Hutzel is running unopposed Tuesday, for the seat to be vacated by Judge William Young, who has served on the court since 1986 and is not eligible to run again.
“I have been telling the guys, I plan to decorate my office with white wicker and pink cushions, just to bug them,” Hutzel said with a laugh.
The 54-year-old Warren County native is one of 13 children born in Hamilton Twp. to Bernard and Patricia Hutzel.
She figures if only her family votes for her it will be a respectable showing on Election Day.
“I know I can count on my mother at least will vote for me,” Hutzel said, noting her mother, who is now in her 80s, loves politics.
Hutzel has served as Warren County prosecutor since 2003 and has been apart of the office since 1993, but she didn’t aspire to be a prosecutor or even a lawyer as a student at Little Miami High School.
While attending college at the University of Massachusetts, Hutzel was a psychology major.
“I wanted to fix the world, Hutzel said. “Somewhere along the way I thought being a lawyer was the way to try to do that.”
After graduating from the University of Dayton with a law degree, Hutzel worked as an attorney with Thompson Hine and Flory for two years doing corporate litigation. She never worked as a defense attorney before landing in the prosecutor’s office.
“I think that I am not sufficiently sympathetic,” she said, admitting she is not a good hand-holder but is good at solving problems head-on.
“I really like being able to address problems; to confront a problem and try to correct it,” Hutzel said, adding putting a suspect away who has abused, maimed or murdered is “very satisfying.”
Hutzel, who until recently has been “very involved” with most of the office’s cases, presenting all evidence to a grand jury for indictment consideration, said she will find it difficult to say goodbye to the office of 95 employees.
“I will find it most difficult to leave the people I have gotten to know here” Hutzel said. “(But) it is time for a change for me. Time to take on a new challenge. That is how you keep yourself fresh and lively.”
Jumping from prosecutor to appellate judge is a logical step, Hutzel said.
“As prosecutor, I have to evaluate cases every day based on fact and law,” Hutzel said.
Hutzel and her husband, Jeff Blazey, live in Lebanon and have one grown son who is a chef.
In her 18 years in office, Hutzel said she will remember many cases, but mostly because of the victims and families she has gotten to know, not the defendants.
She has developed a thick skin when it comes to criticism about cases, including the Ryan Widmer murder case that is scheduled to be tried for a third time in January.
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