Mark Oprea
Matthew Ahn, a 32-year-old law professor and public defender, is lining up to challenge current County Prosecutor Michael O'Malley in next year's election.
"I would say the reforms I'm looking for are largely evidence-based, common sense reforms," Ahn said. "These are the kinds of things that are actually going to promote safety long term."
Ahn, 32, is eyeing down what may be a political mountain. After his official campaign launch at Rockefeller Park on August 10th, he will wrangle together a team of dozens of volunteers, and staffer Ellen Kubit, to door-knock his way to the summit: unseating Michael O'Malley, the 59-year-old Democrat who's been in office since January 2017. (O'Malley won a re-election in 2020 unchallenged.)
A professor of law at Cleveland State and former public defender for the U.S. District Court, Ahn carries a suite of various legal philosophies that have charged his fight for the prosecutor's seat. After three years of writing release memos for the post-convicted—many who were seeking "compassionate release"—Ahn first explored the viability of facing O'Malley in January.
Seven months of groundwork have turned into a platter of progressive changes to what Ahn labels O'Malley's "outdated ideas": reducing what's called discretionary bindovers, or the prosecutor's decision to try a minor as an adult; curbing overcrowding of the 1,600-plus person jail by replacing cash bail with a sort of binary system—bond or no bond; and ramping up services for those awaiting trial.
"Part of the improvements we need to happen is to make sure that there are more support for the folks out on bonds," Ahn said, making reference to the county's 99-bed Diversion Center on East 55th St. But yet still the onus reaches back to the judges. "People want certainly, and certainly is very difficult."
As is proving, Ahn said, the worth of capital punishment. Cuyahoga County has long been a leader nationwide in death penalty cases, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Ahn cites the case of Michael Buhner, who, after twenty years imprisoned, was exonerated in July, as further proof that executions could always result in moral and judicial regret. (And apparently cost the state millions of more in legal fees.)
"It does not work," Ahn said. "It is prone to errors, prone to bias. It's too expensive. It is not necessary. We do not need to seek the death penalty in any case."
A native of North Royalton, Ahn spent his childhood and teenage years as a kind of Northeast Ohio wunderkind. At 13, influenced by his professorial parents, he was admitted to Case Western Reserve to study chemistry and piano. Four years later, at 17, Ahn was composing on a graduate level at the University of Minnesota.
After switching to law in his mid-twenties, bent on "fixing public school funding equity issues," Ahn relocated to New York to work in a string of firms.
Back in Northeast Ohio during Covid-19, Ahn worked as a public defender for the Northern Ohio District Court, writing "dozens and dozens" of sentencing memos for guilty-plea clients, the majority of whom encountered the justice system when they were tweens.
It's such cases where Ahn grew his compassionate eye for the roots of crime.
"If we had found those folks back then," he said, "they would not have been on that track to continue committing crimes. And end up in federal prisons."
Following Ahn's official campaign start next week, he will begin ramping up his volunteer base in time for March's primary election. So far, he's raised $182,000, mostly from his personal network, in-state and out-of-state.
As of early August, Ahn currently has no competitors in his bid to out-seat O'Malley, who when reached for comment told Scene, "He’s only lived here the last two years, so I’m not certain how much he can know about me or the [prosecutor's office]."
"He just got his law license in Ohio in June 2022 and formed his exploratory committee only six months later," O'Malley said. "He's never practiced in a courtroom in common pleas in Ohio. He's the least experienced candidate to ever run for county prosecutor, maybe not just in Cuyahoga, but the entire state. Have you ever handled a case in common pleas? Have you ever handled a case in muni court? Does he think his platform of defund the police — which he's supported on social media over the years — is appropriate given the level of violence we're seeing in our community?"
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