CINCINNATI — It’s been two months since Melissa Powers took over as Hamilton County’s top prosecutor, moving into the same office that her brash, larger-than-life predecessor Joe Deters occupied for a generation.
Her demeanor may be quieter and more precise, but her opinions are just as strong.
“This office can never fall into the hands … of somebody who is soft on crime,” Powers said. “I strongly believe we would see decline, decay, businesses leaving, the real estate market and the value of your home going down because people are going to flee Cincinnati and Hamilton County … and we could turn into a Baltimore, a Saint Louis.”
The county's Republican Party tapped Powers to take over for Deters, when Gov. Mike DeWine appointed him to the Ohio Supreme Court. The GOP hopes she can preserve this prestigious stronghold office in the 2024 election against a rising tide of blue voters.
Like urban areas across Ohio, Democrats now control the vast majority of elected power in Cincinnati and Hamilton County after picking off seats that were once controlled by Republicans in each election cycle.
“I think she's absolutely campaigning now in every way, in every interview she grants, in every press release she sends out,” said University of Cincinnati political science professor David Niven. “The Hamilton County prosecutor's office could be one of the biggest races in the state.”
That is especially true if Powers faces a high-profile Democratic challenger. Former Mayor John Cranley said he’s definitely thinking about running for the office.
This race could get national attention and draw outside money for advertising, and Niven said both sides would easily raise “seven figures,” in their campaign coffers.
“I think we've seen in the last couple of years increasing national interest in the outcome of prosecutors' races, from both sides because frankly, there's just so much at stake,” Niven said. “A prosecutor's office is one of the most powerful jobs in all of American politics.”
Nowadays its not just about keeping a community safe. Prosecutors must weigh in on societal issues such as the death penalty, criminal justice reform and reproductive rights.
Powers certainly has the experience for the job with a courthouse career as trial prosecutor, lawyer in private practice, and as a judge in juvenile and municipal courts.
As a young prosecutor in 1997, she got a man who was on death row in St. Louis to confess to two unsolved murders of teenage boys in Cincinnati and four killings in other states.
“My experience with Joseph Paul Franklin was a little bit like the movie Silence of the Lambs,” Powers said. “I believed in my heart when meeting with him, I was speaking with someone the devil was working through.”
Franklin was a white supremacist serial killer who was executed by lethal injection in Missouri in 2013. The confessions Power obtained brought closure to victims families and exonerated a West Virginia man who had been convicted in two of the killings.
But Powers doesn't just have an incredible story to woo voters with. As a judge, she's already proven that she can win countywide races. Although this prosecutor’s race will likely be much harder, Niven said.
“She's never actually had to run in what was fully and openly a partisan race, and she's never had to run in what is now a blue county,” Niven said. “One of the things that's going to be very new to her is having to raise a boatload of money… It's going to be a very expensive race.”
Powers points out that she did win against a well-known Democratic opponent in a 2016 countywide race for juvenile court judge.
To those who don't know her, Powers has a high-profile pulpit to introduce herself through news conferences and prosecutions over the next year and a half.
“I’ve hit the ground running. This is a job that you don’t get training on the job. You better know what you’re doing,” Powers said. “It’s a huge responsibility.”
The University of Cincinnati's Professor David Niven discusses the upcoming Presidential election with his class on Monday Oct. 31, 2016. Phil Didion | WCPO Contributor
In two months, Powers has already held two major news conferences about a shooting near the home of Bengals running back Joe Mixon that left a teen wounded, and after a Wyoming police officer shot and killed a man suspected of burglary.
While Powers has some natural advantages in the 2024 election, Niven said she also faces challenges that are outside of her control. For example, whoever is chosen as the Republican presidential nominee could dramatically impact voter turnout in local races for better or worse.
She will also have to win over some Democratic voters, Niven said.
“Joe Deters would not have stayed in the prosecutor's office without the ability to reach beyond his party and get some votes to stay there,” Niven said. “The bottom line is you cannot be the prosecutor of Hamilton County on Republican votes alone.”
Name recognition and a strong brand kept Deters in office for 25 years, although by shrinking margins. A similar scenario occurred in the Franklin County prosecutor’s office, Niven said, which stayed Republican until longtime incumbent Ron O’Brien lost his bid for a seventh term in 2020 to Democratic retired judge Gary Tyack.
"He (Deters) had all of the advantages of incumbency and his personal name, and he saw his vote totals shrink and shrink and he had to fight harder and harder,” in recent elections, Niven said. “That's really the story of what Melissa Powers is up against.”
For her part, Powers acknowledges that she faces a difficult election in 2024.
“But it’s an election that I think I will win. I’m confident that no one will outwork me as a candidate,” Powers said. “Politics don’t really factor into when it comes to public safety, so I think it transcends whether you identify as a Democrat or as a Republican.”
Powers said she is carrying on the office mission of focusing on violent criminals and repeat offenders, while prioritizing victims.
“Help those that you can help, give them a second chance,” said Powers, who created in 2012 the first Hamilton County Municipal Veterans Treatment Court, and advocates for drug and mental health court, and probation, when appropriate.
But she draws a hard line when it comes to violent criminals. Her office isn’t afraid to call out judges on social media who give low bonds and ignore the objections of prosecutors.
“The violent offenders, anybody that’s using a gun to commit an offense, and I’m talking about an adult or juvenile, you cannot let them out into the community. It just can’t be done,” she said. “If they have a gun, they intend to use it and there’s a strong likelihood that they will.”
The standard playbook when a Republican is running against a Democrat for prosecutor these days, Niven said, is to “paint the Democrat as soft on crime,” which may be tricky in a county where the sheriff and coroner are both Democrats, as well as all three county commissioners.
“That’s a tough sell in a Democratic County to an audience of voters who’ve chosen to live in urban America,” Niven said. “This would be a heck of a lot easier sell if she could win this office on Warren County voters or Butler County voters.”
Local Republicans also face pressure to answer for controversial decisions and comments that may be made by state and national GOP leaders, Niven said.
“Democrats can very easily point to issue after issue, including reproductive rights, where the vast majority of voters are aligned with what Democrats think on the issue, and Republican prosecutors are confronted with that,” Niven said. “We could easily, as the abortion issue plays out, be in a situation … where prosecutor's offices are making decisions about prosecuting folks who are making healthcare decisions.”
Powers said the law will guide her decisions, including on the death penalty and abortion.
“To date, the Hamilton County prosecutor’s office has not prosecuted anyone under the current abortion statute. If a case were to be presented to us, we would evaluate the evidence like any other crime and prosecute, if appropriate,” she wrote in a statement to WCPO. “We undermine our entire system of government when elected officials allow their personal beliefs to interfere with their sworn duties. Any issues with the law as it relates to abortion are appropriately directed at the state legislature.”
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