The court also hears cases from Greene, Darke, Miami and Clark counties. Cases come from municipal courts and all divisions of the common pleas courts, whether general, juvenile, probate or domestic relations. The district covers more than 2,700 square miles and has a population of more than 1,030,000 people, with more than half of them in Montgomery County.
Carley Ingram
A resident of Spring Valley Twp. in Greene County for 25 years, Ingram has been with the Montgomery County Prosecutor’s Office since November 1980, the year she graduated from the Ohio State University College of Law.
“I really am running because I think I’m the most qualified,” Ingram said. “I’ve been a public servant all my life.”
Raised in Jeromesville, Ohio, where her parents started a small cable-tool oil and gas company, Ingram first got a degree in social work from Ohio State. After a year as a child care counselor in a residential treatment facility for troubled children, she enrolled in law school.
She worked in different divisions of the prosecutor’s office, including the criminal trial docket, where she once tried an aggravated murder case with now-county prosecutor Mathias H. Heck Jr. She went to the appellate division in 1985 and became chief in 1993.
Ingram said that she has represented the state in more than 800 cases before the 2nd District appeals court, and the staff she supervises has represented thousands more. She argued 15 cases before the Ohio Supreme Court — unlike the appeals court, the supreme court does not have to hear all cases appealed to it — and in 1996, she successfully argued State v. Robinette, a Fourth Amendment case concerning searches and seizures, before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Much of her appellate work has involved criminal cases, but the prosecutor does represent other county elected officials, so she handles several civil appeals each year, she said.
Ingram said she was particularly proud of the Robinette case and her division’s work regarding the Erica Baker case. In 2004, the Ohio Supreme Court agreed with Heck’s office that Dayton attorney Beth Lewis had to testify before a grand jury about what she heard from a now-deceased client concerning the missing girl.
“We didn’t find the little girl, but we did not give up,” Ingram said.
She said that appellate work requires a deliberative temperament and diligent research.
“Early on, I learned that if I don’t dig deep, I’ll miss something important,” Ingram said.
Ingram is married to attorney Mike Moloney, whom she met in law school, and they have three children. They live on “a few acres they share with a flock of chickens, a pig and an Airedale,” according to Ingram’s website. In her spare time, she hikes, bikes and skis. She also enjoys cooking, and won prize at a chili-cook-off in Clark County last week.
Darrell Heckman
A lawyer since 1975, Darrell Heckman has worked both sides of criminal law, as the Champaign County prosecutor from 1989 to 1997 and as a defense attorney. He has also served as an assistant county prosecutor, the village solicitor for Christiansburg and Woodstock, and Urbana’s city solicitor.
His private practice, which he maintained during his time as prosecutor, handled all types of cases, he said, including divorces, estates and other civil cases.
“You do get every type of case,” Heckman said. He calls appeals court judge “a natural progression for me.”
Heckman has handled more than 100 appeals. He said that was fewer than Ingram’s, but said that he had a broader experience in law, handling more civil matters than she has at the prosecutor’s office.
He said 50 percent of the appeals court cases are criminal, but the other 50 percent are from other areas of law.
“I’ll give you that she has more criminal appeals than I have,” Heckman said, but added that voters should support him “because I have the diversity of experience and have handled all types of appeals.”
Heckman also said that he would keep some regional diversity for the court. He said his research shows that for, at least the last 85 years, there has always been at least one of the five appeals court judges has been from outside of Montgomery County. Currently, there is one, Judge Thomas J. Grady, who is from Clark County.
While Ingram lives in Greene County, she has always worked in Montgomery County, Heckman said. That will be an issue in the general election, as Welbaum is a former Miami County Common Pleas judge, Heckman said.
“I’m not trying to throw dirt,” Heckman said. “In the rural counties, we have rural issues.”
Ingram responded that she grew up in a small town and has lived on a 5-acre rural property, backed by woods, since 1987. “I live in the country,” she said. I have a real strong feeling for rural issues.”
She also said that her focus on appellate work would be more valuable than Heckman’s experience as a general practitioner.
“It’s not as if the civil cases are written in French,” she said. “The tools are the same.”
Heckman said he has appealed to several appellate districts, the Ohio Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals. A U.S. Army Reserve veteran, Heckman received his bachelor’s of arts from Ohio State and his law degree from the University of Toledo.
This will be the third time he has run for the appeals court. In 1994, he was the Republican nominee, but lost to the incumbent, Grady. In 2004, he lost the Republican primary to Mary Donovan, who was elected and still sits on the court.
He said he was most proud of handling seven homicides during his years as prosecutor, winning convictions in all seven cases, and that all were upheld on appeal. In private practice, he said, he was proud of “representing people that have been overwhelmed by the system until they have a lawyer to help level the playing field for them.”
The hardest thing he had to learn, he said, was turning down a prospective client, not because you didn’t believe that person had been wronged, but because for unrelated reasons, you could not win in court.
Heckman and his wife Nancy have three children and two grandchildren. They live in Urbana, where Heckman is chairman of the Board of Zoning Appeals. His wife is a schoolteacher. Heckman said that he enjoys reading and traveling and considers himself “a very avid history buff.” He also swims more than 200 miles a year.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2057 or lgrieco@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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