Directory

Matthew R. Arntz

Adjunct Professor of Law

Adjunct

School of Law

Profile

Matthew Ryan Arntz was engaged in private practice in Dayton, Ohio, from 1982 until 2007, specializing exclusively in criminal defense litigation. In 2007 he became an Assistant Montgomery County Public Defender. He has participated in countless jury trials in Federal and state courts, including numerous homicides, and has litigated ten capital cases in Montgomery, Greene and Darke counties.

Mr. Arntz became interested in criminal defense primarily due to two historic events. He began volunteering in Presidential campaigns in 1968 and witnessed rioting outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. As a result, he began an association with the defendants’ lead attorney, William Kunstler, as well as with the “Walker Report” author, and later Governor of Illinois, Dan Walker. After members of the American Indian Movement occupied Wounded Knee, South Dakota, in 1973, Mr. Arntz acted as press spokesman and paralegal for the Wounded Knee Defense/Offense Committee during the Federal criminal trials in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Mr. Arntz has been a television commentator regarding local and national criminal cases. He is called on to make presentations at criminal defense seminars and other conferences. He regularly mentors new lawyers. He has ongoing research interests in the psychology of trial communication, rhetoric and comparative international criminal justice.

He teaches Federal Evidence and Criminal Trial Practice as an adjunct at the University of Dayton School of Law.