I am writing about Joseph T. Deters, the former Hamilton County Prosecutor who is now a justice of the Supreme Court of Ohio. I focused on allegations raised by Assistant Ohio Public Defender Rachel Troutman. I verified them against court filings, a disciplinary letter, and the Knuff opinion docket.

What triggered the allegations

In late 2017, during the resentencing of serial offender Anthony Kirkland, Troutman spoke with her client by jail phone while representing him in a separate appeal. Prosecutors obtained recordings of two calls. After those calls surfaced, the two trial lawyers withdrew. Then Prosecutor Joe Deters called Troutman’s conduct “reprehensible,” labeled it a severe ethical violation, and told reporters he would find out “what the remedies are.” These statements were reported at the time by Cincinnati media.

Judge Patrick Dinkelacker referenced the issue in court and the matter was referred to the Office of Disciplinary Counsel. In June 2018, the Disciplinary Counsel sent a two page letter to Judge Dinkelacker. The office stated that Troutman was representing Kirkland on appeal at the time, that the submitted conversations were attorney client communications that should have been protected absent a waiver, and that the office was dismissing the grievance for lack of substantial, credible evidence of misconduct. The letter closed the file.

This sequence matters for what came next.

From prosecutor to justice

Governor Mike DeWine appointed Joe Deters to the Supreme Court of Ohio. He took office in January 2023, and he later won election to a six year term in 2024.

Two months after he joined the court, Troutman asked that Justice Deters recuse himself from State v. Thomas E. Knuff, a capital appeal where she had entered an appearance as counsel in 2022. Her recusal letter to the clerk laid out the 2017 events, cited Deters’s public statements about her conduct, and attached exhibits, including the 2018 Disciplinary Counsel letter. The filing argued that a reasonable observer would question Justice Deters’s impartiality in a case where she was counsel, given his prior public accusations about her professionalism.

The court record reflects that Justice Deters declined to recuse. A later motion for reconsideration noted his refusal and argued there was an unconstitutional potential for bias under due process standards, citing Caperton and Williams.

What happened in Knuff

On March 14, 2024, the Supreme Court of Ohio affirmed the convictions and death sentences of Thomas E. Knuff. Justice Deters authored the majority opinion, which rejected twenty four propositions of law. The court’s public information site and its opinion index both attribute the majority to Justice Deters. The court set an execution date of September 14, 2027, subject to a stay, which the docket reflects.

After the decision, Troutman and co counsel filed a motion for reconsideration arguing that the court had treated identified prosecutorial misconduct as harmless error, and that Justice Deters’s participation created a due process problem because of his prior inflammatory public comments about Troutman. The filing quoted the 2017 statements and pointed again to the 2018 Disciplinary Counsel letter that found no misconduct by Troutman.

What the documentary record proves

1. Deters publicly attacked Troutman’s conduct during the 2017 Kirkland resentencing. Contemporary reporting captured him calling her actions “reprehensible” and “unconscionable,” and saying he would pursue remedies.
2. The Office of Disciplinary Counsel investigated and dismissed the grievance in 2018, finding that Troutman was counsel of record on the appeal, that the calls were attorney client communications that should have been protected, and that no further action was warranted.
3. After he became a justice in 2023, Troutman moved for Justice Deters’s recusal in Knuff, citing those statements and attaching the Disciplinary Counsel letter as Exhibit E.
4. Justice Deters declined to recuse, then authored the court’s March 14, 2024 majority opinion affirming Knuff’s convictions and death sentences.

These four points are established in the filings and public records.

Context the court files also show

The Kirkland case already carried recusal sensitivity. Years earlier, the Ohio Supreme Court had vacated Kirkland’s original death sentence because of a sentencing remark by then Prosecutor Deters that implied the murders of two teens would be “freebies” without a death sentence. That history appears in local reporting on the resentencing.

The Knuff reconsideration motion framed the bias question using familiar due process standards. It argued that Justice Deters’s prior public accusations about Troutman created, at minimum, an unconstitutional potential for bias when she appeared before him as counsel, even without proof of actual bias. The motion cited Caperton and Williams on objective standards and the appearance of justice.

Why this matters

A justice who publicly condemned a defense lawyer’s conduct while serving as a county prosecutor later refused to step aside when that same lawyer appeared on a capital case. He then wrote the opinion affirming the death sentences. That raises a recusal and due process question that is not theoretical, because the record shows a direct clash, a later exoneration of the lawyer by Disciplinary Counsel, a specific recusal request, and a refusal. In capital litigation, confidence in neutrality matters. The filings give a concrete basis to question that neutrality in this instance.

Bottom line

The allegation I can verify is not that Justice Deters engaged in a specific criminal act. The provable claim is narrower. As prosecutor, he publicly attacked a public defender for conduct that the Disciplinary Counsel later said did not warrant discipline, and those communications should have been protected. As a justice, he declined to recuse from that lawyer’s capital case and authored the opinion against her client. Readers can form conclusions about corruption, bias, or the appearance of justice. The record supplies the facts.