Justice Patrick F. Fischer spoke with students at Ashland University about Constitution Day.

Justice Patrick F. Fischer spoke with students at Ashland University about Constitution Day.

Justice Patrick F. Fischer drew on personal experiences as a lawyer, judge, and justice to illustrate the meaning of Constitution Day for students, community members, and local officials during a speech at Ashland University.

“Judges touch the lives of Ohioans and every American, every day,” Justice Fischer explained to his rapt audience. “One judge (can make) all the difference.”

“Judges and the judicial branch,” Justice Fischer said, have authority “over determining issues as intense as those of life and death, liberty or jail, and constitutional or unconstitutional.”

Justice Fischer’s 30-minute lecture, “Close Encounters of a Judicial Kind: The Sometime Alien World of State Judges and State Constitutional Law,” emphasized the importance of the separation of powers and the role state judges play in America’s unique federal system of government.

He lamented that, despite this important role, very few people know their judges and the ways that the judiciary affects their lives.

The point was not lost on the student attendees, who took part in a question-and-answer session with the justice after the speech.

Thirty-three middle schoolers from St. Edwards School in Ashland met Justice Fischer before the event.

The Ashland trip was one of many on a week-long journey for Justice Fischer during a September week honoring the U.S. Constitution.

He also spoke to 300 people at the 2019 Annual Industrial Commission Statewide Hearing Officer Meeting in Lewis Center, and served as moderator at the Cincinnati Bar Association’s discussion of “Promoting Professionalism in the Criminal Justice System.”

Elected in November 2016, Fischer began his six-year term on the Ohio Supreme Court on Jan. 1, 2017. Previously, he was elected and served as a judge on the Ohio First District Court of Appeals.