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50 YEAR HONOREES: JOHN H. RION & MARK SEGRETI
2020 Class of DBA Fifty-Year Honorees Y e a r
Neil F. FreuNd Freund, Freeze & Arnold A Legal Professional Association
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lawreNce w. HeNke III. JoNas J. GrueNberG Coolidge Wall Co., LPA
The DBA will also be Celebrating the 50 Year Honorees during the November 6th Virtual Chancery Club Luncheon! RSVP to Chris: calbrektson@daybar.org
JudGe MicHael r. Merz US District Court
JoHN H. rioN Rion Rion & Rion, LPA, Inc. a. M. seGreti Jr. Montgomery County Common Pleas Court
david a. sapHire
Here is the second of the Bar Briefs three-part tribute to those members of the Class of 1970 who have served their first half century as practitioners of our profession.
In 2019 John Rion was characterized by the Dayton Daily News as “the Dean of Dayton’s Criminal Defense Bar.” That sums up the lost list of accolades he has earned and the long list of professional associations and committees on which he has served in his field of board-certified legal specialization. He has served as President of the American Board of Criminal Lawyers, and in the oral history he provided to the Dayton Bar Association, he characterized himself and the others who practice criminal defense law as follows: “If I were a fish, I would be a salmon because they are always swimming upstream, and they don’t require a lot of public acceptance because, in their mind, they are sticking up for somebody against a bully. And if the crowd doesn’t like it, then the crowd is wrong.”
Here are his thoughts on reaching the fiftieth year of his colorful practice:
One would think that being in the practice for fifty years, that a multitude of good and bad experiences would have presented themselves. I have either internalized both or managed to maintain a balance. This has been done through decades of training associated with maintaining confidential relationships. Therefore, I don’t have much to add on those suggested topics. Of course my greatest mentor was my father, Paul W. Rion. My father started our practice less than a decade after the Great Depression and worked hard every day to raise and support his family. He gave good advice, was a great example, and his word was his bond. Among the lessons that I was taught by my mentors, including my father, was to let your opponent walk away with something so that both sides felt like they had been treated fairly. Of course, my wife, Barbara, of fifty-four years, was the consummate mentor. In addition to giving me good advice, she never flinched when someone asked how I could represent someone accused of going astray.
Among my mentors were the clerks and the bailiffs. I found them to be very generous with advice and recommendations. Our system could not function without the hard work of the clerks, the bailiffs and the staff of the judges.
continued on page 29
Mark Segreti Montgomery County Common Pleas Court
Mark is presently engaged as staff attorney to Judge Richard S. Skelton. He has had the good fortune of a variety of roles in his fifty years as a lawyer. Here is his account of those years which he describes as “Fortunate, Indeed.”
To some extent we are in a “Groundhog Day” repeat of the last quarter of law school in 1970. The quarter was suspended after protesters walked through demanding “Shut it Down” which occurred after the killings at Kent State: “Four Dead in Ohio.” Nevertheless, graduation occurred at Ohio Stadium where my law degree was accompanied by a commission in the United States Army as a second lieutenant assigned to armor. I had been fortunate to qualify for a special program created in late 1968 for graduate students to become R.O.T.C. students during law school, as opposed to being drafted to serve, most likely, in the infantry in “Nam.”
This fortunate circumstance continued as I was assigned to Fort Knox to train draftees heading to Vietnam. I was further fortunate to become a “90-Day Wonder” when active duty changed to only three months of duty and a commitment to the reserves (meetings and summer camps) in the good old USA. Thereafter, I found law practice interesting and challenging, but preferred civil trial work to my initial assignments in real estate and finance law assisting developers construct apartment complexes throughout suburbia in the early 1970’s.
Trial practice led me to the Ohio Attorney General’s office and the newly created Environmental Law Section, to hone litigation skills to accomplish the goal of saving the world from the control of “profit is not a dirty word in Ohio.” This was exciting work, but frustrating, calling into question whether the judicial system was really designed to accomplish what law school professors told us was possible.
I still remember one of my first cases where I was assigned to an appeal filed in the Fifth District Court of Appeals by a real estate developer, represented by a former Supreme Court justice. After carefully studying and analyzing the agency records and potential legal sink holes, as well as all the case law I could find without electronic research, I was prepared for oral argument. I addressed the Court of Appeals panel, like (or as), “Mark Segreti, for the People.” One unnamed member of the appellate panel sent out the opening salvo: “Mr. Segreti, who empowered you to get on your bicycle in Columbus and ride out here to Licking County?” My preparation did not cover this inquiry.
Years later I ran into another former Supreme Court justice who had not been re-elected, so he joined a large law firm as a trial attorney. He was defending the manufacturer and retailer of a paint-thinner that some young teens had used in “huffing” to get a high, and one had died. The former justice was viciously attacking a restraining order that I had the audacity to seek and secure from a visiting judge, to stop sales until warnings could be put in place. The trial judge, later to be a Supreme Court justice, heard the former justice’s persuasive (and successful) argument: “Why Judge Wright, this paint-thinner is not at all harmful. I’ll show you by drinking a can of it right now to show you this restraining order must be vacated.” Again, my preparation did not include that type of advocacy.
Seemingly centuries later, I was one of the trial attorneys representing CSX Transportation (formerly B&O Railroad) in the great Miamisburg Train Derailment class action lawsuit; a beautiful combination of civil procedure, federal preemption, railroad safety, and environmental safety – right up my alley. An issue in the case was whether airborne phosphorus gas in the form of a smoke cloud, increased by the addition of water from fire hoses, and dispersed throughout the area, was toxic to any residents or workers subjected to the cloud. The local television stations repeatedly played a video of the huge white, phosphorus cloud and reported a myriad of opinions about its suspected highly flammable and toxic nature.
After the jury was seated, opposing counsel informed us and the Court that he was going to play the television videos during opening statement, but assured all that the sound would not be audible so the Court allowed it over objection. Of course, the class action guru from Cincinnati “mistakenly” played the video with the audio barking out the “expert” opinions from the television newsroom about all the possibilities of toxicity and injury. After calling on all my knowledge (scant) of the grounds for a mistrial and recollection of every potential prejudice, and articulating it all in rapid fire sequence with full confidence that no potential prejudice was left to the imagination, the trial continued with the quick response, “Overruled.”
I have been fortunate to enjoy the challenges of the practice and the competitiveness of trial work and the belief that what I was doing was, indeed, a significant role in our society and our system of government; much in danger at this time. I have been fortunate that Peggy is an understanding wife, hearing previews of arguments, gripes, and criticisms, as well as joyful occasions, over the years practicing to be “more perfect” at this mostly honorable profession.
We are fortunate to have had three healthy children and now seven healthy grandchildren. In intersecting with both the children and grandchildren, I am still confronted with the reality that no matter how “studied up” and logical, rational and compelling my advice is, sometimes they take the role of the wrong judges and succinctly decline to follow the sage and indisputably correct recommendations offered from their most elder relative.
Again and again I will focus on being grateful and fortunate to have the opportunity to work and serve clients and the community, often in difficult times; and joyful effort seeking justice, loving mercy, and humbly trying to contribute a small token for the good of the order; to be faithful to the honorable intention to help bend that proverbial arc toward justice, truth and fairness. High-sounding ideals can still be part of law practice. Justice is an elusive goal.
To be continued . . . . .
