CINCINNATI — Hamilton County voters will decide a historic race on Election Day. For the first time in the county's history, a woman will be elected to serve as prosecutor.
Another significant weight hangs in the balance — whether voters will choose to flip the seat blue after nearly a century under Republican control.
Incumbent Prosecutor Melissa Powers has held the top position since 2023, appointed by the Hamilton County Republican Party when former prosecutor Joe Deters was appointed to the Ohio Supreme Court.
Powers wants to retain her seat, hoping to beat Democrat challenger and former state representative Connie Pillich.
Powers describes herself as a hometown girl, a mother, a grandmother and someone who loves Cincinnati. She served as an assistant prosecutor for Hamilton County from 1991 until 1998. She also spent 10 years as a Hamilton County Municipal Court judge before serving six years as a juvenile court judge.
Pillich is an Air Force veteran. She earned her MBA while on active duty before entering law school at UC, where Powers also studied law. Pillich started her own private practice, prosecuting civil cases. She also served as a public defender for some criminal felony cases.
She was elected to the Ohio State House in 2009, a legislative seat she held until 2014 when she unsuccessfully lost her bid for Ohio State Treasurer.
Why are they running?
Powers sat down with WCPO Friday to discuss her campaign. She said her top priority is public safety and she wants to ensure the Prosecutor is someone who understands the responsibility of the position.
"Our office is responsible for public safety. When a case is investigated and brought to us, then we take it and make sure that people are held accountable. We seek for justice. We're searching for the truth, and we want to make sure there's accountability when necessary," she said.
"That can be in many forms, whether it's being tough on violent criminals and making sure that they are not out in the community, they're behind bars so they can't hurt anyone else, or it may mean that we're providing second chances to strengthen our community, to get somebody out of the criminal justice system such as Mental Health Court, Drug Court, Veterans Treatment Court, our Change Court, providing services through probation, whether it's counseling — some form of accountability so they can become productive members of the community and be out of the criminal justice system."
WCPO posed the same question to Pillich. She said she decided to run because there is an abundance of illegal guns on the streets, too many shootings and violent crimes in the community and that the prosecutor's office, as it is currently structured, is not equipped to properly handle it all.
"Just in the last couple of years, well, a little bit less than two years, we saw the Enquirer report — five murder convictions tossed, and mostly because the prosecutor cheated, withheld evidence, used — they rewarded witnesses. There's even a finding of prosecutorial misconduct and that is really a blemish on the face of that office," Pillich said.
"And that's not just what we've read in the Enquirer. There was a rape case, a rape conviction that was reversed in April because the prosecutor didn't turn over evidence. It's happening all the time, and it's only because it's the same old playbook, the same old boys club that has been running this office for decades, and my opponent is just another face on that, complexion on that group."
If elected, Pillich said she has four plans of action: to train the county's lawyers, audit their casework, double down on ethics and "professionalize the office."
"There is no training program in that office right now. The city of Cincinnati has its own prosecutor's office. They have a six-week training program. Other prosecutor's offices in large counties that I've spoken with, they have between six and 12 weeks compared to nothing here. So our lawyers need to be trained in trial practice. They need to know how to pick a jury. They need to know the rules of evidence so they don't fail to disclose it again. They need to be trained in ethics and integrity, all the things that will make them be successful in the courtroom," she said.
"I'm going to create an ethics department, and we need one for two reasons. Number one, when these young attorneys are looking at their cases and they're weighing the evidence — 'Do I have to turn this over? Do I have to turn that over?' — They need a safe place to go to get proper legal advice, and that would be our ethics department."
Powers touted her successes over her 33-year legal career, calling back to 1997 when she traveled to Missouri to illicit a confession from a serial killer who, for 17 years, had not admitted to the fatal shooting of two Black teens in Bond Hill. Powers also pointed to her time as a judge when she helped form the county's first Veteran's Treatment Court and applied its model as a juvenile judge to develop the assessment center.
"Probation in juvenile court was a shotgun approach. Everybody goes to the same program. Now we are pinpointing what does this child need? And getting those services directly to the child. And if the family needs services as well, we're getting services to the family. We use state-of-the-art technology in order to develop that mental health assessment," she said. "And then I've had current successes here as the County Prosecutor."
"We might focus — when you're thinking of the most vulnerable, you're always thinking about children. There's a whole class of individuals that aren't considered and sometimes neglected, which is our seniors, of our elderly population in Hamilton County and I developed our first outer justice unit, so now I'm taking — we're not — the prosecutor's office is not just in the courtroom. We're also out into the community, doing outreach, preventing crime, strengthening and empowering our seniors to be able to identify the scams that are out there. There's so many of them, and how they can identify the red flags of a scam, how they cannot become a victim of a scam," she said.
Qualified or Unqualified?
Powers has stressed in her campaign that she is the more qualified candidate. Pillich has never served as a prosecutor, and she handled her final civil case in 2022.
"I see somebody that does not understand how things work in the office, has not been in a courtroom in over 20 years, has no never tried a felony case — excuse me — never tried a murder case, never handled a case in juvenile court. I believe that her inexperience makes her so unqualified that our community will fall apart," Powers said. "She's never been — she hasn't even had a law license as of two years ago, it concerns me, the experience gap, for the magnitude of this office you cannot — this is not an on-the-job, learning type of job. This is, you better know what you're doing from day one, because crime doesn't stop. It keeps moving."
Pillich pushed back on Powers' claim she's unfit for the position. She said where she lacks in prosecuting, she makes up for with her military-taught leadership skills.
"I think she's desperate," Pillich said. "She knows it's a tight race and that I have a stellar reputation as a lawyer and as a public servant, and she's trying to grasp at straws. Look, I have exactly the experience that this office needs because the prosecuting attorney is a leadership position. I guarantee you Melissa Powers has not tried a case since she became a prosecuting attorney. She's not tried a case since when she was appointed as a judge, I think in 2006, so she's calling the kettle black. But what I bring is leadership experience as a military officer. I have the best leadership training in the world. I have an MBA. I have ample trial experience — not just as a public defender handling felonies, but I had a private practice where I prosecuted cases in civil court to protect people's homes."
Message to Voters
At the end of their respective interviews, both candidates were asked to leave a final message for voters who have yet to cast their ballots.
"My final message to all the voters in Hamilton County is that I am the best choice — not only the best choice — I am the only choice to keep you and your family safe," Powers said. "If you had a loved one that has the unfortunate circumstance of being involved as a victim or of a crime, who do you want to handle that case? Someone like me with the experience that I have and the background that I have? Or do you want someone who hasn't tried a case in over 20 years, never handled a murder case?
"The highest degree of felony that she handled was a Felony 3. She didn't maintain her law license. She had an opportunity these past two years to pick up cases, go to the Public Defender's office, try to get back into the courtroom, and she never did," Powers continued. "What that tells me is that she's running on politics and for a job only that she's not qualified to do and she has no business doing if she gets elected. I fear for our county. I fear for the future of our county and I fear for the future of my children and my grandchildren, as much as I do yours."
"My final message would be to tell voters that I have done everything in my adult life to try to keep us safe, as an officer in the military, as a public defender, as a private practice attorney, helping people keep their homes and jobs, and as a state legislator, and I want to bring all those skills to the prosecutor's office so that we can be safe," Pillich said. "We have too many guns, too many shootings, too many violent crimes going unsolved, and I want to do everything I can to protect us and make sure that we live in a safer community.
"And I'd also like to say that what I bring to the table is what is reflective of what this community wants. This community does want. does not want a MAGA leader in that office. They don't want someone who doesn't come to work. They don't want someone who hangs around with Trump and his chosen acolytes. They want someone who's a part of the regular people, a part of the public, who's going to dedicate her life — as she has for a long, long time — to keeping us safe, and if that's what people want, then I'm their candidate."
Click on the videos below to hear more about the candidates' positions on abortion and the death penalty.
Powers' stances:
Pillich's stances:
