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Thomas Lucente, 56, of Lima was named Mercer County's first public defender. He starts work April 3.
CELINA - A criminal defense attorney with about a decade of local legal experience has been named Mercer County's first public defender.
Thomas Lucente Jr., 56, of Lima is an attorney, veteran and former journalist who aims to provide excellent criminal defense on par with any private law firm for impoverished people entangled in the county court system.
"I'm a big advocate of indigent defense," Lucente said. "I'm on the boards of trustees for advocates of basic legal equality and legal aide in Western Ohio, and they're dedicated to providing legal representation of indigent (individuals)."
Lucente will start April 3 but likely won't begin mounting legal defenses until May, once the new county department is up and running.
"The cases I currently have in Mercer County will then be transferred over to the public defender's office but we won't be taking new cases, probably, until I get a staff and everything set up."
Due to a dwindling number of area attorneys, county officials elected to change the way they handle indigent defense counsel by moving from a decades-old court appointed system to a public defender office.
A five-person commission established last year cast a wide net throughout the state for a public defender who will provide legal representation for those declared indigent with income between 125% and 187.5% of the poverty threshold, per Ohio Revised Code.
Lucente was one of five candidates who applied for the job.
"I've seen Tom in court. He's a very good, very competent criminal defense lawyer," said public defender commissioner and retired attorney Jim Tesno. "We spent much time discussing amongst ourselves the role public defenders play in Mercer County and how we have … a good criminal law system and we need somebody to fit into that system. Tom seemed to fit all the qualifications we were looking for."
Public defender commissioner and county treasurer Dave Wolters said the commission has high hopes for Lucente and the new office.
"We've gone through a lot of due diligence in visiting other counties from trying to understand the business of public defense and then obviously interviewing candidates," Wolters said.
"I think the commission is very excited about Tom's leadership that he's going to bring to the county," Wolters said.
County commissioners have committed to funding the upfront costs of hiring a public defender and setting up and running an office. However, Wolters wasn't comfortable disclosing the amount at this time.
"From a fiscal perspective, the state helps support this office as it does with other offices around the state of Ohio," Wolters noted. "We're seeing that reimbursement now when we have appointed counsel. We see how timely that's done."
The Office of the Ohio Public Defender was to reimburse counties for indigent defense expenses at an average rate approaching 100%, according to a July 1, 2021, memorandum to various county governments.
County commissioners have arranged for Lucente to start the public defender office on the second floor of the Central Services Building in Celina. Lucente now needs to hire staff. Ideally, he would like to have the equivalent of two-and-a-half attorneys, including himself, and two support staff positions.
"That (figure) matches what the Ohio Administrative Code says you need based on the case numbers," he said.
Hiring the right support staff to coordinate and schedule meetings and cases will be just as crucial as hiring good attorneys, Wolters stressed.
"Part of the success of the office is having a very good administrative staff who makes the office tick," he said.
Once one or more attorneys are in place, Lucente said he will decide how to allocate caseloads from common pleas, municipal and juvenile/probate courts.
Even after the public defender office is operating, Lucente said he will still have to rely on private attorneys to some degree.
"There's going to be conflict cases," he said. "If we have a situation where two or three people are arrested at the same time, we're only going to be able to represent one of them and the rest will have to be farmed out to other local counsels. So for sure we'll still need some local lawyers who are willing to take court appointed cases but we should be able to, I think, fulfill the bulk of them."
Lucente currently is employed at The Hearn Law Office of Lima. He is married and has two children and two stepchildren. He grew up in Dayton and graduated from Chaminade-Julienne High School in 1985.
Lucente served with the Ohio National Guard in Iraq for 15 months starting in 2003.
For 30 years, Lucente worked as a journalist with the Fairborn Daily Herald, Sidney Daily News and Lima News, where he rose to the rank of night editor and editorial page columnist. He attended the University of Toledo College of Law while still working at the newspaper.
"I didn't get to law school until I was 40 because I wanted a new challenge," he said.
