Fenwick graduation 2012
Ponitz graduation 2012
Cars and Parts Swap Meet
Home > Blogs > Dayton Courts: Legal and crime news > Archives > 2010 > July > 14
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Wehner named Montgomery County Public Defender
DAYTON - Rudy Wehner, who has served as acting Montgomery County Public Defender since March, was named to the job permanently Wednesday, July 14.
Wehner replaces Glen Dewar, who has been on paid suspension since March 19. Wehner was deputy director under Dewar.
The five-person public defender’s commission voted unanimously June 9 not to renew Dewar’s contract, which ends in late July. The same body voted unanimously Wednesday to appoint Wehner to the position on a one-year contract.
Wehner will make $92,500. Commissioner Steve Dankof said they offered him “substantially more money” but Wehner declined.
“I think that speaks volumes about the kind of person he is,” Dankof said.
Other commissioners, including chair Dianne Marx and Gary Leppla, praised Wehner for bringing stability to the office and rebuilding relationships with the “customers,” including the Dayton Municipal Court judges, who had discussed not renewing the city’s contract with the office.
“I think he is everything we could hope for,” Leppla said.
Public defender staff broke into applause after the motion passed.
Wehner, 58, is an Archbishop Alter High School graduate who received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Dayton in 1973 and his law degree from the University of Cincinnati in 1976. He started at the public defender’s office as a clerk while in law school, joined the office as a staff attorney in 1976 and left as deputy director in 1980.
After years in private practice, Wehner returned to the office as deputy director in November 2007. Commissioners said his experience as a defense attorney, both in and out of the public defender’s office, would be invaluable.
Wehner said he plans to continue handling cases on the office’s docket rotation in addition to his administrative duties. He is currently assigned to the docket of Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Michael T. Hall. He said it was important to stay active in the courts, “to go out and see what your lawyers are going through.”
Dewar had been the county’s public defender since 2000. He had been at the center of several controversies this year, including a number of computer purchases that were the subject of an audit. The county auditor found that the office deliberately evaded county procedures for those purchases and entered an invalid contract for internet service.
In December, Administrative Judge Carl S. Henderson signed an order that said the docket of newly appointed Judge Deirdre E. Logan was too congested. That order suspended the appointment of assistant public defenders to cases on Logan’s docket.
Henderson wrote then: “Due to the number of cases assigned to the Public Defender’s office, it is unlikely that the public defenders can adequately and efficiently prepare a proper defense, which may result in prejudice to the defendants.”
Wehner told the commissioners last month that the public defender’s office returned to Logan’s docket on May 17.
The Public Defender’s Office, which provides legal services to indigent criminal defendants, employed 75 people in 2007, according to payroll records.
Permalink | |
