CINCINNATI — For a generation of Hamilton County residents, prosecutor Joe Deters was the face of law and order. After 25 years, Deters stepped down from the job Friday a day before he will be sworn in as Ohio’s newest Supreme Court justice.
By Friday morning, county facilities workers had already removed Deters’ name from the entry wall of the prosecutor’s office — to the horror of his staff members and the amusement of Deters.
But it’s unlikely Deters will be forgotten so quickly. He’s prosecuted five serial killers, overseen more than a thousand murder cases and elevated the voice of crime victims.
“I have no regrets. I have had the greatest ride of all time. And it’s because of the people here, they make me look so good,” Deters said. “I’ve been very blessed.”
Deters’ grandfather, longtime Sheriff Dan Tehan, steered him toward a life of public service. He remembers watching his grandfather swearing in from a courtroom jury box at age 7, with his cousins beside him.
“The judge that swore him in before he started the ceremony came over to talk to us and he said guys you know your grandfather could have chosen to make a lot of money, but he chose public service and don’t ever forget what an honor it is and what a service he’s done for this community,” Deters said. “It affected me a great deal.”
Deters began working in the prosecutor’s office while in law school at the University of Cincinnati, helping crime victims in court. That is where he developed his deep connection and sympathy for victims that led him to create a victim witness advocacy program in the office years later.
He became an assistant prosecutor in 1988. In those early years, Deters shared a small office and tried felony cases with Mark Piepmeier, who is now the acting prosecutor in charge of the office in Deters’ absence. The two became lifelong friends.
“A lot of times when we would try a case together in court, we would get fortune cookies and open them up and you had to use the fortune somewhere in the trial. You had to use it in a closing argument, you had to work it into a question. … you might just say man who wakes up with duck … so we would have bets like that in trial,” Piepmeier said.
Back then Deters would write down his courtroom arguments on legal pads. He met personally with the families of his crime victims, often multiple times.
After six years, Deters was elected to Hamilton County Clerk of Courts. In 1992, he returned to the prosecutor’s office when he was appointed and later elected to the top position.
In 1999, Deters left the prosecutor’s office for a stint as the Ohio Treasurer. He returned to the county’s top prosecutor job when he was elected as a write-in candidate in 2004. Voters re-elected him more four times.
Over the years, Deters became known as a tough talker who never shied away from controversy.
“If he knows what he’s doing is right, and thinks what he’s doing is right, he’s going to do it, he’s going to say it,” Piepmeier said. “If you don’t like it, we’re going to agree to disagree. But it doesn’t keep him up at night if there’s criticism of him in the paper or on the news.”
Deters said he never worried about public opinion or caved to criticism, even from the Vatican which did not approve of his stance on the death penalty and in a 2018 letter suggested that he go to confession.
“It didn’t bother Joe. He did not go to confession. He did not stop seeking the death penalty,” Piepmeier said.
While Deters said he showed no mercy to violent criminals, he was often empathetic for those who had drug addictions or made one-time mistakes on lesser crimes. He created diversion programs and several specialized courts such as drug court.
His willingness to help people earned him an unusual nickname in the prosecutor’s office.
“He won’t like that — but this is a copy of a T-shirt I bought for Joe once at our parish festival. There was a Mister Softee truck there,” Piepmeier said. “I started calling him Mister Softee because he really is, despite the very tough guy, hard guy approach, he really is a very soft-hearted individual. Tenacious in court, he really is. I mean he is a bulldog in court.”
Deters laughed off the nickname, “I will admit being more empathetic than other members of my staff.”
At age 65, Deters said it is the perfect time to leave the prosecutor’s office and start a new career as a Supreme Court justice. Gov. Mike DeWine appointed him to the bench last month.
The Hamilton County Republican Party’s Central Committee will tentatively vote on Deters’ successor on Jan. 19. Several sources tell WCPO that former county juvenile court judge Melissa Powers will be Deters’ replacement.
Here are excerpts from WCPO’s interview with Deters on Friday:
Q: What has been the evolution of crimes that you’ve seen from when you started until now?
A: It’s incredible, it’s exploded. And the most disturbing part is the juvenile crime. Last year we had 19 kids charged with murder. That was unheard of when I first started here. Because the juvenile laws are set up that deal with kids taking candy bars from a store, not somebody who kills three people. And that’s what we’re having now. Government’s not going to fix that. I mean that’s got to come from the community and the family saying – this is unacceptable. It’s unacceptable that the parents aren’t with their kids. They’re running around impregnating people left and right and they’re not taking care of their kids. There are no role models for these kids and they’re growing up rudderless. They have no direction. And it’s hard not to feel sorry for them. They don’t have a dad around. They’re being raised by their grandmothers. It’s pathetic.
Q: As you’re preparing to leave do you have a feeling like – I wish I had done more?
A: I can’t solve the world’s problems I can only do my little piece of the earth right now here. And I did my absolute best. We had a lot of cases where we got a lot of public outcry, outrage and anger, things like that. But I always knew in my heart that I did what I thought was right. I was here to enforce the laws of the state. Look there are prosecutors around the country who have decide that you know what, we’re not going to seek the death penalty. Well, I don’t care if you like the death penalty or not, I don’t have any great love of it, but it is the law. You are sworn to uphold that law.
Q: Have you had time to reflect on what your legacy is?
A: I hope it is that – it’s going to sound simplistic – that I was fair. That’s really one of the best compliments I could get. That I did my job, I was fair. But what I’m most proud of is what we've built here in this office. I don’t say this lightly because I’ve gone throughout the country and I know this for a fact – I think this is the best prosecutor’s office in the country. I don’t know any office that treats violent crime like we do, takes care of their victims the way that we do. We don’t do this on our own. Cincinnati homicide is incredibly good.
Q: Was the decision not to prosecute former University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing a third time (after two hung juries) for the killing of motorist Sam Dubose one of the hardest decisions you had to make?
A: It was consistent with the policy of this office. We would talk to the jurors. If we had a vote to convict, we would retry them. If we didn’t, we would not retry them, and that’s on any case. And in the first case we had a solid majority to convict him. Two other assistants tried the case the second time and they did not have a majority to convict him. And I’ve been consistent on that – if we don’t have a majority to convict, we’re not going to retry the case.
Q: Was there a case that was harder for you than the Ray Tensing case?
A: It depends on your definition of being hard.
Q: I mean that kept you up at night. You’ve tried some really brutal cases.
A: There are cases that haunt me. There are cases I think about. I think about Casonya Crawford and Esme Kenney. I think about them a lot. I think about Shannon Marks a lot. I think about Marcus Fiesel a lot. They are difficult to deal with, but you get such incredible satisfaction from being able to deliver some form of justice to those families, that it more than compensates for the whole thing.
Note: Rayshawn Johnson is serving a life sentence after his death penalty was overturned for the 1997 murder of Marks. Anthony Kirkland is on death row after his conviction for several murders, including 13-year-old Kenney in 2009 and 14-year-old Crawford in 2006. Three-year-old Fiesel was bound in a blanket with packing tape and left to die in a closet by his foster parents, who Deters helped put in prison in 2007 along with Clermont County prosecutors.
Q: You've been outspoken your entire career and the things you've said from that podium have at times been very controversial. As you look back, would you have walked anything back a little bit?
A: No I’d probably double down now. I think people sense that when I speak, I’m speaking from my heart. I don’t have much of a filter and I detest politicians that are poll driven. If you can’t get elected believing what you believe, why do you want to be elected?
Q: How do you feel about leaving your office and your prosecutors and everything that you built there?
A: This is the perfect time. Look I’m 65 years old. I’m not going to be here 20 years so I’m going to depart at some point. Isn’t it best that I depart when the office is in great shape? When we have someone who is willing to come in, who I believe exhibits the same values that this office has, and can carry out that mission … and look, I’m not dead. I’m going to be on the Supreme Court and I’m going to be bringing a perspective to that court that they haven’t had. … I’ve tried a lot of cases. I’ve tried a lot of murder cases. I’ve tried a lot of death penalty cases and I think I’m going to be learning a lot. These people are very smart on this court, much smarter than I am. But I have experience that a lot of them don’t have.
CINCINNATI. July 23, 2018. Anthony Kirkland is led into the courtroom of Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Patrick Dinkelacker.
Q: How did you feel when the Ohio Supreme Court reversed your cases?
A: Many times, I was so frustrated because, this is my personal opinion, I felt that they didn’t like the death penalty on occasion, depending on the mix of the court. And they sought some imaginary error to cause it to be retried. They just don’t understand the impact of that … If you want to end the death penalty run for governor. Don’t do it from the bench. And I’m not going to do that from the bench. These judges, these trial judges, they’re in the trenches every day. They know what they’re doing. And to second guess these judges like this because you don’t like a particular statute, I think that’s just wrong. That’s not your role.
Q: When you are a Supreme Court justice will you speak as freely as you do now?
A: I hope I don’t (laughing). I think I’ll probably be more measured but I’m not going to hide my feelings on separation of powers and our roles as judges.
