On Thursday at The Depot in downtown Ironton, candidate for the Ohio Supreme Court Dan Hawkins stopped in to make a pitch to his fellow Republicans on why he should get their vote for the state’s top court.
He graduated from Bowling Green State University and got his law degree from The Ohio State Law School.
Hawkins has been a Franklin County Common Pleas judge for the past 11 years and before that he was the Franklin County prosecutor for 13 years and spent 10 of those 13 years as the head of the Special Victims Unit, “like the TV show” and prosecuted cases of human trafficking, sexual assault and homicides.
“The worst of the worst cases,” he said.
He said it was a pretty seamless transition from prosecutor to judge since he spent so much of his career in the courtroom already.
“It was different being on the bench because I was the one making the decisions, but I already knew the rules of evidence and trial procedures,” Hawkins said. “I think my years as prosecutor really helped when I took the bench.”
He said what he would bring to the bench of the Ohio Supreme Court is the fact that he is a younger candidate.
“After you reach the age of 70, you can’t run for election. I am 48 years old, so if I am elected, I would be able to serve on the court for up to 20 years and bring some long-term stability to the court,” Hawkins said. “My experience as a prosecutor and a judge, especially at the trial court level,” would be helpful to the Supreme Court. Being on the front lines of our court systems for the past 23 years would be helpful perspective at the state’s highest court.”
As for his judicial philosophy, Hawkins said he is an original textualist in the mold of U.S. Supreme Court justices of Anthony Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
“Judges who aren’t activists, who don’t legislate from the bench. Justices who follow the plain language of the law as it is written and apply the law to the facts of the case,” he explained, adding he doesn’t put his personal politics or beliefs in the case. “I base the decisions on the law, not be an activist judge and not try to determine a case ahead of time.”
He said the Ohio Supreme Court will have a lot of big cases before it in the coming years, citing such issues as voting districts issues, criminal procedures, death penalty cases and issues that citizens face such as electricity rates and when a small business could face a lawsuit.
“The Supreme Court has the final say in what the law in Ohio is and what the Constitution means,” Hawkins said.