Portsmouth City Council is preparing to reopen a fight that got pretty heated the last time around:
Does Portsmouth really need two Municipal Court judges?
The issue is back on the agenda for Monday’s city manager’s conference, where council members are expected to discuss asking the Ohio General Assembly to reduce Portsmouth Municipal Court from two judges to one.
And this isn’t exactly virgin territory.
The proposal previously triggered a war of words between City Hall and Municipal Court, landed in front of the Ohio Supreme Court for review, and became intertwined with allegations that the FBI was investigating possible theft-related offenses involving Judges Steven Mowery and Russell Kegley.
For now, Monday’s item is a discussion, not a final vote to eliminate a judgeship.
But if council decides to move forward, the city would have to seek action from state lawmakers. Ohio municipal courts are created by the General Assembly, so City Council cannot simply vote one of the two judgeships out of existence.
We’ve Been Here Before
In 2024, Portsmouth asked the Ohio Supreme Court to examine whether the city still needed two Municipal Court judges.
That review did not exactly hand City Hall the answer it was looking for.
After comparing Portsmouth’s population and caseload with statewide measures for full-time judges, the review concluded the court appeared to be performing at a high level, with no indication of increasing backlogs or general delays.
It also warned that reducing the court to one judge would leave that judge with a relatively large caseload and could make it difficult to maintain the court’s existing level of performance.
The review did note one argument that could eventually favor a smaller court: Scioto County’s population is projected to decline over the coming decades, potentially bringing the caseload down with it.
But that was a projection about the future.
Portsmouth Municipal Court currently says it handles more than 3,000 criminal cases, 10,000 traffic cases and 2,000 civil cases in an average year, while its probation department supervises more than 2,000 defendants. The court remains a two-judge operation.
And if anybody thinks the courthouse is sitting around waiting for something to do, the court calendar for today lists 94 cases.
Then Things Got Personal
The first debate over eliminating a judgeship became considerably more contentious after court documents revealed that the FBI was investigating allegations involving Mowery and Kegley.
The allegations involved claims that the judges had altered their own work hours and those of court employees.
At the time, then-First Ward Councilman Sean Dunne said he learned of the investigation after council had already asked the Ohio Supreme Court to review whether two judges were necessary.
The judges offered a very different version of how the controversy developed.
In a joint response to the proposed change, Mowery and Kegley said the allegations against them came from the city manager after City Hall began pushing for a single-judge court.
They also rejected the idea that Municipal Court was responsible for the city’s budget problems.
Instead, the judges pointed directly at another costly City Hall controversy: the move into the new municipal building.
The City Hall Remodel Fight
The city leased the four-story building that became the new City Hall in 2022.
While a charitable donation covered the lease, millions of dollars were needed to remodel the building for city offices and Municipal Court.
Mowery and Kegley said they weren’t initially included in planning discussions and argued that the large open space on the first floor made the most financial sense for courtrooms.
According to their response, the city manager rejected that idea.
The judges later blamed decisions surrounding the project for helping drive remodeling costs millions of dollars beyond earlier estimates and argued that City Hall’s subsequent push for cost-cutting was being unfairly aimed at Municipal Court.
In other words, by the time anyone got around to debating how many judges Portsmouth needed, the disagreement wasn’t merely about caseload statistics anymore.
There was plenty of baggage coming along for the ride.
One Judge, Lots of Cases
The basic question facing council hasn’t changed much.
A one-judge court would presumably cost less than a two-judge court.
But somebody still has to hear the cases.
Portsmouth Municipal Court handles misdemeanor criminal cases, traffic cases, civil lawsuits of up to $15,000 and preliminary proceedings in felony cases. Municipal courts are also responsible for arraignments, warrants, protection orders and other matters that often can’t simply wait until the calendar clears.
Ohio law does allow substitute or assigned judges to step in when a single municipal judge is unavailable because of an absence, recusal, suspension or other circumstances. It also allows an additional judge to be assigned when a court’s pending caseload requires one.
That raises another practical question council may have to wrestle with:
How much would eliminating a permanent second judge actually save if a busy one-judge court regularly needed visiting or assigned judges to keep the docket moving?
The Ohio Supreme Court’s earlier review already warned that one Portsmouth judge would be carrying a relatively heavy load.
For Now, It’s Back on the Table
Monday’s discussion doesn’t eliminate anybody’s job.
It doesn’t change the court.
And it doesn’t mean the Ohio Legislature will agree to anything even if council eventually makes the request.
But after a two-year controversy involving court workloads, multimillion-dollar City Hall renovation costs, accusations between judges and city officials and an FBI investigation disclosed in court documents, Portsmouth is once again preparing to ask the same deceptively simple question:
Do we need two judges, or can one do the job?
City Council may be getting ready to find out just how much fight is still left in that question.