Franklin County Common Pleas Court from 1989 through March 1996, when she was appointed by Gov. George V. Voinovich to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Craig Wright. She was elected to a full term in November 1996 and has served since.
As a trial-court judge, Stratton became aware of how mental illness is often a factor in crime. This impelled her to educate herself on the issue and to champion the development of special courts to handle such cases, putting such offenders into programs that could help keep them out of jail. Thanks to her efforts, as of June, 28 counties in Ohio had mental-health courts and several more counties were planning to adopt them. Stratton is a national authority on the issue.
• Justice Maureen O'Connor became a magistrate for the Summit County Probate Court in 1985, where she served for eight years before being elected as a Summit County Common Pleas Court judge. She's pro-law-enforcement, having served in the mid-1990s as Summit County prosecutor and then taking over in 1999 as lieutenant governor and director of the Ohio Department of Public Safety under Gov. Bob Taft. She was elected to the Ohio Supreme Court in 2002.
She's been working on a court-security task force. Currently, the 88 county courthouses run the gamut of security configurations and rules, and sometimes courts share their buildings with other offices. The task force educates county court personnel about security issues and makes on-site visits to provide recommendations.
Overall, both justices have demonstrated the judicial restraint that should characterize members of a state's high court -- with two notable exceptions.
The first was a 7-0 ruling in 2005 that sealed the addresses of public employees -- information that previously had been public. These addresses had frequently helped in investigations of malfeasance by public employees. There was no compelling justification for closing the records.
The second was a 2006 ruling granting the governor the power to withhold from the public his written communications with his lieutenants. Neither the Ohio Constitution nor the legislature gives the governor such a right to shield the functions of his office.
The Dispatch hopes that these rulings are anomalies and that both justices will defend public access to the operations of government in future decisions.
The Dispatch urges voters to retain both Stratton and O'Connor on the high court.
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