In 2004, Matt Kunsman spent his first day in Licking County on a date with his future wife, Julie.
“Licking County reminded me more of back home,” Kunsman said. “It reminded me of the place that I came from – a tighter knit community.”
Now, working and living in Newark with his wife and 14-year-old daughter, Kunsman has called Licking County home for nearly 20 years.
Kunsman, 49, is the Republican candidate for the Licking County Common Pleas Court judge, running against incumbent Democrat David Branstool for this non-partisan role – one for which no party affiliation appears on the ballot.
Kunsman’s upbringing in Bryan, in northwestern Ohio, as a 4-H kid surrounded by family influenced the principles which he says now guide his morals: hard work, responsibility, and “Faith. Family. Freedom.”
He graduated from Capital University Law School in 2003 and said he has since dedicated himself to protecting the community by upholding the law.
Since 2020, Kunsman has served as one of four magistrates in the domestic relations division of the Common Pleas Court in Licking County, assisting the domestic relations judges with their caseloads, of which he focuses more on the quasi-criminal docket.
“I’m not the same as a judge, but a magistrate has very similar functions, including conducting trials, hearings, making decisions on evidence, issuing warrants, things like that. But I need a judge to sign off on all the final actions that I take,” Kunsman said.
In December 2023, before starting his campaign, Kunsman said he went door-to-door in Licking County, listening to the needs of residents from across the political spectrum. After talking with prosecutors, police officers, jurors and others working in the criminal justice system, Kunsman decided to run for judge.
“I think that currently, there’s a concern among the community that there’s issues managing the criminal justice system, and the concerns are too many people who are repeat offenders are being put back into the community when they shouldn’t be,” Kunsman said.
Kunsman identifies as “tough on crime” and prioritizes protecting victim’s rights. He is a firm believer in the idea that known consequences correlate with a decrease in crime, and that it is the responsibility of judges to use their discretion in a way that upholds the law.
“If there are known consequences, studies have borne out that there is a corresponding decrease in attempted crime. When you know there are harsh consequences, crime decreases in the area where those consequences exist,” Kunsman said.
Kunsman pointed to New York City before the turn of the century, when organized crime and violent crime rates were higher than they are today.
“The police embraced something called the ‘Broken Windows’ theory of policing – it led to some controversial things like ‘stop and frisk,’ and some people did abuse it … but Broken Windows theory was sound, and it worked. That is if you police the small crimes, and you police them well, then the larger crimes are prevented.”
The Broken Windows theory – popularized by then-New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani in the 1990s – argues that broken windows, abandoned buildings, graffiti, panhandling and other signs of “disorder” in neighborhoods create an environment primed for increased criminal activity, and could turn petty criminals into violent offenders. After New York police implemented “proactive policing,” another name for Broken Windows, the crime rate dropped nearly 10% between 1996 and 1997, according to The New York Times.
But the policy also led to an increase in what critics say is “aggressive over-policing of minority communities” and a strain on the criminal justice system, according to PBS Frontline. Stop and frisk policies, too, significantly degrade community trust in police, according to the Vera Institute of Justice.
Kunsman said it’s not his job – or any judge’s job – to rewrite the law, although he believes some judges in central Ohio act otherwise.
“If you follow the law as a judge, the legislature has done the work for you; they have laid it out,” Kunsman said. “I think that some judges believe that they disagree with the law and therefore it is their job to rewrite it from the bench. I have pledged not to do that.”
Aside from clear consequences for criminals, Kunsman also believes in crime mitigation and prevention.
“Absolutely, I’ll take into account somebody who struggles being unhoused, who struggles with addiction, who struggles with abuse…” Kunsman said. “Where I have less concern for those mitigating factors is someone who is in their second, third, fourth time for the same behavior.”
Kunsman said individuals struggling with addiction should be treated with “mercy,” but clarified that mercy was not simply letting someone go.
“Is your definition of mercy simply letting them walk out on the street, back to the same triggers that lead them to their addiction and the behaviors that got them in trouble, back to the same group of ‘friends’ or circumstances that led them to that,” Kunsman asked. “Or is it more merciful to send them to prison for a while, where they have access to mental health treatment, they have access to medical treatment, they have access to addiction recovery services, they have access to education, they have access to faith based services if that’s what they want?”
Over the six years Kunsman would serve, if elected, he said he has three primary goals. One involves giving probation and pretrial bond officers the ability to make an arrest without filing loads of bureaucratic paperwork.
He also said he would reassess the Addiction Recovery Court, which offers drug treatment programs with intensive supervision as an alternative to conviction for those charged with a felony related to substance use. Kunsman said that the program, created by Branstool, has garnered criticism for being used as a last resort for serious, serial offenders.
“I would have drug court be one of the first things that happens,” Kunsman said. “If they’re not a drug trafficker; if they’re not dealing drugs; if there’s not a crime of violence associated with it; if there’s not a property crime associated with it; if it’s simply addiction and possession, I think that person does need some help, and they need to get followed up on.”
Kunsman said he plans to create a specific program for veterans struggling with substance use disorder.
His final goal, he said, is to streamline the courtroom process with clear communication by setting standard procedural rules to display on the court website.
“If people tell me they’re not working, we’ll change how we do it,” Kunsman said.
Mia Fischel writes for TheReportingProject.org, the nonprofit news organization of Denison University’s Journalism program, which is supported by generous donations from readers. Sign up for The Reporting Project newsletter here.