Summit County Prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh will retire effective Feb. 16, according to her office.
Last month, Walsh announced she will be undergoing heart surgery in January to combat the effects of heart failure related to contracting COVID-19, according to her office. Although she was unclear if she would be able to run again for her seat, she filed the paperwork to do so on Dec. 8, while also asking Assistant Prosecutor Elliot Kolkovich to file to run in case she decided to retire.
“My hope was to be able to continue serving the residents of Summit County. However, because of recent events, I realized I was not going to be able to provide the high level of devotion this job needs and Summit County deserves," Walsh said in a press release. "I’m still very passionate about fighting for victims, keeping the community safe and holding criminals accountable. I am also very passionate about protecting children and our community’s seniors. I just cannot continue at the pace the position of county prosecutor requires."
Walsh will retire during her sixth term, having served as county prosecutor for more than 23 years, she said.
"Prosecutor Walsh has been an absolute stalwart in working to protect the citizens of Summit County," Summit County Executive Ilene Shapiro said. "She has been a great partner, a great advocate."
After her retirement, the Summit County Democratic Central Committee will vote to appoint an acting prosecutor to fill out the term, which ends in January 2025, according to the county prosecutor's office.
“It is my hope the committee will appoint Elliot Kolkovich, my current outreach prosecutor," Walsh said. "He is the most experienced and best person to lead the office moving forward."
This will be the first time in two decades the race will be open, but Shapiro doesn't think much will change.
"I'm guessing that the ... continuum of stability would be important to the voters when they got out," she said.
Walsh was first elected county prosecutor in 2000 and is the longest-serving county prosecutor in Summit County's history, according to her office.
"How she has touched the community from both the humanistic side and the legal side is the legacy that's there to build on," Shapiro said.
She began her career in the city of Akron's prosecutor's office in 1985, her office said. Early in her career, Walsh herself was the victim of a violent crime, which left a lasting impact on her work advocating for victims.
"She's done a lot of work training women for self defense, for scams, for all of the things that protect people to hopefully put them - if they ever encounter something - in a better place, to be able to handle or deal with both on the front end and on the back end," Shapiro said.
Walsh created the county's Child Support Enforcement Agency, which provides family support services such as genetic testing, assistance in child support orders, case management services, education and collection of child support. As of Dec. 31, 2023, the agency collected $60 million from criminal nonsupport cases, according to her office.
Walsh also created the Prosecutor's Office Victim Services Division, which keeps victims informed as their case works through the justice system, and the Conviction Integrity Unit in 2019, which reviews cases of those found guilty to ensure convictions were fair.
"Her cutting edge work with ideas, like this is just one of them, bringing the dog in to work with the kids and now the adults and change the tenor of a courtroom which can be very intimidating to people," Shapiro said.
Under her leadership, the prosecutor's office became the first in Ohio to have a facility dog assist crime victims and their families, according to her office. The first facility dog, Avery, who arrived in 2013, assisted 300 victims. A second dog, Adam, started working at the prosecutor's office in 2023.
Walsh worked with several Summit County sheriffs to run the Take Me Home Program, a safety tool for families of people with autism, Down syndrome, Alzheimer's, dementia and other conditions can lead people to wander away from home and have trouble communicating, according to the prosecutor's office. The program has about 3,000 people in its database used by law enforcement to help reunite people with their families.
"She is as true a public servant as they come, always keeping the community — and victims especially — at the forefront of everything she does," Summit County Sheriff Kandy Fatheree said in a statement. "It has been such a great experience collaborating with her on many groundbreaking projects, from our CCW [Carrying a Concealed Weapon] workshops to elder abuse awareness to Arrive Alive and more. She will be greatly missed, but I know her staff will continue her mission of service to the community."
Walsh has also won a host of awards, including being named Outstanding Prosecutor of the Year by the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association in 2021. She also received the Victims' Rights Champion Award from Marsy's Law for Ohio in 2017.
