Oct 30, 2019 5 min read

Public defenders and prosecutors regularly square off in courtrooms as adversaries.

Leading up to the Tuesday election, an assistant public defender and the incumbent district attorney have been pitted against each other in another arena, the political one.

Republican District Attorney Gene Vittone, making a bid for his third, four-year term, is being opposed by Assistant Public Defender Jake Mihalov, a Democrat who’s making his first run for public office.

During his four-plus years in the public defender’s office, Mihalov said he’s handled an average of 1,200 cases per year.

At the same time, Vittone said the district attorney’s office, which had been handling 3,000 to 3,500 cases per year, recently dipped below 1,000 active cases.

The incumbent attributed the decline to both diversionary programs and a concept known as “community prosecution,” in which an assistant district attorney rotates into magisterial district courts and stays with a case as it makes it way through Common Pleas Court to better monitor it.

Vittone said it’s the fulfillment of a campaign promise he made four years ago to whittle down the district attorney’s office caseload.

“It enables us to focus on the serious cases,” Vittone said.

As an assistant district attorney in 2004, he pioneered Washington County’s first drug treatment court, which provided alternative sentences to participants.

Mihalov, however, sees opportunities to expand diversionary programs, arguing, for example, that 40 slots in drug court are too few.

He also wants to relieve overcrowding at the county jail by keeping non-violent offenders awaiting trial in their homes with appropriate supervision instead of staying behind bars. One way to tackle that problem is to work with police departments to avoid what he called “over-charging. I think this DA is a little rigid,” he said.

The Democrat sees the district attorney as “the gatekeeper” who has the power to recommend incarceration or probation when negotiating plea deals.

He said he’s seen defendants charged with crimes that didn’t fit the circumstances, and Mihalov said a proposed guilty or no-contest plea too often becomes a “take-it or leave-it” offer that is valid for one day only.

“I think tough-on-crime DAs do that a lot,” Mihalov said. “They scare people into taking pleas. I would want to make sure we’re not unnecessarily pressuring people into taking pleas. The DA wields enormous power over that process from the beginning to the end.

“I would try to plea with dignity and plea with integrity.”

Substance abuse often foments crime, whether it be someone who is not acting with all their faculties or causes a thief to steal to support a habit.

Vittone, who maintains an active paramedic’s license, has seen the number of drug overdose deaths in Washington County decrease, which many attribute to the wider use of Naloxone to revive drug users.

Of the opioid epidemic, Mihalov said, “Treat it as a public health issue, You can”t arrest your way out of this kind of crisis. Staying clean is exceedingly difficult and it’s a year-long if not years-long process that can involve relapse.”

Mihalov, if elected, aims to reduce the population of the county jail by 20%, which he said would save taxpayers millions of dollars over the course of a year.

One aspect of serving as district attorney is being a member of the county prison board, which oversees the operation of the correctional facility.

If elected to a third term, Virttone said he wants “assistant district attorneys to be more involved with municipal leaders, more involved with the police.”

He cited a recent seminar a deputy district attorney conducted in the Mon Valley for police on how to investigate child abuse cases and how to work with a child advocacy center to handle these cases more efficiently.

“We’ve stayed under budget even though I need more detectives,” Vittone said. The lack of investigators leads to delays in investigations.

“A lot of police departments don’t have investigators – they have patrol guys. Better investigations yield better decisions by me and my prosecutors, which yields better prosecutions. You only have so many resources.”

Mihalov said he’s running “to bend the discussion toward things I want to talk about. If we can effect change in a positive way, win or lose, that’s a win for the people.

“Criminal justice reform candidates are coming from more places than the DA’s office. That general pipeline is being disrupted, and I think it’s a good thing. We’re going to get new ideas, we’re going to have new policies. We’re going to see how they work.”

District Attorney’s Race Bio Box

Term: 4 years

Salary: $182,184

Democrat

Name: Jake Mihalov

Age: 32

Residence: Canonsburg

Education: Bachelor’s degree, Dennison University, Dennison, Ohio; University of Pittsburgh School of Law

Occupation: Assistant public defender

Republican

Name: Gene Vittone

Age: 59

Residence: Bentleyville

Education: Bachelor of science, master of business administration, master of health  administration, University of Pittsburgh;  law degree, Duquesne University