There are few easy decisions in Ohio Supreme Court races

It is never easy deciding for whom to vote in a race for the Ohio Supreme Court. The candidates in these races are almost always well-experienced men and women of integrity and accomplishment.
The most glaring exception to that rule was a Mahoning County aberration dating to 1990. That's when Stuart Banks, a lawyer who preferred fixing cases to winning them, ran. As subsequent events showed, Banks had no business even practicing law, much less running for the top court in the state.
There are no embarrassments in the race this year. Indeed, all four candidates are proven public servants with exceptional records. Picking just two is something of a challenge.
Another challenging aspect of making a selection in the race for Ohio Supreme Court is the sham nature of this "nonpartisan" race. Indeed, when an Ohio voter goes into the booth in November, there will be no Democratic or Republican designations beside the candidates' names. But each of them appeared on a primary election ballot in May and each has a party's backing in November.
Also this year, two of the candidates are clearly being backed by traditionally Democratic interests and two are backed by traditionally Republican interests. Turning on a television any night of the week demonstrates who is being backed by whom.
Happily, the soft money spending on behalf of the various candidates has not sunk to the depths of the campaign two years ago, when the Ohio Chamber of Commerce was so eager to rid the court of Alice Robie Resnick that it ran a series of rank "justice for sale" ads. Perhaps the fact that she easily won had something to do with this year's change of heart -- or at least of tactic.
The four candidates include only one incumbent. The second race is for the seat being vacated by Justice Andrew Douglas, who is retiring.
Who is running
The candidates are:
Supreme Court Justice Evelyn Lundberg Stratton, 49, who is completing her first six-year term on the high court. She was born in Bangkok, Thailand, the daughter of missionaries, but has lived in Ohio 26 years, receiving her law degree from The Ohio State University in 1978. She was a Franklin County Common Pleas Court judge from January 1989 to March 1996 and was a trial lawyer before that.
Janet Burnside of Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court is challenging Stratton. Burnside, 55, of Cleveland Heights has been a common pleas judge in Cuyahoga County for 11 years. Before that, she served as an acting judge in the Cleveland Heights Municipal Court from 1985 to 1991 and was a practicing attorney after receiving her law degree from Ohio State in 1977. Before going into law, she worked in computer science at the Bell Telephone laboratories in Columbus.
Maureen O'Connor, 51, the state's lieutenant governor, lives in Akron and began her legal career as a private attorney in 1981 after receiving her law degree from Cleveland Marshall College of Law. She served nine years as a magistrate in Summit County Probate Court. She was appointed to the Summit County Common Pleas Court bench in 1993 by then-Gov. George Voinovich and was elected to the post the next year.
In 1995, however, she was appointed Summit County prosecutor and was elected in 1996. She ran as Gov. Bob Taft's running mate four years ago.
Tim Black, 49, has been a judge of Hamilton County Municipal Court since 1993. After graduating from Harvard University in 1975, he taught for seven years before receiving his law degree from Northern Kentucky University. He was in private practice for 10 years before being elected to the court.
Our endorsements
We endorse the re-election of Justice Stratton.
She has not only served admirably as a justice, providing sharp dissents when she felt it was necessary, but she has been aggressive in her legal pursuits off the bench.
Particularly noteworthy is her work in helping Ohio's courts deal with the increasing number of mentally ill persons who are coming before the courts in the years since the state closed its mental institutions.
We encourage the voters to return Justice Stratton to the court.
In the race between O'Connor and Black, we prefer Black.
O'Connor has done an admirable job as a judge, as a prosecuting attorney and as lieutenant governor, especially in the last year of that office, during which she was given the duty of overseeing homeland security in the state.
But through the years during which O'Connor was wearing all those different hats, Black was doing what he does best: serving as a judge in Hamilton County.
He has received consistently high marks as a jurist and has been selected by the Ohio Supreme Court to teach other judges at the Ohio Judicial College.
It is also worth noting that Black and O'Connor are vying for the seat being vacated by Douglas. Andy Douglas, while nominally a Republican, has been something of a maverick on the court.
Given O'Connor's role as lieutenant governor in an administration that has often been at odds with the court, we have our misgivings over her ability to divorce herself from the political implications of several enduring issues before the court, especially the DeRolph school funding case.
For the Ohio Supreme court, we endorse Stratton and Black.