Terrence O'Donnell
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Terrence O'Donnell is a Justice of the Supreme Court of Ohio.
He served as a Cuyahoga County, Ohio, common pleas court judge for 15 years until 1994, when he ran for a seat on the Ohio Court of Appeals for the Eighth District against former Ohio Chief Justice Frank Celebrezze. He defeated Celebrezze and served on the Eighth District bench until his resignation to run for the Ohio Supreme Court in 2000 in a failed attempt to unseat Ohio Supreme Court Justice Alice Robie Resnick.
In 2003, Ohio Supreme Court Justice Deborah L. Cook resigned from the court to accept an appointment by the George W. Bush administration to the federal bench. Governor Robert A. Taft II then appointed O'Donnell to fill the vacancy, effective May 2003. On November 2, 2004, O'Donnell won a special election, defeating Democrat William M. O'Neill with 61% of the vote, entitling him to finish Cook's term, which ended in 2006. He won re-election in 2006, again defeating O'Neill by almost 20 points, and was sworn in in January 2007 to a full six-year term.
He earned his Juris Doctor at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law in 1971. He and his wife Mary Beth reside in Rocky River, Ohio, and have four children: Terrence, Michael, Colleen, and Nora.