11TH DISTRICT BENCH Polls of lawyers show challenger in appeals court race is leading

Attorneys in O'Neill's home county prefer Christley.
By STEPHEN SIFF
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- Lawyers in Lake and Geauga counties have come out largely in favor of the challenger in an unusual 11th District Court of Appeals race that pits judge against judge.
In separate polls conducted by the Lake and Geauga bar associations, Judge Judith Christley received higher marks than the colleague she is seeking to unseat, Judge William O'Neill.
Trumbull County lawyers were too evenly split for their association to announce a preference, said Thomas B. Letson, the Trumbull bar's president.
The Trumbull bar announces results only when more than two-thirds of the lawyers participating in the poll say they prefer one candidate over another, he said.
Bar associations in the other two counties in the 11th District, Portage and Ashtabula, did not conduct polls.
O'Neill said he did not trust the validity of bar association polls, results of which he said often reflect party politics.
"When a bar association wants to make bold assertions about the quality of judges, I say as an entry-level requirement they ought to invite all the candidates in and evaluate their qualifications," he said. "It is a regional popularity contest, nothing more."
If Christley, a Republican, wins the Nov. 5 election, she will take over O'Neill's seat and the governor will appoint someone to serve the remaining two years of her current term.
Opinion of opponent
She has said she is running because O'Neill is a "bad judge" who decides cases based on his personal feelings about justice, rather than the law.
O'Neill, who was unanimously elected presiding judge by his colleagues last year, says the charge is untrue. He also says he and Christley have voted the same way more than 85 percent of the time.
The Lake County Bar gave O'Neill a "not recommended" ranking after only 103 out of 179 lawyers, or 58 percent, answered "yes" when asked if O'Neill is qualified to hold the appeals court seat. The Lake bar requires a score of 60 percent to deem a candidate "recommended," and 75 percent for "highly recommended."
Christley, who hails from Ashtabula County, was "highly recommended," with affirmative votes from 93 percent of lawyers participating in the Lake County poll.
The Geauga County bar conducts its poll differently by asking each lawyer to put the candidates in one of four categories. Out of the 84 attorneys who participated, 26 said O'Neill is "highly recommended," 21 voted "recommended," 28 voted "not recommended," and nine had no opinion.
Geauga is O'Neill's home county.
By comparison, Christley got 40 "highly recommended" votes, 19 "recommended" votes, 15 "not recommended," and 10 "no opinion."
Second race
In the other 11th District Court of Appeals race, lawyers in each bar association gave highest marks to the candidate from their own county.
Brookfield resident Cynthia Rice, a Democrat running for the seat vacated by retiring Judge Robert A. Nader, won 84 percent of the votes cast in the Trumbull County poll.
More than 91 percent of lawyers participating in the Lake County poll feel Timothy S. Black, an independent candidate from Willoughby, is qualified to sit on the appeals court.
A majority of voters said they had no opinion about Rice or Republican Mark J. Hassett, prompting the association to issue no recommendation on their candidacies.
Hassett, who comes from Geauga, did best in that county's poll, with 41 "highly recommended" votes. He also received 23 "recommended" votes, six "not recommended" and 14 "no opinion."
Black received 12 "highly recommended" votes, 25 "recommended," 14 "not recommended" and 33 "no opinion."
Rice got 11 "highly recommended," 17 "recommended," eight "not recommended" and 48 "no opinion."