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Gains faces challenge by independent
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Professionalism and integrity are key issues, prosecutor candidates agree.
STAFF REPORT
YOUNGSTOWN — Paul J. Gains, seeking election to his fourth consecutive four-year term as Mahoning County prosecutor, faces a challenge from an independent candidate, Martin E. Yavorcik, a lawyer in private practice.
“The major issues in this race are experience, integrity and maturity,” Gains said.
Yavorcik said he wants to bring “a new level of professionalism, integrity and energy to the prosecutor’s office.’’
Under Gains’ administration, Yavorcik maintains that “mistakes and carelessness have enabled far too many criminals to avoid prosecution or get lighter sentences than they deserve. Too many plea bargains have been offered to violent offenders for reasons of expediency, rather than justice.”
Gains said he has restored integrity to the county prosecutor’s office. Cases were being fixed before he took office, he noted.
Gains said he will strive to maintain that integrity and to ensure that special interests, such as organized crime, organized money and political interests, have no influence over the office.
During his tenure, an increasing number of trials have been conducted in the county Common Pleas Court and growing numbers of criminals have been convicted and imprisoned, Gains said.
That court started 40 jury trials and four bench trials last year. Previously, the highest number of criminal trials there since 1999 was 21 each in 1999 and 2002, he said.
Criminal convictions after guilty or no-contest pleas increased from 779 in 2005 to 1,395 last year, he reported.
The number of Mahoning County defendants imprisoned has risen from 122 in 1996 to 476 in 2006 and a record 561 last year, Gains said.
Gains attributes these increases to the addition of five new prosecutors in the fall of 2005 and to the court’s cooperation in scheduling cases.
The criminal division of Gains’ office prosecutes cases ranging from capital murder cases in Common Pleas Court to misdemeanors in the county’s four area courts.
The civil division of the prosecutor’s office has saved the county hundreds of thousands of dollars by defending and pursuing litigation in house instead of regularly hiring outside lawyers, Gains said. This division handles civil rights and jail litigation, workers’ compensation matters, and labor, election, zoning and environmental law matters. The office recovered some $2.9 million from the Ohio Secretary of State’s office in 2006, Gains noted.
As a criminal trial lawyer in 10 years of successful legal practice, Yavorcik said he has handled serious cases in federal and state courts.
To reform what he calls the county’s dysfunctional criminal justice system, Yavorcik said he would ensure that the prosecutor’s office protects witnesses to crimes from intimidation or retaliation, aggressively prosecutes criminals, and does not miss deadlines or fail to file court papers.
“I will personally try the most difficult cases,” Yavorcik said, adding that he’d have prosecutors on round-the-clock call to help police from the beginning of a criminal investigation.