Elliot Kolkovich is the Democratic candidate for Summit County Prosecutor. Kolkovich, who was appointed to the job after Sherri Bevan Walsh retired in February for health reasons, is running against local defense attorney John Greven, the Republican candidate.
Signal Akron Government Reporter Doug Brown talked with Kolkovich about his candidacy. The transcript of the interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
From your perspective, what factors should the community consider when judging a district attorney?
Well, you’re starting with a humdinger there, Doug.
There are a lot of metrics to this. A number that frequently [comes up] is conviction rate and, certainly, having high conviction rates is a good thing, but that really is a small portion of the story because your conviction rate only represents what you do with cases that you have.
Also the number you need to take into account is your indictment rate. How many cases are you indicting? What percentage comes in? How does that compare with other counties? Because how you screen the cases at grand jury is very, very important in how successful you’re going to be later on.
I always tell people that a 100% conviction rate is a nice thing to talk about, but that’s only if you’re indicting 100% correct cases. If you have a low conviction rate but a higher indictment rate, then that might make sense. I prefer, and try to do and encourage my office to do, is the screening and testing of cases early on in the process.
My favorite assignment I had in the office was being in grand jury. It was just such a wonderful place to be a prosecutor. There’s no glory in it, you’re not in the courtroom, you’re not going to get your picture in the paper. But more than any other position, you get to quote the Ohio Revised Code chapter and verse – and then get frustrated with the Ohio Revised Code because sometimes it doesn’t make much sense. But I think that I developed a pretty good reputation in my time in grand jury for asking pressing questions, and I think that is important.
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There are a lot of metrics to it, but I will say on the loftier side, you want someone who represents the office well, someone who instills confidence and trust in the community. It did not take very long in this position to realize that you are an ambassador for this office, what its mission is, and how it goes about its business. That can sound — how do I want to say this — it can sound fluffy to an old-school person.
But I think it was two months into the job, there was a pastor I developed pretty good rapport with, we kind of hit it off, and they had a person who wanted to come forward with some information on an ongoing case but was very hesitant, very nervous, wanted to remain anonymous. There are processes to do that, but they were concerned about remaining anonymous.
I have trust in relationships with a lot of police officers, and the building of trust between this person and the pastor, the pastor to me, and me to the officer allowed this person to speak to the detective with confidence that they were going to be able to provide information in the environment that they wanted to. It didn’t take very long to realize that if I don’t have that connection and if we don’t form a trusting relationship, that doesn’t happen.
I look forward to — if I can get past November and be in this position for another four years — I look forward to being in the courtroom more often. But it’s never losing track that your goal is to represent this office well, because when someone from our office calls and says, “Hello my name is so-and-so from the Summit County Prosecutor’s Office” — first of all, nobody likes to get that phone call and says, “Yes, thank you for calling me, I can’t wait to be a witness.”
But when someone makes that call, the person may think that even if this is something they don’t want to go through that they’ll be treated fairly and with dignity in the process.
Whether you actually know this person or not — like someone on the Supreme Court or a buddy you went to law school with — is there a legal or political figure whose values you hope to emulate in your work? Do you have a legal role model?
Well, I’m looking at two posters in my office right now and I like them both. Teddy Roosevelt and Bobby Kennedy, those are my guys.
Teddy was on a police commission in New York and developed a pretty good reputation for being hard-charging. Everything you know about his persona is correct, he had a very, very strong moral compass about what was right and wrong and didn’t care about who he offended along the way.
And Bobby Kennedy was the same way. It was amazing to watch his career arc from attorney general, working in the senate before that, and the champion he became for fighting injustice later on in his life.
So, I would say those are my two guys.
You have endorsements from many of the heavy hitters in local democratic politics and labor unions. Is there an endorsement you’re most proud of getting?
Oh wow, that’s a really good question. It’s trying to pick favorites, you don’t want to offend anybody, but I will say that the Ohio Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association probably sticks out. I was very proud to receive the Beacon Journal endorsement as well – I thought we had a great conversation – but the OPBA was a pressure conversation. They were asking good, tough questions — about officer conduct, Brady listings, things like that.
I felt very proud to get that one because it was not like an “OK, tell us about yourself” kind of thing, it was, “Hey, what do you know about this, what do you know about this, what do you know about that?” It felt like an oral exam or something like that. I felt very proud of that one because I knew that they did not endorse in every race. They could have easily met both of us and said they aren’t going to put their name on anybody in this race.
Why do you think they picked you?
I don’t know. I like to think, I guess, it’s that I have a pretty good intellectual base of curiosity on issues they wanted to talk about that were important to them. (Note: An August OPBA Facebook post said it was because of Kolkovich’s “support of law enforcement issues and collective bargaining rights.”)
I’m a big believer that I will listen to anybody, and I think they were very happy that I wanted to listen to them, I wanted their input on issues that were important to them. In the room, without going into too much detail because of confidentiality, there were lawyers in there, police officers, former prosecutors. They know your field. It’s not an endorsement from someone that’s not going to be familiar with your field. I really like that, but the Beacon Journal was a nice one, too.
On a scale between a civil libertarian and traditional “tough on crime” ideology, where do you place yourself, if that makes sense?
I might have to push – give me your one to ten.
I’m thinking about a libertarian’s definition of crime and, on the other end of the scale, prosecuting jaywalking.
Ah, so you’re talking like Ayn Rand to Rousseau’s Social Contract?
Exactly.
You know, it’s going to be really cheesy, but right in the middle. But I think one of the things about that is there are areas that I believe in very strong, stiff penalties, and there are areas where I believe chances need to be given.
Our Ohio Revised Code certainly allows for that, but I also caught myself early on — you think, “Oh, I’m a prosecutor. I want to speak my mind and say a lot of things.” But there’s a reason judges can’t comment on a lot of things, because they can’t be seen as compromising their integrity and their unbiased position. I learned early on that if I have comments on laws — if I say this is a great law or a terrible law — I try to be pretty careful in those regards, especially if I’m critical of the law because we may wind up enforcing that law.
It’s a delicate balance. You have a values set, and I’m looking at the Ohio Revised Code right here and it looks like a dictionary from grade school — it’s full of stuff. To say that I agree with everything in there 100%, I can’t say that’s true.
But it is also my job to uphold the law, right? I can’t say that I don’t agree with Law X because if I don’t agree with Law X, I better be prepared not to enforce it because I would be compromising my prosecutors who might have to prosecute that case.
Any defense attorney worth his salt is going to stand up in voir dire and go, “Good afternoon, everybody, does it bother you that we’re going to hear this case and the county prosecutor doesn’t agree with this law?” It’s probably not a good idea.
But where I try to focus on my comments about the law and where I stand is where I see inconsistencies in the law and wish there was more consistency. It’s really one of the things that I try to stress to our prosecutors. My predecessor, Sherri Bevan Walsh, who is a revolutionary in this office when it comes to victims’ rights and victims’ advocacy — was second to none in this state in that regard. It’s been interesting to look back and see that her career spanned from hardly any victim advocacy in the state to now Marsy’s Law being enshrined in the constitution.
When I think about where my focus is, where I want to forge a path, is the way she did. It’s consistency of our process and consistency in justice. We can’t ensure consistent outcomes — the judge is the one that determines the sentence, but as much as possible I’m pushing our prosecutors to be consistent in our evaluation of cases, consistent in our offers in cases.
That can often be a delicate balance because you may have a case where the officer and maybe a victim want the maximum and then you have another case where it’s the same charge where the officer isn’t that interested in the case, because they’ve got this other really big case they’re working on, or the victim wants no part of the case at all.
While those things are going to be important and you can encourage them to speak their mind to the judge and the judge can consider all the factors, we have to look at it and go, “Well, if we have the same crime at the same level, and the defendants have the same culpability and same amount of criminal history, our offer should be pretty consistent on those two cases.” It’s about pushing that kind of consistency.
I don’t want to make it seem like we weren’t being consistent before but, really, that is probably my focus. What are ways that — when I say “system” I don’t mean the entire criminal justice system, but I mean workflows, assignments and other things — what are we doing to ensure that consistency.
You’ve done a number of interviews and candidate forums during this campaign. What question hasn’t been asked that should be asked?
Doug, you’re doing good here, you’re like the guy on Hot Ones, you ask great questions.
I appreciate that (laughs).
You know, I can’t think of one. We actually did a Stow candidate night a couple of weeks ago, and I was so thankful to finally get this question, which is,“What do you think is the most important trait to being a good county prosecutor?” I’m paraphrasing but that was the gist of it.
I was so glad that somebody finally asked that question because we spend a lot of time talking about law and trial experience and things like this, which is important, I understand — I’ll stack my resume against anybody’s.
But when you’re talking about electing someone, you’re electing a leader. I think, until Roetzel took over the local law firms here, this is the biggest law firm in the county. You’re looking at someone who can lead an office with a clear vision of purpose of what they want to accomplish — not only what they want to accomplish, but how they are going to accomplish it and how you’re going to motivate people to accomplish it.
It doesn’t take long in any position of leadership that you don’t just say, “OK guys, this is the new policy” and think it’s done and taken care of. It doesn’t work that way, you don’t just hit “send” on an email and call it a day.
It is about making sure all of your people are valued in everything they do here, making sure they have a sense of purpose.
In 2018, I got put in charge of a project to implement a new software system in our new office. I had another guy working with me, and I never would have thought of it at the time, but it wound up being one of the most beneficial things when taking over this position.
Because when you implement something like that, you work with a person from every department in the office and see how their work affects this person down the road and how a mistake here affects this down there, and how this fits together.
There are times where everybody — certainly trial lawyers might be at the top — kind of think only of themselves, only about what’s in front of them. It was a really eye-opening experience. It made me really appreciate it. It’s going to sound kind of geeky, but I really enjoyed learning about office structure, workflows and efficiencies. It taught me to absolutely detest the phrase “but we’ve always done it that way.”
I’m going to try to focus on efficiency and innovation: What are we doing, how are we doing it, how are we simplifying our work, how are we making sure we’re not doing double work? You want to make sure your people can focus all the time and attention they have to the task at hand.
Your campaign website says you didn’t feel like you fit in the federal prosecutor’s office compared to the county. Can you elaborate on that fit?
First, I will tell you that taking an oath to defend and uphold the Constitution of the United States was one of the greatest moments of my life. Becoming a U.S. attorney was absolutely incredible and I worked with incredible people there. I was there a short time — I have absolutely stolen things from them in the way they handle situations and how they manage things, no question.
But it was a lot more time at my desk. I just wasn’t in court as much as I thought I was going to be, I wasn’t in front of folks as much as I thought I was going to be and I kind of missed it. I had an itch for that.
I remember my first week back [with the county] and my boss [then-prosecutor Walsh] started the self-defense classes and we’re continuing those. She couldn’t make one and she asked me to go, and we talked in her office for a bit, and I forgot how much I loved talking to people. I enjoyed this connection about what we do as an office.
Being a U.S. attorney was absolutely incredible, and I still have friends I stay in touch with. A good way to describe it is my wife is an English professor, and when I told her I’m kind of at my desk all day — reviewing documents, typing indictments, doing search warrants and all that kind of stuff — and my wife who’s an English teacher said, “You get to be at a desk all day and nobody bothers you? That sounds wonderful.”
That is just a difference of personality type and preference.
This is a question I’m curious about — I’m not sure about our readers. I see that you have two journalism degrees and worked as a journalist briefly. What was your journalism career?
That will not take very long to talk about.
So, I graduated with a bachelor’s in 2002, master’s in 2003, worked on the school paper and stayed on there a little after graduation helping out. I tried to freelance for a little while and did some articles here and there. Nothing ever came to anything — I don’t think I published a single piece freelancing.
I could just not catch on anywhere. The 2002-2003 time — at the risk of being rude, can I ask how old you are?
I’m [Brown states his age].
OK, so I’m 44. I think I got the last classical journalist training program in history. I mean, our program was essentially “here’s a carton of cigarettes, a notepad and a pen: Go be a reporter and watch ‘All the President’s Men’ every weekend.”
There was like one online class you could take as an elective, but it was kind of new, kind of developing. There was just no real training for how much the industry changed at the turn of the millennium. The downsizing, the online, the layoffs, closing papers, all that kind of stuff. We didn’t really understand how to be a self-starter in a digital age. You have people now with podcasts, blogs, and I had no conception of that because that industry itself was getting off the ground.
So I kind of worked in restaurants to support myself and I applied to work at papers all over. It was a fortuitous interview I had in High Point, North Carolina. I interviewed for a paper there and was a finalist — I think I was really close to getting that job but did not wind up getting the job. I was disappointed, but in a weird turn of fate, I had a layover in D.C. I had never been to D.C. — I’m from a small town in Illinois, there was no class trip or things like that, and we didn’t take a lot of vacations as a kid.
So I had never been to D.C. and it was just an incredible place with the energy of the city. I had always been interested in public service, in government. I thought it was incredible, that this is where everything happens. So I moved out there in the fall of ‘05, I think, and I was trying to catch on there.
I applied to a lot of places and was hoping to get on with a media company but wound up interning on [Capital Hill]. I interned in the press office for Senator [Ted] Kennedy from Massachusetts in the spring. Almost everybody in D.C. has a law degree, it’s just kind of what everybody has.
I thought about going to law school in D.C. and it was really expensive. Oh my God, it was so expensive. My wife now, we were dating at the time, was in Illinois at the time getting her Ph.D., so I thought I’d go to law school back close to home where Elizabeth is. So I went to St. Louis University for law school.
