Last Updated: Thursday, June 28, 2007 2:02 PM CDT
O'Melia anxious to start hearing cases
by Heather Schaefer - Daily News Staff - hshaefer@rhinelanderdailynews.com
Oneida County's newest judge-to-be, Patrick O'Melia, is anxious to start hearing cases.
“I would like to get onboard as soon as possible,” O'Melia said Wednesday, just hours after Governor Jim Doyle formally announced his appointment as judge.
“I am very excited and certainly proud to continue serving the people of Oneida County in this capacity,” O'Melia said. “Our county has been blessed with a wonderful judicial system and I am thankful to have the opportunity to extend this tradition. I look forward to enhancing and maintaining the high quality of the Oneida County legal system."
In his statement announcing the appointment Doyle expressed great faith in the skill and judgment of his appointee.
“Patrick O'Melia will serve very, very well in this judgeship," Governor Doyle said. “His experience as a respected lawyer, his leadership in the community and his dedication to the people of Oneida County-and all people of Wisconsin-will make him an asset on the bench.”
O'Melia, a Republican, was pleased to be appointed to the bench by a Democratic governor.
“I'm glad he took the time to look beyond party affiliation,” O'Melia said.
O'Melia will fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Robert Kinney who he admitted casts a long shadow on the position.
“Obviously, the judge has been here for 31 years and he has certainly paved a trail of a hardworking, well respected judge,” O'Melia said.
O'Melia said he doesn't anticipate making any big changes from the way Kinney ran his courtroom.
“We have a pretty smooth machine here, I would be a fool to mess with that,” O'Melia said.
Since O'Melia will be leaving his position as district attorney to take the judgeship, Doyle will have to appoint an attorney to run that office.
“It's really been a pleasure working as district attorney and I will try to leave a clean office (for the next prosecutor),” O'Melia said.
In the interim period, O'Melia will not be able to handle any of the cases on his current docket (his assistants Steve Michlig and Ruth Kressel will take up the slack) nor will he be able to hear any of the cases he prosecuted as a district attorney when he takes the bench.
O'Melia has been the Oneida County District Attorney since 1989. He filled the position of Assistant Corporate Counsel and Assistant District Attorney in the years 1988 and 1989. Previously he was active in the O'Melia Law Firm from 1986 to 1988. He received his law degree from Marquette University Law School in 1986 and received an undergraduate of Arts, as a History Major from St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin. He and his wife, Karalyn, live in Rhinelander. They have three children, Elliott, Samuel and Eva.
A date for O'Melia's swearing-in has not yet been set.
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Oneida County District Attorney Patrick O’Melia will be clearing his docket off cases, and the files off his desk, over the next few weeks as he prepares to be the county’s next circuit court judge. Governor Jim Doyle appointed the veteran prosecutor to the bench on Wednesday.
(Heather Schaefer - Daily News)
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