COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Democrats sharply criticize an Ohio Republican Party ad suggesting Supreme Court candidate Bill O'Neill showed "sympathy for rapists" as an appellate judge.
The video ad unveiled Wednesday targets a 2000 ruling that reversed a rape conviction because no expert witness was called for the defendant.
O'Neill stands by the ruling and says his rival, Justice Robert Cupp, should be ashamed of the ad.
Cupp called the ad inappropriate. He said he knew nothing of it before Wednesday.
Democratic Chairman Chris Redfern called the ad a "Willie Horton-style attack," demanding it be pulled. Horton was a rapist whose crimes during a Massachusetts prison furlough became an issue in the 1988 presidential campaign.
Ohio's GOP chairman blamed discomfort caused by the ad on what he called O'Neill's "support of the wicked" while a jurist.
