Commission: Judge ad ok

Sharon Coolidge reports:

Judicial ad OK


A member of the Ohio Elections Commission Thursday called 1st District Court of Appeals candidate Jim O’Reilly’s attack ad on opponent Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Patrick Dinkelacker misleading, but the four-member commission found no probable cause that the ads are false.

"We would have liked them to go further and we respectfully disagree with the final ruling, but we are very pleased with their comments that the ad is misleading," said Cincinnati Attorney Steve Goodin, who filed a complaint about the ad Tuesday.

O’Reilly said he pleased no probable cause to pull the ads was found.

"I feel very good that the Ohio Elections Commission, which is the state’s expert body on television campaign advertising, rejected all three of the arguments," O’Reilly said.

O’Reilly’s ad says Dinkelacker jailed a alleged rape victim, made an error that allowed Larry Flynt to go free and continue selling pornography in Hamilton County and prosecuted the only death penalty case commuted by Gov. Bob Taft.

Goodin argued that all three claims are false.

An Enquirer analysis of O’Reilly’s ad shows:

It’s dubious that Dinkelacker’s handling of the case allowed Flynt to continue to sell pornography. There’s no guarantee Flynt would have been convicted in 1999 - and it was the prosecutor who initially agreed to the deal.

Dinkelacker did jail a woman who alleged she was raped in 2003, after she failed to appear in court. But she later admitted she lied about parts of her story - testifying that she agreed to have sex with the defendant for $20. The man she accused was acquitted.

Taft granted clemency to Jerome Campbell, a man Dinkelacker helped put on death row. But the decision, made when he was an assistant prosecutor, had more to do with the DNA than the prosecution.