COLUMBUS, Ohio — Voters have some big decisions to make on March 19, including who will be the next Franklin County prosecutor. Three Democrats want their party's nomination. One Republican is running unopposed.
According to the Franklin County Prosecutor's website, the office handles more than 8,000 felony cases every year and is the legal advisor to all county officials, townships and agencies.
The winner in November will take over for Gary Tyack who is not running for re-election.
The three Democrats running are Shayla Favor, Natalia Harris and Anthony Pierson.
Favor is a current Columbus City Council member and former Columbus assistant city attorney.
Harris is the Delaware city attorney and a former prosecutor.
Anthony Pierson is the deputy chief legal counsel for the Franklin County Prosecutor's Office.
John Rutan is the lone Republican running. He has been a defense attorney for the past 13 years.
All four recently debated at Trinity Baptist Church in Columbus. They laid out their stances on several issues, including wrongful convictions and the obligations of being the prosecuting attorney.
"One way in which I believe we can restore that trust is not only through evaluating cases that have been wrongful conviction cases, but I'm also interested in exploring cases where this office has elected not to pursue charges as well," Favor said.
"Our obligation is to ensure that the guilty are held accountable, but also to ensure that innocent people are not found guilty and go to jail wrongfully." Harris said.
"We cannot have innocent people rot in prison," Pierson said. "That is not acceptable under any administration. So, I will make sure that office has all that it needs to make sure that we can look at every single file that comes in the door."
"All I care about is fair trials, not winning," Rutan said. "The problem is people treat it about winning. You win by presenting a fair trial."
The four candidates also discussed cash bail reform.
"When you're presumed innocent you should have all the opportunity in the world to get out and fight your case, but the moment you violate bail, you don't get out again." Rutan said. "The purpose of bail is to protect the public and secure your appearance," Rutan said. "That's it. Not to drain your resources, not to punish."
"It is not a pre-conviction type of penalty," Harris said. "And I think that when we think about, again, the historic injustices that our criminal justice system actually demonstrates to us, this is one of them. This is why we don't believe that the system is designed to help us. When you have people who actually implement the system perpetuating things that are against the fundamental principles upon which the system was based."
"In my opinion cash bail is the definition of an unjust, inequitable system," Favor said. "If 95% of crimes that are committed are non-violent and 80% of individuals currently sitting in jail are awaiting their day in court, I believe we need to have some hard and critical conversations about what bail reform will actually look like in our community," Favor said.
"I heard numbers about how much Ohio could save. Well, the big question to me is, can we still do it while keeping the community safe," Pierson said. "Bail reform; absolutely have to look at it. Very important, but we have to be very careful when we look at these policies that we don't make our community worse off from what it is right now."