Ohio’s Republican and Democratic Senators today recommended Justin Herdman to become the next U-S Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio. It’s now up to President Trump to make a formal nomination and the US Senate to confirm.
Herdman gained local prominence in 2012 as an Assistant US Attorney, when he prosecuted a group of self-proclaimed anarchists who’d planned to blow up a bridge in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.
In his new post, Herdman would direct enforcement of the 2015 Justice Department’s settlement monitoring Cleveland’s police reform. But Cleveland State University law professor Jonathan Witmer-Rich who was the defense lawyer in an earlier case opposite Herdman, doesn’t expect many changes if Herdman is confirmed.
“I believe him to be a very fair person who is going to look at the facts of the law in a very straightforward way and is not overly ideological one way or the other. I believe he would have a great deal of respect for the work done by the previous United States attorney and other lawyers in their work on the consent decree,” Witmer-Rich said.
Herdman is currently a partner at Jones Day law firm in Cleveland.