Who are the Democrats running for Franklin County prosecutor?

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – The most important legal role in Franklin County is up for grabs, and three Democrats are vying for the party’s spot on the November ballot.

Under the shadow of U.S. Senate and presidential primary races is a significant primary race for Franklin County prosecutor. The county’s top attorney oversees every criminal and civil case filed on behalf of – or against – the state in the most populous county in Ohio.

Anthony Pierson, Shayla Favor and Natalia Harris are running to be the Democratic nominee for county prosecutor. With prosecutorial experience ranging from decades to none at all, and a host of ideas on how to improve the office, the three candidates will face off Tuesday to determine who competes in November.

Shayla Favor

Columbus City Councilmember Shayla Favor is the only candidate who has never prosecuted a criminal case. But she’s had legal office experience, working in the Columbus city attorney’s office first as a legal investigator and then as assistant city attorney overseeing zoning, health, fire and building code violation cases.

At a community forum in February, Favor said her lack of prosecutorial experience was no hindrance; she sees the top prosecutor role as an administrative position – less a trial attorney, more a CEO. The Capital Law graduate, whose main policy concerns on city council are homelessness and housing, is campaigning on increasing rebuilding public trust and combating violence from a social justice perspective.

While emphasizing that prosecutors should hold violent offenders accountable, Favor said she wants to address inequalities in the criminal justice system – like sentencing disparities, lengths of cases and decisions on who gets charged with a crime. Reforming the system means making it more fair for defendants and victims, she said.

“My resolve to reform an unjust system, this is why I put my name in this hat, in this ring,” Favor said in February.” I truly believe that families deserve speedy service, that they should have justice as quickly as possible.”

Favor said if elected, she intends to focus on holding public officials accountable. Ohio should do more to take action against corrupt politicians, she said, and that can start with the prosecutor’s office where the seat of government rests.

Favor has been endorsed by the Working Families Party, Ohio Families Unite for Political Action and Change, and The Collective PAC.

Natalia Harris

Natalia Harris is the chief city attorney of Delaware, taking over the role in 2019 after serving as the city’s first Black prosecutor. A graduate of University of Dayton School of Law, Harris has been a prosecutor for more than two decades, including in Montgomery County, Columbus and Cincinnati. 

At the top of Harris’ priorities is increasing the office’s transparency with the public. At the community forum, she said important decisions – like whether to assign outside counsel to prosecute police officers charged with murder – should be explained to the community. Harris also believes data on who is prosecuted, for what charges and to what result should also be publicly available.

“When there are cases that are important to the community, the office gets out in front of those cases and brings the community in,” Harris said.

Harris has argued that the prosecutor’s office should work to reform the criminal justice system from within. That includes seeking alternatives to incarceration, especially for nonviolent and substance use-related offenses, and diverting more cases toward the specialized docket for defendants with serious mental illness. 

With years of appellate experience, having taken cases to the Ohio Supreme Court and federal appeals courts, Harris said strengthening the office’s civil division is another priority for her. 

Anthony Pierson

Anthony Pierson, deputy chief legal counsel for the Franklin County Prosecutor’s office, has prosecuted criminal cases at the local, county and state level over his decades-long career.

Pierson returned to the county prosecutor’s office after working for the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, serving as the lead prosecutor for homicides and officers who kill on duty. He’s been a prosecutor in Dublin, chief legal counsel for Ohio’s juvenile corrections system and various prosecuting roles in Franklin County.

Pierson has five main priorities, if elected prosecutor: improving staff training, recruiting and retaining a diverse attorney staff, increasing transparency surrounding officer-involved shootings, and standardizing plea bargain offers and sentencing recommendations. Specifically, Pierson has promised that whenever a grand jury declines to indict an officer for use of deadly force, the prosecutor’s office will release the entire case file within 48 hours. 

Improving the office’s efficiency in prosecuting cases goes hand-in-hand with Pierson’s other priorities, he said at the community forum. He said reducing the office’s backlog also goes a long way toward improving the public’s trust in the office.

“Police officers can arrest all day long, but if we do not have an effective Franklin County Prosecutor’s Office, those people go free,” Pierson said.

His placement on the ballot was not without controversy. In January, the Franklin County Board of Elections received a complaint that Pierson’s election mailing address was listed as his house in Lewis Center, while his voting address was listed as a condo in Columbus. The elections board decided not to investigate as the complaint was not an official challenge to Pierson’s candidacy.

Pierson has been endorsed by current county prosecutor Gary Tyack -- who is not seeking reelection -- several Franklin County commissioners and the Ohio Association of Public School Employees/AFSCME Local 4.