Courthouse fixture Paul Oesterreicher to retire

Paul Oesterreicher has been a fixture in Butler County’s courtrooms for nearly 30 years as an assistant prosecuting attorney.

During his 27-year tenure with the Butler County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, Oesterreicher has seen judges come and go and has worked for four different prosecutors, including current prosecutor, Kacey Proctor.

That will end Dec. 31 when Oesterreicher “technically” retires from Butler County, but “I’m not necessarily retiring from law practice.”

Oesterreicher said he will start working part-time for the Ripley County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office in February.

“Since that’s a part-time job, I may do some private practice work,” Oesterreicher said. “In other words, I’m not gonna just take my pension and sit in the house.

“I still have things I want to do.”

Leaving, Oesterreicher said, is a bittersweet situation.

“I think it is time,” he said. “My focus is going to be on my legal practice, as well as being around as a husband, father and grandfather.”

Oesterreicher’s prosecutorial career began in Randolph County, Missouri, where he served eight years as its elected prosecutor.

“Then, I lost the election,” Oesterreicher said. “A friend of mine said Ernie (Richardson) had just won the election” as prosecutor in Butler County and “was looking for assistants.

“I called Ernie up, and he hired me on the spot.”

Oesterreicher went to work for Richardson in February 1991. The position was part time, at that time.

“I have worked continuously for Butler County except for one year” since then, said Oesterreicher, who indicated Carl Miller chose not to hire him when he took over as prosecutor.

Oesterreicher later worked for Miller during his remaining three years in office.

During Kevin Barbour’s tenure as prosecutor, Oesterreicher said, he became a full-time assistant at Barbour’s request.

According to Oesterreicher, there were two reasons why he stayed with the prosecutor’s office for the last 27 years.

“One is, in the area, I met my wife, and we got married; she wanted to stay here” near her family, Oesterreicher said.

Second, Oesterreicher said, he has “always felt a duty to protect Butler County, so I made it my goal to do what I can to protect the citizens of Butler County.

“ … I could have went home at 4 o’clock every day, but I knew the work would not get done because there was so much work to do.”

Oesterreicher said he knew the citizens of Butler County “would not be served well if I took this job as an 8 to 4 job.”

During his tenure, Oesterreicher estimates he has prosecuted in the “neighborhood of 35,000 plus cases. That’s being conservative.”

The number of cases being filed each year, according to Oesterreicher, was the hardest part of his job.

Having so many cases, “you couldn’t devote as much time as necessary for each case,” he said.

For Oesterreicher, he said, the best part of his job has been the “satisfaction of knowing that many times justice was served.”