UPDATE: Shayla Favor received 41% of the votes in the March 19 Democratic contest for Franklin County prosecutor, compared to 35% for Anthony Pierson and 24% for Natalia Harris, the Columbus Dispatch reported. Favor will go against Republican John Rutan in the general election on Nov. 5.

The stakes remain high in Columbus, Ohio. As news and anger spread inside a courthouse last week about a hung jury in the murder trial of a former sheriff’s deputy who shot a Black man in the back, something else was happening outside: Activists educated residents on why next month’s district attorney’s primary is so crucial.

This year, Franklin County voters could elect their first Black district attorney — three of the four candidates are Democrats and Black. If voters don’t pay attention, they may also choose the wrong candidate — one who might mirror the previous administration, advocates say. 

“Unfortunately, but fortunately, we have this trial to use to say, ‘Hey, this is why we need to make sure that we have the right person in that right seat.’ We want to make sure that if ever there’s another Casey Goodson, they get the same attention that this case did,” said Karla Carey White, president of the organizing committee for the Ohio Families Unite Against Police Brutality. 

Columbus is the largest city in the state, nearly 30% Black, and among a list of smaller cities in the U.S. that had an influx of Black residents between 2010 and 2020. Yet, it still remains one of the most segregated cities in the country because of its history of redlining and systemic racism within law enforcement. There have been 67 people killed during an encounter with police officers from different departments within Franklin County since 2013, and more than half are Black, according to the Mapping Police Violence database. 

Since Feb. 1, community activists and organizers joined the family of Casey Goodson Jr.  downtown to not only support them, but leverage the case to tell voters about the ongoing district attorney race. 

For over three years, family and friends have waited for a former Franklin County Sheriff’s SWAT deputy, Michael Jason Meade, to either go to trial or negotiate a plea to get less time in prison for killing Goodson. Instead, the family endured hours of testimony, and some pierced their memories with the gory images of Goodson’s autopsy. 

Goodson, 23, was walking toward his grandmother’s front door with his keys in one hand and a bag of Subway sandwiches in another when he was shot in the back five times by Meade. Police say Meade spotted Goodson with a gun, and words were exchanged before he opened fire. The incident was not captured on a body camera, and because of this, it has been Meade’s word against Goodson’s family who watched in horror on Dec. 4, 2020, as Goodson’s bullet-riddled body fell in the doorway. Prosecutors revealed during opening statements that a gun was found at the scene, but in the kitchen with the safety on.

After a two-week trial, the jurors were unable to reach a unanimous decision for all the charges. The judge declared a mistrial. 

Community activists held a march over the weekend demanding a new trial. The special prosecutors announced on Thursday that they will retry Meade.

“We all believe in law and order, and we believe that the justice system has the power to provide redress for victims and to hold wrongdoers accountable. We look forward to the next trial and that trial date cannot come soon enough,” Sean L. Walton, attorney for the Goodson family, wrote in an email.

It was a 9-3 decision to convict Meade for the murder of Goodson, Walton said.

What’s at stake in this district attorney’s race?

For weeks, organizers have been gearing up to hold voter registration drives and knock on doors to educate residents about the importance of next month’s district attorney primary in Franklin County. Picking the right candidate comes at a critical time. 

Since Goodson’s death, 114 other people have been killed by law enforcement in Ohio — 44 were Black. In Franklin County, there have been nine fatal police deaths that occurred since June 2022 and have ongoing criminal investigations, the Mapping Police Violence database shows. 

Two previous district attorney candidate forums were held where up to 200 members of the community and all four candidates were in attendance. 

The Democratic candidates are City Councilwoman Shayla Favor, Delaware City Attorney Natalia Harris, and Deputy Chief Counsel for the Franklin County Prosecutor’s office Anthony Pierson. The Republican candidate is John Rutan, a defense attorney. 

Activists and organizers left those events collectively concerned that despite Pierson’s experience as a prosecutor, he may not be fit to handle any form of police misconduct cases. Some question Rutan’s motives, especially when it comes to hiring diverse employees. Most are unsure about Harris, but don’t question her skills as an attorney, and may lean in favor for Favor because of her already established community services as a city councilwoman, but question her skills as a prosecutor.

The next forum is scheduled for Tuesday night at East High School in Columbus. 

Many Franklin County residents said Favor closely represents who they envision as their next district attorney because of the work she has done for affordable housing and passing an anti-crime bill that outlaws owning high-capacity firearms. Because of Favor’s track record, activists and organizers would like to see if she will use her discretion to practice the laws she has helped pass, and not repeat history by shying away from handling high-profile cases, especially those involving law enforcement. 

Prior to Tyack unseating six-term incumbent, Ron O’Brien, in 2020, the office went 22 years before indicting a law enforcement officer — and that case ended with an acquittal after two trials. 

Many independent investigation teams were created in states and counties across the country in response to civil unrest that occurred following the May 2020 murder of George Floyd. In June 2020, Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther signed an executive order requiring all fatal police incidents to be investigated by the Bureau of Criminal Investigations within the state attorney general’s office. 

Pierson was appointed as BCI’s lead special prosecutor. He left the attorney general’s office after completing the investigation into Jayland Walker’s June 2022 death. No charges were filed despite eight Akron police officers firing 94 bullets. In January, the Rev. Raymond Greene Jr., the leader of Freedom BLOC, an Akron-based nonprofit, published an appeal in the Columbus Dispatch to voters in Columbus warning them not to vote for Pierson because of the Walker case.

Local activist Dejuan Sharp said Pierson is a good prosecutor, but his track record with prosecuting law enforcement has been abysmal across the state and doesn’t sit well with him as a Franklin County voter. There have been 346 fatal police encounters in Ohio since 2013, and 275 have no known charges reported — officers were cleared in 47 cases during Pierson’s tenure, according to the Mapping Police Violence database.

“He’s been positioned to prosecute a lot of the police cases in Ohio, and like, nobody really has been prosecuted in Ohio,” Sharp scoffed. 

After Pierson left the attorney general’s office, he became the lead prosecutor overseeing grand jury proceedings for the Franklin County district attorney’s office. That included the October 2022 death of Sinzae Reed. A Franklin County grand jury declined in May to indict Krieg Allen Butler, who admitted to killing the 13-year-old, but in self-defense. There was no evidence that Sinzae was armed. 

“Pierson was somebody who was an immediate, immediate, call of concern within organizing spaces and in community spaces mainly because you can tell he’s the ‘made man,’” said Ramon Obey II, co-founder of J.U.S.T. (Justice, Unity, and Social Transformation), a biweekly community-service effort in Columbus. 

Pierson told Capital B via email that he rejoined the Franklin County DA’s office in May 2023, and said Butler’s case was decided before he started. Capital B has requested Pierson’s exact start date.

Pierson said that he cannot deny the difficulties with prosecuting police officers under the law and admits that he doesn’t have a perfect record. However, it has not stopped him “from presenting use of force cases against law enforcement to grand juries and charging police officers for improper use of force,” he wrote. “Not only have I held police officers accountable under the law, I have also worked with use of force experts across the country to improve prosecution of police officers.”

The next fatal police shooting trial involves former Columbus police officer Adam Coy in the death of Andre Hill, who was also killed in December 2020.

Pierson has endorsements from almost all of the county’s law enforcement agencies as well as from Tyack. 

“As an organizer, that’s always a concerning thing to see because it’s telling; it’s basically them saying, ‘We chose him. We don’t care what no one else says. We don’t care about what the community says. This is the way we’re going to move.’ And Anthony is the perfect representation of that, sadly,” Obey said. 

As Pierson has been campaigning while overseeing the Franklin County grand jury, 21-year-old Ta’Kiya Young and her unborn baby were killed in August by a Blendon Township police officer. Instead of Pierson handling the case, a deal was brokered to swap another fatal police case with another prosecuting office in the state and have that office present Young’s case to their grand jurors, the Columbus Dispatch reported.

When asked about passing high-profile cases on to other jurisdictions to investigate, Pierson wrote in the email to Capital B that there are both pros and cons to handling cases internally as well as appointing special counsel. “I plan to have ongoing community conversations on what the best approach is, taking into account transparency and accountability,” he wrote.

White said it’s difficult to trust Pierson when it comes to any high-profile case if he decided to “pass the buck” for Young, declined to prosecute Walker, and didn’t indict Butler for Sinzae’s murder. 

“How can we trust that he will actually do the job that the community needs him to do?” White asked. “And so for us, for a lot of us, we don’t have a lot of faith in him [Pierson].”

This story has been updated.