Cuyahoga County residents have a unique opportunity to make a meaningful choice in the upcoming Democratic primary for county prosecutor. Around the country, prosecutor races are rarely contested. Current prosecutor Michael O’Malley, first elected in 2016, ran unopposed in the primary in 2020. In Cuyahoga County, the Democratic primary is essentially the general election. Given the challenge from CSU Law visiting professor Matthew Ahn, this primary election season has produced a robust and at times contentious dialogue between the two candidates.
What is your 30-second elevator pitch for why voters should choose you in the primary?
Ahn: I’m fed up with the outcomes we’re seeing out of the criminal justice system here. Cuyahoga County is the worst in the state on trying children as adults and wrongful convictions; the worst in the country on the death penalty. These are the kinds of things that the data and research tell us don’t actually make us safe. I believe that the office needs a restructuring and an overhaul so that it’s actually geared toward those things proven to make our communities safer and make the system fairer, all at the same time.
O’Malley: It’s about experience, leadership, philosophy. My philosophy is trying to rehabilitate low-level offenders and also trying to keep the community safe.
What do you view as the greatest challenge currently facing the prosecutor’s office?
O’Malley: I think doing deep work with the families of juvenile offenders trying to get these violent juveniles on the right path. [In 2023, 41 juveniles were charged with homicide – a record – topping 35 in 2022 and 21 in 2021.] The reality is in Cleveland now, there’s no proactive policing going in. We don’t have enough police on the force, the federal consent decree… if there’s no proactive policing going on, guns aren’t being taken off the streets.
Ahn: A crisis of leadership. The way the elected prosecutor has reacted to meaningful critique demonstrates that this is not the person we want setting policy in terms of our public safety and exercising the kind of discretion and restraint in judgment that is required from a prosecutor’s office to really do justice…. One of the things we’re seeing is a rise in serious juvenile crime, and I think that has a lot to do with how the prosecutor’s office is structured. Juvenile units have some permanent attorneys, but they’re almost all geared toward the most serious juvenile crimes. In other words, they’re reacting to the serious crimes that have already happened, rather than implementing measures to prevent those crimes.
What distinguishes you from your opponent?
Ahn: I’ve spent my entire career really trying to make data-driven and research-based arguments. These are the kinds of experiences we actually want from our leaders. We want someone who understands what they don’t know, who is willing to adjust their expectations based on new information and is willing to make the data their starting point. That includes not just statistics but people’s individual experiences. That is accompanied by the kind of policy thoughtfulness and sensitivity that a prosecutor’s office really needs to make sure they are getting the balance right in any individual case between what we see as necessary punishment and the resources and tools someone may need so that they do not return to the system again. My understanding of how to better manage an office and give subordinates ownership over their work and motivate them to do the best job that they can, and understanding that that will improve outcomes in the prosecutor’s office.
O’Malley: Experience. Mr. Ahn got his Ohio license in 2022. He’s never had a case in a state or municipal court in Ohio. I have an office of 400 people, 230 lawyers; a great deal of my job is managing people and the issues that come forth daily. Matt managed six interns remotely during COVID…. Matt pushes forward some extreme views, including abolishing the police, which I think is inconsistent with the role of county prosecutor. My job goes beyond buzz words; it’s beyond a 10,000 foot level. We are every day on the ground on all these different issues, working for the public. You have to put your time in, learn, and really in a serious manner, with experience, and then choose the right path. It should call people to question his credibility.
What do you think the prosecutor’s office is currently handling well?
Ahn: There is a self-defense committee that reviews self-defense claims earlier in the life cycle of the case. And that is one thing that I’ve been looking to in general – let’s talk about some of these complexities and nuances in the law at the outset of the case rather than on the eve of trial. Let’s make sure we’re not needlessly prolonging a case that doesn’t need to be in Common Pleas Court in the first place.
There seems to be an ideological struggle between protecting public safety and working to reduce the jail population and racial/economic disparities. How do you view this struggle?
O’Malley: I think you can do both. Under my tenure, we established an early intervention and diversion center for juveniles. In 2020, we opened a diversion center for adults with substance abuse and mental health issues to keep them out of the county jail. When I took over in 2017, we had 2200 people in the county jail. We are hovering around 1450. We use ankle monitors much more; we have 600 people out currently awaiting pretrial.
Ahn: The data and the research tell us that the thing to do to reduce racial disparities and improve public safety are the same thing. If somebody without a lengthy criminal record spends even four days in jail, they are 50% more likely to commit another crime in the next 18 months. Four days in jail, you’re likely to lose your job, your housing is now at risk, custody of your family members is now at risk… even these short jail stays destabilize our communities more than they promote public safety. Low-level nonviolent offenders are not a threat to our public safety. These false comparisons between racial justice and public safety are just not true, at every stage in the criminal case. We’re creating more repeat offenders because we’re not giving people resources, we’re pushing them into the system.
What are your views on the Cuyahoga County Jail?
Ahn: I’ve testified numerous times in front of county council about this Garfield Heights site, including my concern about separating the jail from the rest of the justice center. It will lead to a number of logistical issues and ongoing costs that have not been addressed by county government. A replacement jail should remain downtown. If we need 130-140 vehicles for transporting inmates, that is an ongoing cost of millions of dollars a year.
O’Malley: It’s rare anymore that jails are connected to courthouses. I would prefer it stayed that way, but we have to provide a better environment for the detainees. We can’t rip a facility down and construct it on the same site.
What do you view as the role of the Conviction Integrity Unit?1
O’Malley: We’ll always have a conviction integrity unit, but compared to what we do on a daily basis…we have 11-12,000 criminal cases a year, 3000 juvenile cases a year, 2000 tax foreclosure cases a year… If we have 10 wrongful conviction applications a year… There was a surge at the beginning, but you’re slowly starting to see a decrease. Many of the claims were based on Brady violations, and with open discovery, you’re just not seeing those anymore.
Ahn: We need to restore and strengthen that unit. We need to make sure the unit is functioning well. A number of these cases have been sitting in front of the unit for a while. We’ve also seen the prosecutor overrule the decision of that unit. If that’s going to be the way it works, it’s not functioning. We have a long history of prosecutorial misconduct, particularly Brady violations. One of the barriers is that folks who are incarcerated simply don’t have the resources to obtain their file, and that should not be the barrier to getting things right. At least one person on that external board should be a formerly incarcerated person.
Pretrial detention:
Ahn: This is where the prosecutor’s office has the most input in the day-to-day administration of the jail because a lot of this is set by the bail and bond decision made at arraignment. Cuyahoga County is still using an outdated cash bail system that has nothing to do with public safety. We have dozens of people in the county jail who cannot afford a very low bond amount. I’ve committed to stop asking for cash bail entirely. Either someone is a threat to the community and a flight risk, or they’re not, and they should be released with whatever conditions can ensure the safety of the community.
O’Malley: I enacted a policy that unless there is a flight risk or risk to the victim, we never object to the bond commissioner’s [bond] recommendation for the defendant.
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