Early voting for the May 2 election begins Tuesday, April 4. There is no Democrat running for this judge seat, and so far no independent has filed to run in November (independents’ deadline is May 1), so the Liles-Rettich race in May could end up deciding the November election.
According to the Ohio State Bar Association, municipal court judges handle misdemeanor and felony criminal arraignments, and conduct criminal and civil trials, along with the motions, conferences, hearings and settlements that go with them.
The Miamisburg Municipal Court judge position pays $148,775, according to the website for the Supreme Court of Ohio & The Ohio Judicial Branch.
Miamisburg Municipal Court’s jurisdiction serves approximately 80,000 citizens and includes the cities of Miamisburg, West Carrollton and Germantown, along with Miami and German townships, according to the court.
Josh Liles bio
Liles earned a law degree from the University of Dayton and earned his law license in 2004. An attorney since 2005, he is a managing partner at law firm Baver & Liles in downtown Miamisburg, where he handles many cases in the Miamisburg Municipal Court.
Approximately 40% of his cases are in the Miamisburg Municipal Court, he said. Since January 2016, he’s had more than 550 criminal and traffic cases in the court, he said. The other areas in which he practices are estate planning and probate administration, real estate transactions and evictions, divorce and dissolution, and a small amount of Chapter 7 Bankruptcy. He said he will usually have three or four active civil cases at any one time.
Liles said he decided to run for office because Miamisburg Municipal Court is “a special place” for him. He said he has spent most of his legal career dealing with cases that originate in that court.
“I have established relationships with every court employee, clerk and officer in the court,” he said. “I have a vast knowledge of the community and the citizens in the court’s jurisdiction.”
The role of the municipal court judge is one of balance, Liles said.
“Within the boundaries of the law you need to balance the necessity to move cases to completion and the necessity of providing individual attention to a defendant, victim or attorney,” he said. “The reason for that attention can be anything from substance abuse help, mental health counseling, punishment (incarceration) or merely a wake-up call.”
Alyse Rettich bio
Rettich earned a law degree from the University of Dayton, a master’s of business administration from the University of Dayton School of Business and a bachelor’s degree from the Indiana Institute of Technology.
She was a law clerk with the Montgomery County Prosecutors Office in 2014 and a law clerk for Montgomery County Common Pleas Court and Casper & Casper law firm in 2015. She said she served from 2016 to 2021 as an assistant prosecuting attorney with the Montgomery County Prosecutor’s office, handling more than 700 felony cases, and more than 600 juvenile court cases.
While a felony prosecutor at the prosecutor’s office, she said she maintained a 95% conviction rate. Rettich then served between 2021 and 2022 as an associate attorney at Freund, Freeze & Arnold in Dayton.
She said she had more than 125 trials and 200 hearings and depositions of various kinds throughout her career.
As administrative judge of the Miamisburg Municipal Court since December, she said she has implemented civil e-filing to make those filings more convenient for citizens and attorneys and instituted electronic warrants to help law enforcement save time and money during investigations.
She said also implemented a diversion program that offers community service and programming in lieu of conviction.
There was a delay in her appointment to the judge seat in 2022, as Ohio law requires a municipal court judge to be an attorney with six years of experience practicing law, and Rettich hit the six-year mark during 2022. Local Republican Party officials had ranked Rettich as their top choice early in the year.
Priorities for Rettich, Liles
Rettich said an important thing for a municipal judge to keep in mind is that the majority of residents appearing before the court are not serious criminals.
“Most are citizens who have committed misdemeanors, and who are good people coming before a judge for a momentary lapse in judgment,” she said. “How those individuals are treated determines how they view the court and in a larger sense, the justice system and other authority. It also could be their watershed moment, how that case is handled, how they are treated, and how they are penalized, or if alternative help is provided could be a turning point moment for some.”
Rettich said her top three priorities if elected as judge would be reducing recidivism, making sure all citizens within the court system are treated fairly and equally, and continuing to keep the court efficient and effective through a fiscally conservative approach.
Liles said his top priorities if elected would be revamping and seriously taking on the way the court deals with domestic violence cases, making the court more streamlined and efficient for all parties, and addressing the physical structure and layout of the Miamisburg Municipal Court via a redesign or a new location.
He said the most pressing issues within the court’s jurisdiction are the strain of continuing dwindling resources and the necessity of more addiction programs, more jail space, coupled with a lack of technology and staff to deal with an ever-increasing caseload.
Rettich said the most pressing issue within the court’s jurisdiction continues to be the drug epidemic, and by extension of that, crimes including but not limited to thefts, falsification or even more violent offenses.
Voter registration deadline is today
The deadline to register to vote in the May 2 election is Monday, April 3. County boards of election will be open until 9 p.m. Monday, or voters can register via the Ohio Secretary of State’s website at olvr.ohiosos.gov.
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