Joyce V. Kimbler

(1) List your judicial experience (courts and years)
I have been the Judge of the Medina County Court of Common Pleas General Division since January 1, 2015.

(2) What about your non-judicial legal experience qualifies you to be a judge?
I spent 29 years in the active practice of litigation. I appeared in the Ohio Supreme Court 54 times, in various Ohio Courts of Appeals, in common pleas courts throughout Ohio, in numerous municipal courts, and even in small claims courts.

(3) Why are you running for this particular court seat?
I am looking forward to continuing to work for the people of Medina County. I am proud of the programs that my court, working with the probation department and others, have instituted to further justice in Medina County. I am proud to preside over the county’s only two Supreme Court certified specialized dockets, our Drug Court docket and our Mental Health Court docket. The Drug Court was recently featured in a documentary entitled Second Chances: One Year in Ohio’s Drug Courts which can be found at http://www.ohiochannel.org/video/second-chances-one-year-in-ohios-drug-courts.

While I have been on the bench the criminal docket has increased for the Medina County Common Pleas Court, General Division, by 52%. Still my court has cleared criminal cases at an average rate of 109% per month. I attribute our clearance rate to the dedication of my staff and myself to providing the constitutional guarantee of a speedy trial to those defendants who come before me. Among those jury trials was State v. Tench, a capital murder case that resulted in the jury recommending a death penalty and the Court’s agreement with that recommendation. The Tench case was reviewed by the Ohio Supreme Court the sentence was affirmed by all the Ohio Supreme Court Justices who reviewed the case.

Because Medina County is one of the state’s fastest growing counties, we have been one of the top five counties in the state for increases in our combined criminal and civil dockets. On a per judge basis Medina County was in the top five of all counties for combined caseload per judge with a figure of 1305. Only two of Ohio’s eighty-eight counties had a higher caseload per judge for their criminal dockets, and only four counties had a higher caseload per judge for their civil dockets. Despite this workload, our courtrooms had a clearance rate of 98.645%, ranking us number one for clearance rates. Both Judge Collier and I are proud of the work we have done and of the justice that our courts are rendering for the people of Medina County.