January, 2006

2005 was a year of transition. It included my decision to leave the private practice of law and become a full time prosecutor and the retiring of Michael F. Boller from the prosecutor’s office.

Mike Boller was elected Shelby County Prosecutor in 1980, taking office in January, 1981. He was elected to successive terms in 1984 and 1988. With the 1992 election year he did not seek reelection as the county prosecutor, but continued to serve as an assistant prosecutor until his retirement in July, 2005.

Mike served the county well during his twenty four years. As prosecutor he worked with the County Commissioners on many complex legal issues including, of note, the problems of zoning, financing and constructing the “new” county jail. In 1985 in the first capital murder case in Shelby County in decades he successfully prosecuted Donnie Spradlin for the robbery and murder of Sidney doctor Homer Cargill. During his years as an assistant prosecutor Mike was responsible for the complex litigation and appellate divisions of the prosecutor’s office handling every federal court case filed against Shelby County and its office holders during that time. He also admirably represented the County in every Court of Appeals and Ohio Supreme Court case filed during his tenure as assistant prosecutor. His many years of experience and keen intellect will be missed.

Ohio law provides that in counties the size of Shelby County, the prosecutor may elect to either engage in the private practice of law and serve “part time” as prosecutor or not engage in the private practice and be a “full time” prosecutor. For the first three terms as prosecutor I elected to continue to maintain the private practice I had developed since moving to Shelby County in 1975. However, with the start of the 2005 term it became apparent that the increasing complexities and volume of workload required that I leave private practice to be a full time prosecutor. I made that decision with some reluctance because I truly enjoyed assisting individuals and families with their legal matters and problems.

With the economic difficulties of the county I have tried to accomplish the duties of the office with reduced staff. Not only did Mike Boller retire, but Assistant Prosecutor Ann Leistner left my office for a job as an assistant prosecutor in Montgomery County and our receptionist also left for other employment. None of those employees have been replaced. Rather, I have reassigned responsibilities to remaining staff to shoulder that load.

The most public area of the Prosecutor’s responsibilities is, of course, criminal prosecution. In 2005 352 cases were presented to me for felony prosecution. Of those, 317 resulted in felony indictment. Almost one third of those cases were drug related. There were 110 drug cases including trafficking in drugs, drug possession, deception to obtain drugs, and even two meth lab cases. Another third of the cases were theft offenses. There were 135 cases of theft, fraud, passing bad checks, robbery, and burglary.

Other areas of note included 13 non support cases, 11 assault cases, 9 OVI(DUI) cases and 8 sex related offenses.

Assistant Prosecutor Tom Kerrigan II continues to handle county tax collections as well as represent county school boards. Assistant Prosecutor Duane Goettemoeller is assigned to Children Services cases and federal bankruptcy court. Assistant Prosecutor Heath Hegemann is the juvenile court prosecutor. He is responsible for delinquency, unruly, truancy, and traffic charges filed in juvenile court.

Jeff Beigel is in charge of felony cases at the municipal court level. In addition with the retirement of Mike Boller, Jeff was assigned the responsibility of advising the county on personnel and civil service issues as well as assisting me on civil cases filed against the county.

I am pleased to report another successful year in representing the County, its elected officials and citizens.

Shelby Prosecuting Attorney

James F. Stevenson