CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Cleveland Municipal Judge Ed Wade died early Monday after a battle with prostate cancer at the age of 69.

Wade died about 5:30 a.m. Monday at the Hospice of the Western Reserve.

"Judge Wade was a tremendous asset to this bench and to this community," Cleveland Municipal Court Administrative Judge Ronald Adrine said in a statement. "He brought a competence, a temperament and a humor that will be sorely missed and impossible to replace. His colleagues and co-workers already miss him deeply."

Cleveland Municipal Court spokesman Ed Ferenc confirmed Wade's death. Gov. John Kasich will appoint a judge to take over Wade's docket.

That appointee will be the judge until November 2017, when an election will be held for Wade's seat on the bench for the remainder of his term, which ended in 2021.

Wade presided over the court's mental health docket. In 2015, he beat out fellow sitting Judge Pauline Tarver.

Ferenc said the other 12 judges had been splitting Wade's docket while he was in the hospital. They will continue to do so until Kasich appoints a new judge.

Four bar associations that reviewed the candidacies before the 2015 election gave Wade excellent ratings.

He ran for Tarver's seat because he wouldn't be able to run for re-election in 2017 because of Ohio law that prohibits candidates from running for re-election after they turn 70.

Wade was a lifelong Cleveland resident and graduated from Glenville High School. He served in the military and fought in the Vietnam War, earning a Vietnam Service Medal and Vietnam Campaign Medal, according to his biography on the court's website.

He earned an associates degree from Cuyahoga County Community College, a bachelor's degree from the University of Dayton and graduated from Howard University School of Law in Washington D.C.

He was a longtime criminal defense attorney and a Cleveland city prosecutor before running for judge.