Mary Wiseman

Mary L. Wiseman (born November 17, 1961) is an American lawyer and judge from the state of Ohio. On October 22 2007, Governor Ted Strickland appointed her to the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas. Montgomery County, home to Dayton, is Ohio's fourth largest county with a population of 559,062 according to the 2000 census.

A Democrat, Wiseman was elected in 1998 to the Dayton City Commission, serving until 2002 when she declined to run for a second term. A lesbian, she was the first openly gay person elected to public office in Dayton. With her appointment to the bench, she became the first openly gay judge in the history of the state of Ohio.

Wiseman received her bachelor's degree from Ball State University and her law degree from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. She is a member of the Ohio State Bar Association and American Bar Association.

Wiseman must seek election to the post in 2008. She looked set to face a challenge in the Democratic primary from District Court judge James D. Piergies, but he withdrew in January 2008 following a controversy over allegedly homophobic comments he had made during the campaign. She faces a Republican opponent in a county that is fairly evenly-balanced politically. In the 2004 election, Democrat John Kerry won just 1% more of the vote in Montgomery County than George W. Bush's 49%.