6-4-2010 Ohio:
(COLUMBUS, Ohio) – In a narrowly tailored decision today, the Ohio Supreme Court invalidated two provisions of the Ohio Adam Walsh Act on separation-of-powers grounds. The act was passed by the General Assembly in July 2007 and became effective on Jan. 1, 2008. In response to the court’s decision in the case of State v. Bodyke, Attorney General Richard Cordray released the following statement:
“We are digesting the Supreme Court’s decision, which appears to be limited in scope. The broad provisions of Ohio’s Adam Walsh Act remain in place. In striking down a narrow portion of the act, the court has reinstated the classifications and community notification and registration orders imposed by judges under prior state law for certain offenders who had been sentenced before Jan. 1, 2008,” said Cordray. “Offenders who were classified on or after Jan. 1, 2008 are unaffected by today’s ruling. Those 26,000 offenders who had been reclassified under Ohio’s Adam Walsh Act will now revert to their prior classifications before the act was passed. To comply with the court’s order, my office will work to reclassify these offenders through Ohio’s Electronic Sex Offender Registration and Notification database (eSORN) and will notify offenders of their new classification. We will also continue to support local law enforcement agencies as they work to provide families with the information they need to keep their children safe.”
Ohio’s Adam Walsh Act was enacted to bring Ohio’s offender notification laws into conformity with the federal Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA). Ohio was the first state to reach substantial implementation of the federal standards, as certified by the U.S. Department of Justice. Nothing in today’s decision affects Ohio’s status in regard to maintaining this designation. Other provisions of the act have been challenged in separate cases that remain pending before the Ohio Supreme Court. ..Source.. by Ohio's Attorney General's Office Press Release
June 4, 2010
Ohio's Attorney General Statement in Response to Ohio Supreme Court Decision in State v. Bodyke
June 3, 2010
Ohio Supreme Court: Give sex offenders old classifications
6-3-2010 Ohio:
COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Ohio Supreme Court on Thursday threw out sections of a new sex-offender law, saying the Legislature violated the constitution when it forced state officials to change convicts' classifications to comply with federal Adam Walsh Act provisions.
The ruling means that sex offenders convicted before the law went into effect on Jan. 1, 2008, would revert back to the classifications they received under the old Megan's Law — and potentially be subject to less stringent registration and notification requirements. The ruling leaves in place the new, tougher requirements for those convicted since.
A spokeswoman for state Attorney General Richard Cordray said the office was working to identify how many offenders would be affected by the ruling.
Ohio was the first state to put substantially in place a new sex offender registration and notification system required by the federal Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act. Delaware and Florida have since complied. The 2006 law is named for a 6-year-old Florida boy who was abducted and killed in 1981. His father, John Walsh, is the host of TV's "America's Most Wanted."
The U.S. law, signed by President George W. Bush, sought to get states to better coordinate and expand their sex-offender registries.
In its 5-1 decision, the high court said that Ohio's implementation violated the separation of powers among branches of government because the Legislature was forcing the executive branch to revisit decisions made by judges.
Under Ohio's new Adam Walsh Law, old Megan's Law classifications such as "sexually-oriented criminal" or "sexual predator" were replaced with a tiered classification system. Offenders were moved into the new tiers based solely on the offense they had committed, whereas Megan's Law had allowed judges to hold a hearing and use some discretion in assigning offenders a category.
Writing for the majority, Justice Maureen O'Connor said the earlier judges' decisions were binding. Only courts can change the decisions of courts.
"It is well settled that a legislature cannot enact laws that revisit a final judgment," she wrote. "We have held for over a century that 'the Legislature cannot annul, reverse, or modify a judgment of a court already rendered.'"
The case decided Thursday involved three men convicted of sex-related crimes in 2007. The three — Christian Bodyke, David Schwab and Gerald Phillips — underwent formal hearings called for under the old law and were assigned categories that required postrelease registration with the sheriff in the county where they live.
In November 2007, they received letters from the attorney general saying the law had been changed and, as of Jan. 1, 2008, they would considered Tier III offenders. The reclassification subjected them to more stringent registration and community-notification requirements.
Thursday's ruling marked the second legal setback this year to efforts by state lawmakers to apply the tough new national sex offender law's provisions.
In a unanimous decision in March, justices found that the new Ohio law's wording on community notification conflicted with its intention.
Lawmakers had intended for communities to be notified every time a sex offender in the most severe category began living, working or going to school in their neighborhoods, but the high court found that the law's language allowed the sex offenders to avoid the reporting requirements under exceptions similar to those in the older law.
State Sen. Tim Grendell, chairman of the Judiciary Committee on Criminal Justice, said lawmakers are working to address both issues.
"Today's decision does not address or invalidate our overall efforts to protect the public by passing the Adam Walsh Act," he said in a statement.
Justices Evelyn Lundberg Stratton, Judith Ann Lanzinger, Paul Pfeifer and Terrence O'Donnell joined O'Connor in agreeing with the majority on the separation-of-powers issue Thursday. Chief Justice Eric Brown, appointed to replace the late Thomas Moyer, did not participate in the case.
In the sole dissent, Justice Robert Cupp said lawmakers didn't interfere with court decisions in the Adam Walsh Act, but simply ordered the attorney general to transfer offenders from one classification to another based on a set of fixed criteria.
"Rather than burden the courts with sifting the hundreds or thousands of sex offenders to which new and different requirements apply, the General Assembly assigned that administrative task to an executive officer, the attorney general," Cupp wrote.
He said the task "neither requires nor permits the attorney general to open, overturn, or otherwise disturb the final judgments of conviction and sentence of any offender." ..Source.. JULIE CARR SMYTH
Ohio Supreme Court says state may not reclassify convicted sex offenders
6-3-2010 Ohio:
The Ohio Supreme Court today struck down a provision of the state's 2007 sex-offender law, saying it is unconstitutional for the state to reclassify sexual offenders convicted under a previous law.
The ruling means additional reporting requirements imposed on thousands of Ohioans are rescinded and return to what the requirements were before the law, known as the Adam Walsh Act, was passed in 2007.
Attorney General Richard Cordray's office couldn't immediately say how many people would be affected by the ruling, but Jeffrey M. Gamso, a Toledo lawyer who argued the case, estimated it was about 28,000.
Gamso hailed the 6-1 ruling, which held that it was a violation of the separation-of-powers doctrine to allow the legislature and attorney general to take action to change past decisions of trial courts.
He argued that the courts previously had decided which sex offenders were most dangerous and required maximum scrutiny, and that adding additional requirements to others was unfair and a waste of resources.
"This ruling will allow law enforcement to focus its efforts on people who are dangerous," he said. "The truth is, we're going back to the restrictions we had before."
The state and other groups argued it was appropriate for the state to take action against the offenders.
Justice Robert R. Cupp dissented, and Justice Terrence O'Donnell concurred with the ruling and dissented in part. ..Source.. Mark Niquette, THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Ohio Supreme Court: ‘Adam Walsh’ Provision Requiring Attorney General to Reclassify Sex Offenders Violates Separation of Powers
6-3-2010 Ohio:
(June 3, 2010) In a narrowly tailored decision announced today, the Supreme Court of Ohio voided as unconstitutional two sections of the Ohio Adam Walsh Act (AWA) that authorize the state attorney general to reclassify sex offenders who had already been classified by judges under a previous version of the law, “Megan’s Law.” The Court held that the challenged provisions violate the separation-of-powers doctrine of the Ohio Constitution.
Today’s decision leaves in place all of the law enforcement registration and community notification requirements of the AWA applicable to sex offenders who were classified on or after the Jan. 1, 2008, effective date of that law, and reinstates the pre-AWA registration and community notification requirements that judges had ordered offenders to comply with pursuant to Megan’s Law.
In this case, Christian Bodyke, David Schwab and Gerald Phillips were separately convicted of sex-related crimes prior to 2007. Pursuant to the pre-AWA version of Ohio’s sex offender classification statute (known as Megan’s Law), the trial court in which they were convicted conducted a formal hearing in each case at which the judge reviewed factors enumerated in the statute and issued a final order assigning each of the offenders to a classification that imposed a duty of postrelease registration with the sheriff in their county of residence.
In 2007, the General Assembly enacted the AWA, which repealed the former Megan’s Law classification system and replaced it with a new statutory scheme in which persons convicted of sex crimes after the effective date of the act are categorized as Tier I, Tier II or Tier III offenders based solely on the offenses for which they were convicted. The AWA imposes new postrelease registration and community notification requirements for each tier of offenders that are more restrictive in most cases than the requirements imposed on similar offenders under Megan’s Law.
The 2007 legislation also includes provisions, codified in R.C. 2950.031 and 2950.032, that order the state attorney general to reclassify all sex offenders who had previously been classified by a court under the Megan’s Law scheme into one of the three new AWA tiers based solely on the crime for which they were convicted. The attorney general was ordered to notify these prior offenders that their reclassification would be effective Jan. 1, 2008, and that as of that date they would be subject to the new AWA registration and community notification requirements applicable to the tier of offenders into which they had been placed.
Bodyke, Schwab and Phillips received letters from the attorney general in November 2007 notifying them that pursuant to the AWA, as of Jan. 1, 2008, they would be reclassified as Tier III offenders and therefore subject to more stringent registration requirements and to community notification requirements to which they had not been subject under their judicially ordered classification under Megan’s Law. All three men appealed their reclassifications on various constitutional grounds to the 6th District Court of Appeals, which consolidated the cases for review. The 6th District rejected the appellants’ arguments, and affirmed their reclassification under the AWA as constitutional. Bodyke sought and was granted Supreme Court review of the 6th District’s decision.
Writing for a 5-1 majority of the Court in today’s decision, Justice Maureen O’Connor observed that, just as the judicial branch is bound by the constitution to faithfully apply the law as written by the legislature, the legislative and executive branches are barred by the constitution from enacting or enforcing laws that encroach on the powers of the judiciary.
In this case, she wrote: “The AWA’s provisions governing the reclassification of sex offenders already classified by judges under Megan’s Law violate the separation-of-powers doctrine for two related reasons: the reclassification scheme vests the executive branch with authority to review judicial decisions, and it interferes with the judicial power by requiring the reopening of final judgments. It is well settled that a legislature cannot enact laws that revisit a final judgment. We have held for over a century that ‘the Legislature cannot annul, reverse, or modify a judgment of a court already rendered ...’”
Citing the Supreme Court of Ohio’s 1902 decision in Gompf v. Wolfinger, Justice O’Connor wrote: “‘A judgment which is final by the laws existing when it is rendered cannot constitutionally be made subject to review by a statute subsequently enacted ...’ The reclassification scheme in the AWA works to ‘legislatively vacate the settled and journalized final judgments of the judicial branch of government.’ ... (T)he General Assembly cannot vest authority in the attorney general to reopen and revise the final decision of a judge classifying a sex offender.”
“The power to review and affirm, modify, or reverse other courts’ judgments is strictly limited to appellate courts (under) Section 3(B)(2), Article IV, Ohio Constitution. The AWA intrudes on that exclusive role and thus violates the separation-of-powers doctrine. Moreover, once the final judgment has been opened, the AWA requires that the attorney general ‘shall determine’ the new classifications of offenders and delinquent children who were classified by judges under the former statutes. ... In doing so, it violates a second prohibition by assigning to the executive branch the authority to revisit a judicial determination. ... Thus, we conclude that R.C. 2950.031 and 2950.032, which require the attorney general to reclassify sex offenders who have already been classified by court order under former law, impermissibly instruct the executive branch to review past decisions of the judicial branch and thereby violate the separation-of-powers doctrine. We further conclude that R.C. 2950.031 and 2950.032, which require the attorney general to reclassify sex offenders whose classifications have already been adjudicated by a court and made the subject of a final order, violate the separation-of-powers doctrine by requiring the opening of final judgments.”
The court’s decision also discussed an important legal doctrine, stare decisis, which provides that judges should follow prior, relevant precedent when deciding cases. Justice O’Connor, who authored the 2003 decision that announced the Ohio standard for overruling precedent, Galatis v. Westfield Insurance Co., clarified Ohio law on stare decisis in two important regards. First, quoting from this Court’s 1989 decision in Rocky River v. State Emp. Relations Bd., she reiterated the rule that ‘stare decisis applies to rulings rendered in regard to specific statutes, [but] it is limited to circumstances “where the facts of a subsequent case are substantially the same as a former case.”’ ... Noting that the AWA is substantially different from Megan’s Law, she concluded that the court’s prior decisions that had upheld that the constitutionality of Megan’s Law were not dispositive of Mr. Bodyke’s appeal, which involved a new statute, the AWA.
Second, Justice O’Connor wrote that “there is a more vital and compelling limitation on the doctrine as it has developed in Ohio: its inapplicability to constitutional claims.” Citing the Court’s decision in Rocky River, she noted that the Court then had acknowledged that stare decisis “does not apply with the same force and effect when constitutional interpretation is at issue.” She expressly stated in today’s opinion that “[n]othing in our decision in Galatis suggests otherwise. Rocky River retains its vitality, at least insofar as this principle is concerned: ‘Stare decisis is not inflexibly applicable to constitutional interpretation.’” Thus, as a result of today’s decision, “Stare decisis remains a controlling doctrine in cases presenting questions on the law of contracts, property, and torts, but it is not controlling in cases presenting a constitutional question.”
As the appropriate remedy for the separation of powers violations identified in today’s decision, the Court held that severance (deletion) of the reclassification provisions (R.C. 2950.031 and 2950.032) from the AWA while leaving the remainder of the statute in place would correct the constitutional defect identified by the Court without detracting from “the overriding objective of the General Assembly, i.e. to better protect the public from the recidivism of sex offenders.”
Justice O’Connor’s opinion was joined by Justices Evelyn Lundberg Stratton and Judith Ann Lanzinger. Justice Paul E. Pfeifer concurred in the majority’s judgment and syllabus holding.
Justice Terrence O’Donnell entered a separate opinion in which he concurred with the portion of the majority opinion with respect to its decision on separation of powers, but dissented from any discussion of stare decisis, which garnered only three votes, because it is not necessary to the determination of the separation of powers issue.
He wrote: “We usually decline to rule on questions that are not necessary to a proper disposition of a case. ... Here, there is no actual controversy between the parties over how the doctrine of stare decisis should apply when the meaning of the Constitution is at issue, and any attempt to unnecessarily decide that question in this case contravenes well-settled law that this court will not issue advisory opinions. ... I am reminded of (U.S. Supreme Court) Chief Justice Roberts’s statement in PDK Laboratories, Inc. v. United States Drug Enforcement Adm.... where he wrote that the ‘the cardinal principle of judicial restraint [is that] if it is not necessary to decide more, it is necessary not to decide more ...’”
In a separate dissenting opinion, Justice Robert R. Cupp disagreed with the majority’s conclusion that the reclassification provisions of the AWA violate the separation of powers doctrine by empowering the attorney general to overturn or vacate the final judgments of state courts. He wrote that, in his view, the inclusion of Bodyke’s classification as a sexually oriented offender in the trial court’s judgment entry in his case did not elevate that classification to a “final judicial judgment” because the classification was required as a matter of law under the former Megan’s Law scheme as a collateral consequence of Bodyke’s conviction for sexual battery.
Justice Cupp noted that in enacting the AWA, the legislature repealed the former offender categories set forth in Megan’s Law and replaced them with the three tiers of the current classification system. He wrote: “Rather than burden the courts with sifting the hundreds or thousands of sex offenders to which new and different requirements apply, the General Assembly assigned that administrative task to an executive officer, the attorney general. For the reasons explained above, however, this task neither requires nor permits the attorney general to open, overturn, or otherwise disturb the final judgments of conviction and sentence of any offender.” ..Source.. The Supreme Court of Ohio
August 14, 2008
OH- Richland County judge finds Ohio sex offender law unconstitutional
In part I disagree with the judge, notice my comments below regarding the law is only applicable to those convicted after the law was enacted. That makes the law discriminatory between offenders. Offenders convicted before law enacted are entitled to a judicial classification decision based on facts of the crime, those after are not entitled to any classification based on the facts of the crime.
8-13-2008 Ohio:
MANSFIELD — William Sigler is pleased by a local court ruling restoring his sexual offender classification to the level of “least serious.”
Sigler, 29, claimed the Adam Walsh Act, signed by President Bush in July 2006, unfairly grouped him as a sexual predator — someone who repeatedly or deliberately set out to find victims.
Richland County Common Pleas Judge James DeWeese found in favor of the Mansfield man’s appeal Monday, ruling that retroactive reclassifications are unconstitutional in the state of Ohio.
According to James Mayer III, Sigler’s latest attorney, DeWeese is one of the state’s first judges to issue a ruling among hundreds of appeals filed since the Ohio Attorney General’s office reclassified all sexual offenders.
Under the mandate of the Adam Walsh Act, states must fully comply by July 2009 or face a 10 percent cut to their share of federal grant funds used to fight crime — funding that suffered a 67-percent cut in 2007.
Mayer believes other defense attorneys across Ohio will use DeWeese’s ruling in arguing for their own clients.
-Accordingly, this is only applicable to one case, and could be reversed on appeal, if appealed.
Sigler pleaded guilty to attempted rape through a plea bargain agreement in May 2000 and was sentenced to six years in prison. His guilty plea stemmed from a November 2006 incident in which he forced a 14-year-old girl to perform oral sex at gunpoint. A pre-sentence report indicated that two other women said Sigler forced them to have sexual relations with him. DeWeese called him a “sexually oriented offender” and said he would not be a good candidate for successful counseling.
A reader just pointed out to me that these facts are in error. i.e., it is impossible to plea in the year 2000 to an incident that allegedly occurred in the year 2006. Obviously the reporter has his facts messed up. Additionally, if you read the decision there is no mention of any incident but the 2000 one, and no mention of any gun. So much for relying on the media! UPDATE: That article has been republished and without what is colored GREEN above.
That classification was dismissed under the Walsh Act, and Sigler was reclassified from Tier I, the least serious category, to Tier III, the most serious.
In reclassifying him under the new law, the Ohio attorney general considered only the level of crime he pleaded to, rather than actual details, Mayer said.
-The key, conceptually is, the Adam Walsh Act (AWA) forces everyone to look at the offender AT THE POINT OF THE CRIME, and does so for the rest of the life of the offender. The AWA classification process (groups statutes offenders were convicted of into tier levels, it does not look at the offender at all [see below]) is vindictive in nature and ignores everything the state may have done in rehabilitating the offender since the crime. i.e., incarceration period, therapy, etc.
The retroactive reclassification to Tier III meant Sigler would have to register with the sheriff’s department every 90 days for the rest of his life, instead of once a year for 10 years — or face felony charges. It also meant the Richland County Sheriff’s Department would mail notification cards to every address within a mile of Sigler’s residence.
Sigler’s name would be added to a national sex offender registry under the Walsh Act, but that portion of the law was ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge in Florida last April. Currently, Sigler is identified as a sex offender on a registry kept by the Richland County Sheriff’s office and the state of Ohio.
After his reclassification appeared online early in 2008, coworkers and neighbors looked at him much differently, Sigler said.
“When people started thinking I was a ‘predator,’ they had a problem talking with me,” Sigler said.
The Mansfield resident said he’d been up front with co-workers.
“I had no secrets. I told everybody. I said, ‘I’d rather you hear it from me than from someone else, or on the Internet,’ ” Sigler said.
The reclassification made people think he lied about the seriousness of his offense, he said.
Afterward, he was barred from Starbucks, since juveniles might be found there.
“My (probation officers) said I couldn’t (go there) — on the basis that I was just sitting there, hanging out. Well, that is what you do, when you’re enjoying your $7 latte,” Sigler said.
In his ruling Monday, DeWeese said it is appropriate to use the new classifications for people convicted in new cases, but it violates the Ohio Constitution to retroactively change a sentence a court previously decided.
-Here I completely disagree with the judge, here is why: The new AWA system of classification is NOT A SYSTEM OF CLASSIFICATION AT ALL because it considers nothing. It does not look at the person at all, it ONLY looks at the STATUTE the person was charged with (or convicted of, depends on how Ohio interpreted that part of AWA). There is no consideration of the factors of the crime itself, hence it is not a classification system of the offender, it is a system of catergorizing STATUTES into tier levels. Accordingly, those convicted before AWA are entitled to a PROPER classification, and those convicted after ARE NOT and will be viewed by the public, that way, for the rest of their lives; that is discrimination between offenders. Further, said another way, offenders before AWA are entitled to a judicial determination of their classification, and those convicted after AWA are only entitled to an administrative determination of their classification. i.e., by some clerk in the state Attorney General's office.
In his ruling, the judge noted the Walsh Act has resulted in more than half of the county’s sex offenders being reclassified as Tier III offenders.
Sigler said his classification is a crucial issue.
Tier I, he explained, “means usually that you’ve made one mistake in your life. You made a bad choice. You chose to do something wrong, and you’re paying for it."
Those labeled Tier II are considered habitual offenders, but not necessarily predators.
“It has been a heck of a struggle for him,” Mayer said of his client. “He was distraught to open that letter, seven, eight years later saying that they were going to reclassify him. He wanted to fight it, right from the start.”
The Ohio attorney general may appeal, Mayer said.
“I don’t think we’re going to know how this will play out for some time. But I do feel strongly that Judge DeWeese got it right.”
DeWeese, who could have sentenced Sigler to anywhere from two to eight years in prison, meted out nearly the maximum penalty in 2000. Still, Sigler said Wednesday he’d hoped DeWeese would be assigned his appeal, since he’d heard the original case.
“I am just very pleased with the results of the judge’s findings,” he said. ..News Source.. by LINDA MARTZ
