Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley accused his challenger, Matthew Ahn, of not understanding what the prosecutor’s office can and cannot control. Ahn said O’Malley deflects responsibility for rising crime and other issues that have made Cuyahoga County an outlier in recent years.
In a heated debate at the City Club on Tuesday afternoon, the two candidates for Cuyahoga County prosecutor shared how they intend to address the death penalty, plea deals and diversion and rehabilitation. Signal Cleveland’s government reporter, Nick Castele, moderated the debate.
The candidates shared widely different perspectives on O’Malley’s seven years in office. He is seeking a third term.
O’Malley told the audience about ways he has worked with area law enforcement to reduce crime, divert people from jail, and offer youth programs to address root causes of crime. He mentioned, for example, the Crime Strategies Unit, where information is shared with investigators and analysts. His office is also working with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to open a new crime gun intelligence center in June, he said.
Here are some of the other questions the candidates answered Tuesday.
Q: Is the diversion center living up to its potential?
The Juvenile Court’s Early Intervention and Diversion Center and the Cuyahoga County Diversion Center for adults both opened under his leadership, O’Malley said.
Ahn said the diversion centers don’t go far enough to reduce the jail population or youth crime and recidivism.
He referenced the diversion center’s quarterly reports. From when it opened in 2021 through November 2023, only 117 people were taken to the center instead of being arrested, Ahn said. Most of the 1,500 people the center has served were referred without facing possible arrest, the report shows.
That was one topic they agreed on: The diversion center is not living up to its potential.
Ahn said he plans to expand diversion to keep out of jail people who shouldn’t be in there. O’Malley said he would like to see more law enforcement buy-in and officers using the center more often.
Q: Should the county ever seek the death penalty?
O’Malley offered some statistics. Since he became prosecutor, more than 1,400 homicide cases have gone through his office. About half were eligible for capital punishment. His office has sought the death penalty in six cases, and in five, jurors decided capital punishment should be imposed, O’Malley said.
“Very, very infrequently should capital punishment be sought,” O’Malley said. “It should only be the most egregious cases.”
Ahn countered that the death penalty cases O’Malley cited were enough for Cuyahoga County to lead the nation in death sentences between 2018 and 2021.
“Everybody else has realized that the death penalty is a policy failure on every level,” Ahn said.
The death penalty costs taxpayers more money than a life sentence, does not reduce the murder rate and is prone to error, Ahn said. There have been eight wrongful death sentences in Cuyahoga County, he added. (According to the Death Penalty Information Center, as of 2021 there had been six men wrongly convicted and sentenced to death in Cuyahoga County.)
“I will not seek the death penalty as your Cuyahoga County prosecutor because it does not keep our community safe and it does not make our community stronger,” Ahn said.
You can watch the full debate by clicking on the arrow below.
Q: Should the prosecutor’s office always push for a plea deal or should more cases go to trial?
Ahn said overcharging – or stacking a lot of charges against someone to force a plea deal – makes for an unfair playing field.
“This is one of the things that has led to a bunch of shaky convictions that don’t necessarily stand up on review,” Ahn said. “These are the kinds of things that lead our community not to have faith in our criminal justice system.”
Ahn committed to ending the practice of overcharging so that plea deals are made “with both parties negotiating in good faith.”
O’Malley called overcharging a “buzzword” and denied that his office engages in it.
He challenged Ahn to find one case that was overcharged. A few people at a table of community organizers responded to O’Malley’s question by raising their hands.
Q: How much do you think it’s your job to punish people versus rehabilitate them?
Both candidates agreed that the goal should be to rehabilitate people going through the criminal justice system.
Ahn said punishment should not be the goal, especially for children.
“It should be, how can we give them the tools to become productive adults in our society?” Ahn said.
He also pointed out that there should be greater enforcement of what he calls “crimes of power,” which include violence and sex crimes but also abuses of public office and wage theft.
O’Malley said the goal should be to try to reduce recidivism. He said it’s important that people who are incarcerated participate in programs inside prisons that help them re-enter their community once they’re released.
Voters will decide
The race will be decided on primary election day, March 19. Early voting is already underway. The election will determine who moves on to the general election in November as the endorsed Democratic candidate.
Read more about both candidates in Signal Cleveland’s voters guide.
