Commissioners name five to county public defender commission

Lorain County commissioners on Friday named their five-member public defender commission on Friday to study the idea of a taxpayer-funded public defender's office in the county. After months of discussion and false starts in December and January, county commissioners voted unanimously to appoint Mark Ballard, Elyria Municipal Judge Gary Bennett, Aden Fogel, Brian Lee and Zach Simonoff to the commission. County commissioners, who by law had three appointments, selected Ballard, Lee and Fogel. Ballard will serve as chairman. Bennett and Simonoff were selected for appointment by Judge Chris Cook, presiding judge of Lorain County Common Pleas Court. State law says he gets two. Bennett is one of two sitting judges on Elyria Municipal Court. Simonoff is a longtime defense attorney who is married to Lorain County Domestic Relations/Juvenile Judge Lisa Swenski. Ballard is a member of the Lorain Schools Board of Education and businessman. Lee is an attorney who was appointed last year to replace newly elected Commissioner Marty Gallagher on the Lorain County Port Authority Board of Directors. Fogel is Sheffield Lake's Ward 3 councilman. He also has five felony convictions on his record in Lorain County. "Our communities are not being represented fairly," county Commissioner David Moore said Friday. "We feel a public defender's office is needed." Speaking at the county commissioners meeting, Moore said the choice of Fogel might shock some people. Fogel has been a longtime and frequent public critic of both Moore and county Commissioner Jeff Riddell. He has called Moore and Riddell "pathetic," "would-be dictators" and "tyrants" to their faces and accused Riddell of being Moore's "puppet." Moore said Friday said he and Fogel have had some "heated discussions in public and behind the scenes." But on the matter of a county public defender's office, Moore said Fogel had "interesting cases and documentation of people within the system that are not being represented properly." "And I thought maybe his addition would be a good addition to have to those discussions," Moore said. Moore said he thought Simonoff, who has publicly opposed the idea of a public defender's office, would be "a good addition." That way there are "some people who are for it and some people who are not for it" having discussions with each other, he said. Moore said the commission appointed Friday would meet at least quarterly, then report back to the county commissioners who would decide whether or not move forward with the plan. The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to an attorney for those accused of a crime. If they can't afford one, one is provided for them. Currently, to fulfill constitutional requirements, Lorain County judges appoint private attorneys for indigent defendants and Lorain County bears the cost. The county is then reimbursed at a rate set by the Ohio Public Defender's Office. When that doesn't cover the entire cost, Lorain County picks up the rest of the bill. Moore said last year that Lorain County paid 72 criminal defense attorneys a total of $3.8 million for indigent defense in 2024 and that he wants to know if a public defender's office would be cheaper in the long run. Moore last year cited a study out of Southern Methodist University that said public defenders equal lower rates of pretrial detention for criminal defendants, a higher rate of dismissed cases, less time for cases to get through court and fewer continuances and delays. Critics of the plan say it wouldn't eliminate the need for court-appointed attorneys in complicated cases, death penalty cases that require special training and certification, and cases with ethical concerns or multiple defendants. A public defender's office also would have to have parity with the county Prosecutor's Office, meaning more county employees earning taxpayer-funded salaries and benefits. State law also limits how many cases an individual public defender can handle each year, critics of the plan have said. Lorain County was repaid 100 percent of indigent defense as recently as 2021 and was reimbursed the vast majority of the $3.8 million it spent in 2024. There are dedicated public defender offices in 26 of Ohio's 88 counties. The newest to be created was in Delaware County in 2020. Medina County eliminated its public defender's office in 2021 and went back to all court-appointed counsel. County commissioners there said having a public defender's office was too expensive. Contact Dave O'Brien at (440) 329-7129 or dobrien@chroniclet.com.