BATAVIA, Ohio — A nearly four-hour civil protection order hearing in Clermont County Common Pleas Court took an unusual turn Tuesday when Judge William Wolff, sitting by assignment after all county judges recused themselves, modified a temporary ex parte order without the petitioner ever formally presenting her case — a departure from standard civil procedure that raised questions about the orderliness of the proceeding.
The hearing in Jessica Little v. Christopher R. Hicks centered on a protection order petition filed by Jessica Little, a municipal court magistrate and former prosecutor in Brown County, who sits as a magisterate in Clermont County, as well as the magistrate in the Village of Peebles’ Mayor’s Court, against Hicks, a journalist and pro se litigant who operates the Watchdog Wire news outlet covering three counties in southern Ohio. Little was represented by Cincinnati attorney Scott Croswell III; Hicks represented himself.
“There is no violation there in this case,” Hicks told the court near the end of the hearing, arguing that Little’s claims do not meet the legal threshold for a civil protection order and that “if you strip out the protected speech, if you strip out me contacting her in her professional capacity as a judicial officer, if you strip out what I was trying to achieve — getting acknowledgement of Marcy’s law — there is absolutely no violation there in this case.”
Procedural Irregularities Mark the Record
What unfolded over the nearly four-hour hearing was, by multiple measures, an unusual procedural sequence. Hicks, seeking to accommodate the court’s request to resolve “foundational” matters quickly, called several witnesses early in the proceeding — a departure from the traditional burden-of-proof structure in civil cases, where the petitioner ordinarily presents evidence first…