Rule 36.013. Assignment of Capital Cases

Criminal cases in which an indictment or a count in an indictment charges the defendant with aggravated murder and contains one or more specifications of aggravating circumstances listed in R.C. 2929.04(A) shall be assigned to a judge of the court or division of the court who is qualified to hear the cases pursuant to either of the following methods:

(A) Randomly assigned by lot among all judges who are qualified;

(B) By a method that meets each of the following requirements:

(1) Assignments are made by lot from a pool consisting of the names of each judge of the court or division who is eligible to hear the criminal cases;

(2) Upon receipt of such criminal case, the name of the assigned judge is removed from the pool;

(3) Upon the assignment of such criminal case to the second-to-last judge in the pool, the names of each judge of the court or division who is eligible to hear capital cases are added back into the pool.