Tag Archives: Ohio

Voter vs Ohio County Board Choosing Primary Substitute in a Closed Meeting

26 Oct

Can a county Board of Elections choose a substitute candidate in a closed meeting? This was the central question in The State ex rel. Koebel v. Erie County Board of Elections et al debated in the Ohio Supreme Court. It was filed by a voter who demanded the removal of a Republican replacement candidate from the shortly forthcoming November 2026 general election ballot. While the court agreed this voter’s claims had legal standing, they objected that his 25-day delay in filing this lawsuit meant that they were now beyond the point when ballots could be changed without extremely wasteful costs. Overseas and military ballots had already been mailed starting on September 18. And rewriting and reprinting 36,450 physical ballots was deemed to be too costly.

Events began on August 4, when D.J. Swearingen won the Republican primary but then withdrew from the general election. On August 10, a Republican Party district committee met behind closed doors and chose Caleb Stidham as their replacement nominee. The filer of this lawsuit is a regular voter, Carl Koebel, who tried to gain entry to this meeting, but was denied entry. Koebel has argued that the closure of this meeting to the public meant this committee took upon themselves to perform an illegal (by Ohio’s Open Meetings Act) sovereign governmental function. Then, on August 20, the Erie County Board of Elections reached a 2-2 tie to certify Stidham that had to be broken by Secretary of State Frank LaRose in favor of Stidham’s certification. Koebel’s petition for removal was filed on September 14.

The outcome of Koebel’s filing was that the court reaffirmed the Ohio precedent that any voter has a beneficial interest to sue an election board to force their performance of statutory duties. However, Koebel’s delay invalidated the filing, meaning the court did not have to decide on if the nomination violated the Open Meetings rule. A minority of judges—Justice Brunner and Chief Justice Kennedy—had wanted to vote on the merits despite the tardiness.

According to Ohio’s procedural rules, when a nominee withdraws, the replacement is made by a district committee made up of county party leaders. Political parties are private organizations that can hold closed meetings to choose a replacement candidate. An exception has developed in Ohio after Jones v. Geauga County Republican Party Central Committee (2017) that decided that whenever a private party meets to fill a public government vacancy it is performing a “sovereign governmental function”, and this falls under the Open Meetings Act. The 2017 case had addressed the appointment of vacancies such as county commissioner or sheriff, whereas this latest case is about appointing a county party nominee. Thus, this could have been an interesting case for the court to address if it would not have been wasteful to engage in debate at the cost of complicating and spiking the cost of an ongoing election.

Though the more interesting question nobody has asked is: why are parties private? Why are a few unelected people gathering in closed rooms to decide who the public is allowed to vote on? Though America is more democratic than other countries in some regards. Elsewhere, political parties are also private, and they privately select their candidates, whereas in the U.S. the public votes in primary elections to instruct these private institutions who they should forward as their candidate. Though even if slightly more democratic, the private party system invites antidemocratic corruptions. The voters should see some list of positions of all candidates on issues they care about and click to pick how they side on the issues to choose a candidate. Or better yet, true democracy would mean voters logging into a national voting system and voting separately on each item a representative would otherwise vote over on their behalf. Directly choosing to go to war or not, or what government funds should be spent on would override many of the problems we face when representatives’ votes can be bought by interested corporations, foreign entities, or other actors.

Suggested Citation:
Faktorovich, Anna. “Voter vs Ohio County Board Choosing Primary Substitute in a Closed Meeting.” Anaphora’s Law Review (October 26, 2026).

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Conviction of Podcaster for Threatening Officials’ Demise Overturned

26 Oct

In a September 15, 2026 decision in State v. Ford, the Court of Appeals of Ohio, Sixth Appellate District reversed a previous conviction of a podcaster, Ashli Ford, over her hyperbolic anti-officials statements.

Three years earlier, in 2023, Ford was arraigned on falsification charges for publishing a Facebook post aimed at four Norwalk city officials—the Mayor, Law Director, Police Chief and Safety Service Director. She claimed she had these officials “on” their “knees”, adding: “I will escort you to your demise in a manner more akin to Malcolm X than Martin Luther King Jr.” Though the rest of the post stated she hoped to “crumble the reputation” of justice-blockers by pursuing them in the “court of public opinion”. She accused them of being guilty of municipal corruption, sex scandals and fiscal mismanagement. Initially, the court agreed with the officials that the reference to the “manner” of “demise” of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King suggested a threat of an assassination, finding her guilty of four felony counts of intimidation, punished with a probation sentence.

The appellate court overruled this previous decision by finding that the broader context threatened reputational versus physical harm, and thus could not be interpreted as a harm-threatening intimidation. One element of this context was that she had threatened to run for mayor herself, which contradicted any plans to assassinate her opponents. The court decided that under the First Amendment, a listener’s subjective fear alone is legally insufficient to transform political speech into a “true threat”. Ford had no history of physical violence, and previously merely threatened to sue these officials into bankruptcy: these were examples of mere political hyperbole protected by the law.

There have been many similar cases that have similarly been decided in favor of the speaker, unless the language used includes explicit, unconditional promise of physical violence. The precent for this direction in decisions has been Watts v. United States (1969), when during an anti-war rally, an 18-year-old stated: “If they ever make me carry a rifle the first man I want to get in my sight is L.B.J.” He was initially convicted before the Supreme Court reversed it, establishing the right to “crude, offensive political opposition” as a protected hyperbole, and not a “true threat”. Though an Alabama woman was federally indicted for posting on Facebook a direct threat of violence against Trump: “i’ll put a bullet through him if he dares” visit their local football stadium. While there have been a few exceptions, the scales have shifted further in the direction of free-speech-guarantee in Counterman v. Colorado (2023) that decided the prosecutors not only needed to prove a “reasonable listener’s” feeling threatened, but also the speaker’s subjective mindset, or that they acted recklessly while consciously intending to express physical violence. The reason for this shift towards free-speech must be the widespread use of semi-threats, or hyperbolic aggressive language across social media. If each threatening message was prosecutable, the courts would have a lot of added cases on their dockets. It is easy to sympathize with both sides of many borderline cases. When modern politicians assassinate fishermen by blowing up their boats without due process, it is very easy for emotions to flare and for a speaker to respond with equally violent rhetoric without intending to cause any harm. On the other hand, a politician or a reporter who faces veiled threats of violence is likely tempted to turn these over to the police to protect themselves in case the speaker is issuing a warning of planning to do them physical harm.

Suggested Citation:
Faktorovich, Anna. “Conviction of Podcaster for Threatening Officials’ Demise Overturned.” Anaphora’s Law Review (October 26, 2026).

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Ohio Judges Confirm the Burden to Prove Righteousness Is with the Police in Excessive Force Allegations

25 Oct

Do police officers have a special right to assault suspects? This strange question has been under debate in Ohio courts. Historically, the prosecution has harried the absolute burden of proof over every element of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt, while the defendant had to prove affirmative defense by a preponderance of the evidence. But then in 2019, the Ohio General Assembly amended its rules to state that if a defendant raises self-defense, defense of another, or defense of a residence, the burden shifts to the state to disprove it beyond a reasonable doubt. This legislation failed to mention “reasonable use of force by a police officer”, leaving an opening for the ongoing dispute. Back in 1989, Graham v. Connor had established that a police officer’s violence was legally justified if it met standards of “objective reasonableness”. Then in 2024, State v. Graham argued that the State of Ohio bore the burden of proof to show an officer’s use of force was unreasonable. This decision was flipped in March and reaffirmed more formally in September 2026 in State v. McInnes, where the panel decided the police officer bore the burden of proof use of force was reasonable.

Officer Ian W. McInnes was accused of excessive force in four incidents that took place between 2020-2. He had: 1. kicked one man in the face while he was subdued by a taser, 2. kicked a handcuffed 17-year-old in the groin while handcuffed, 3. kicked a complaint, kneeling mentally ill man in the back, and 4. struck a fleeing suspect with his police cruiser. The jury convicted McInnes on the first three charges on October 18, 2024, but acquitted him on the last. He was sentenced to a 30-months prison sentence in 2025. Then, by citing State v. Graham, McInnes’ lawyer appealed his conviction arguing the burden of proof should have been with the prosecutors. If they had won this appeal, anybody accusing police of excessive force would have to go to extraordinary length to insist police surrender body cameras of an assault, or to gather witness testimony to support their position that they had indeed been beaten up when they were complying with a police officer.

Given the repeat violations McInnes was guilty of, this was a good case to test the irrationality of the opposing position. A victim of police brutality might have a concussion, and is likely to be incarcerated after this interaction, so place the burden of proof they have been violated on them or on their likely public attorney would have unjustly further shifted power towards violence-prone officers.

McInnes claims he had “slipped” when hitting a tasered man, made a tactical miscalculation when kicking a surrendering man, or had made contact with the upper thigh instead of the groin of the third seem to have been rebuttals one issues when they anticipate they will not be reprimanded no matter how ridiculous their excuses are.

The initial case was a public corruption and civil rights indictment that had been filed against 13 East Cleveland police officers, whose trials and appeals were later severed. 7 of the officers either entered guilty pleas or became cooperating witnesses, 3 officers had cases dismissed or acquitted, and three officers (including McInnes) proceeded to full jury trials and were convicted to between 1 and 4 years in prison. While the other two convicted cops also filed appeals, only McInnes’ case was selected for the top-level en banc full-court review. With bodycams as the norm across all major precincts, officers should be informed during retraining that they cannot hit-a-man-when-he-is-down as a legal fact. It is important for jurisdictions to explain elements such as who has to prove misbehavior, and for these decisions to be plainly explained to officers, who might otherwise assume they are the Law.

Suggested Citation:
Faktorovich, Anna. “Ohio Judges Confirm the Burden to Prove Righteousness Is with the Police in Excessive Force Allegations.” Anaphora’s Law Review (October 25, 2026).

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