{"id":21071,"date":"2026-10-15T15:54:36","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T15:54:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/?p=21071"},"modified":"2026-10-15T15:54:36","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T15:54:36","slug":"competence-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/2026\/10\/15\/competence-matters\/","title":{"rendered":"Competence Matters"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Rev. Donald L. Perryman, Ph.D.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Rev. Donald L. Perryman, Ph.D.<\/p>\n

The Truth Contributor<\/p>\n

I choose to believe we\u2019re still in a time of a meritocracy, where merit means something. <\/em>\u2013 <\/em>Judge Myron Duhart, Ohio Sixth District Court of Appeals<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Six years ago, before he won his seat on the appeals court, I sat down with Judge Myron Duhart. This time I asked what looks different.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is happening, live and in color, different than 2020 when I went in, is what\u2019s happening every single day,\u201d he said. By any objective standard, due process and the rule of law face more challenges \u201cthan any time in recent history.\u201d The last time he can point to a similar era is \u201cthe 1960s and the civil rights era.\u201d<\/p>\n

A sitting judge doesn\u2019t reach for the civil rights era to make small talk and, from where I sit, you don\u2019t have to look far for what Duhart means. Major news organizations and journalists are in court right now over being barred from the White House and Air Force One.<\/p>\n

Duhart didn\u2019t name names. He said only that in 2026 we are having conversations about \u201cwhat I thought was otherwise settled law.\u201d Ask anybody who lived through the 60s what a settled right is worth.<\/p>\n

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 \u201csettled\u201d the ballot after Selma. Yet, 61 years later, the Supreme Court threw out a Louisiana map with two majority-Black districts, and voting rights groups say the Voting Rights Act now protects less than it did.<\/p>\n

So, I asked what a judge does with a time like this. His answer? \u201cI choose<\/em> to believe we\u2019re still in a time of a meritocracy, where merit means something.\u201d<\/p>\n

Notice the verb. People who are sure don\u2019t have to choose.<\/p>\n

That verb lays a duty on the rest of us. Too many candidates now win office on loyalty to a personality instead of the ability to do the work, and those who pay for it are never the ones with money. This November, with two seats on the Sixth District Court of Appeals up, Toledo gets to say whether it chooses to believe too.<\/p>\n

What Merit Looks Like<\/strong><\/p>\n

If we are going to believe in merit, we must check the evidence.<\/p>\n

Duhart enlisted in the Army as a private and came out a JAG officer, a military lawyer in the Army\u2019s legal branch tasked to prosecute and defend courts-martial and advise commanders in the law. As a student he clerked for Toledo Municipal Judge Robert Penn, then earned his law degree at the University of Toledo and a master’s in judicial studies at the prestigious Duke University. He has also studied at Harvard\u2019s Kennedy School of Government.<\/p>\n

Governor Strickland appointed Duhart to Common Pleas in 2011, and when a justice of the Supreme Court of Ohio stepped aside from a death penalty appeal, the court handed the case to him.<\/p>\n

The people who watch him work have also weighed in. Toledo Bar Association polls its members on the qualifications of every judicial candidate on the Nov. 3 ballot, Duhart\u2019s opponent, CJ Kamm, included. Of those members who responded, 77 percent rated Duhart \u201chighly recommended\u201d to serve as a judge, the best showing of any candidate and 15 points ahead of the next highest. Duhart called that \u201cvery heartening,\u201d because those are \u201cthe very people that frankly know you the best.\u201d<\/p>\n

Competence Matters<\/strong><\/p>\n

Voters have to recognize competence when it stands in front of them and prize it above a name or a party label.<\/p>\n

Competence is not one thing. It is a list, and the judge who has it can show you every item: \u201cexperience, merit, qualifications.\u201d Then there is the item nobody campaigns on, \u201chumility in a time where we don\u2019t see a whole lot of humility,\u201d along with \u201crespect for the rule of law and due process, respect for others.\u201d Add up those qualities and you get the one thing a court cannot function without: trust.<\/p>\n

The executive and legislative branches \u201chave the power of the purse, they have the power of the sword. But in the third branch of government, all we have is trust, trust to the people,\u201d Duhart cautioned. \u201cSometimes, it\u2019s the perception of justice is just as important as actual justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Who needs that belief most? Wealthy persons can hire around a bad judge. A poor or working-class family can\u2019t, and for them the judge is the lawyer, the cavalry and the last hope, all in one robe. Trust is all they have to go on.<\/p>\n

So how do you vote on trust?<\/p>\n

Look for the judge with a long-standing record in the legal community as well as the greater community, and the integrity to match. Look for fairness, or at least the certainty that anyone who comes into that courtroom knows \u201cthey\u2019ll be heard.\u201d A case decided with fairness \u201cgoes to the heart of the perception of justice,\u201d and fairness without competence is only good intentions.<\/p>\n

Duhart is willing to be measured by it. \u201cI stand on my record,\u201d he says. \u201cI often say if you took my resume and you took my opponent\u2019s resume, it would be a stark difference and a stark deficiency as to my opponent, in all the things that you would necessarily want in a judge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Competence is on the ballot, November 3. Choose it.<\/p>\n

Contact Rev. Donald Perryman, PhD, at <\/em>drdlperryman@centerofhopebaptist.org<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Rev. Donald L. Perryman, Ph.D. The Truth Contributor I choose to believe we\u2019re still in a time of a meritocracy, where merit means something. \u2013 Judge Myron Duhart, Ohio Sixth District Court of Appeals   Six years ago, before he won his seat on the appeals court, I sat down with Judge Myron Duhart. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,252],"tags":[],"wf_post_folders":[369],"class_list":["post-21071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial-opinion","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21071"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21072,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21071\/revisions\/21072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21071"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=21071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}