|
|
2006-2148. State v. Warren, Slip Opinion No. 2008-Ohio-2011.
Cuyahoga App. No. 86854, 168 Ohio App.3d 288, 2006-Ohio-4104. Judgment affirmed.
Moyer, C.J., and O'Connor and Cupp, JJ., concur.
Lundberg Stratton, O'Donnell, and Lanzinger, JJ., concur in judgment only.
Pfeifer, J., dissents.
Opinion: http://www.supremecourtofohio.gov/rod/docs/pdf/0/2008/2008-Ohio-2011.pdf
Please note: Opinion summaries are prepared by the Office of Public Information for the general public and news media. Opinion summaries are not prepared for every opinion released by the Court, but only for those cases considered noteworthy or of great public interest. Opinion summaries are not to be considered as official headnotes or syllabi of Court opinions. The full text of this and other Court opinions from 1992 to the present are available online from the Reporter of Decisions: http://www.supremecourtofohio.gov/ROD/newpdf/. In the Full Text search box, enter the eight-digit case number at the top of this summary and click "Submit."
(May 6, 2008) The Supreme Court of Ohio ruled today that the imposition of a mandatory adult sentence of life imprisonment for a child rape committed when the defendant was 15 years old but for which he was not prosecuted until he had passed the age of 21 did not violate the defendant’s constitutional due process rights.
Six justices concurred in the Court’s judgment, which affirmed the life sentence imposed on Reginald Warren of Cleveland. Justice Maureen O’Connor’s lead opinion was joined by two other members of the Court. Three justices concurred in judgment only in a separate opinion by Justice Judith Ann Lanzinger. Justice Paul E. Pfeifer dissented, stating that he would reverse the court of appeals and remand the case for resentencing.
In 2004, Warren was charged with multiple adult counts of aggravated rape, gross sexual imposition and kidnapping for a series of incidents in which he repeatedly molested a nine-year-old girl in 1988, when Warren was 15. Warren was charged as an adult under R.C. 2152.02(C)(3) and related statutes, which provide that any juvenile who commits a crime that would be a felony if committed by an adult and who is not “taken into custody or apprehended” for that offense until after his or her 21st birthday is not considered a “child” in relation to the act, but must be charged and prosecuted for that crime as if it had been committed by an adult. Warren was tried and found guilty of forcible rape of a child under the age of 13, a crime for which former R.C. 2907.02 – the applicable law at the time of his offense – a) required the trial court to impose a sentence of life imprisonment; and b) did not authorize the sentencing judge to consider the defendant’s age at the time of the offense as grounds for a less severe sentence.
Warren appealed his convictions and sentence. The 8th District Court of Appeals affirmed his conviction and life sentence on the child rape charge, rejecting Warren’s claim that imposition of the mandatory adult life sentence under the facts of his case was unconstitutional.
Warren appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that the combined effect of the statutes requiring him to be charged as an adult for a crime he committed as a juvenile and mandating a life sentence with no opportunity for mitigation based on his youth at the time of the offense rendered those laws unconstitutional as applied to his case.
In today’s lead opinion, Justice O’Connor wrote: “(Warren) urges us to hold that the challenged statutes cannot apply to him, to remand this cause to the trial court for resentencing on the rape count, and to direct that court to consider that Warren was a minor at the time of the offenses. In short, Warren asks us to instruct the trial court to disregard former R.C. 2907.02’s clear requirement of a mandatory life sentence. This we cannot do.”
While acknowledging several U.S. Supreme Court decisions holding that criminal sentencing of juvenile offenders should reflect a diminished level of culpability for minors, Justice O’Connor wrote that this Court’s 2002 decision in State v. Walls “so essentially undermines Warren’s position that he cannot prevail on his claim that his mandatory life sentence violates due process principles of fundamental fairness.”
In Walls, she noted, the Court held that a defendant charged with an aggravated murder committed in 1985, at the age of 15, but who was not brought to trial until 1998, was subject to state laws enacted in 1996 that allowed him to be tried as an adult without a (previously mandatory) hearing before a juvenile court to determine whether he should be charged with a juvenile offense or bound over to adult court. Justice O’Connor pointed specifically to the Court’s holding in Walls that the change in the law requiring jurisdiction over an offender’s case in this situation to be in adult court was “remedial” rather than “substantive” in nature, and therefore was not barred by the prohibition in Section 28, Article II of the Ohio Constitution against retroactive application of laws that impair a defendant’s “substantive right.”
“Walls is not directly on point with this case because it did not involve a due process argument based upon principles of fundamental fairness,” wrote Justice O’Connor. “However, the similarities between the situation in this case and in Walls are substantial, and the essential principles that emerge from Walls make it impossible for Warren to prevail on his due process argument. Most important, as in Walls, the application of the statutes requiring that Warren be tried as an adult in common pleas court (in this case, R.C. 2152.02(C)(3), 2151.23(I), and 2152.12(J)) cannot be viewed as affecting a substantive right because under either the 1985 bindover law or the 1997 law that was applied to him, Warren ‘was on notice that the offense[s] he allegedly committed could subject him to criminal prosecution as an adult in the general division of the court of common pleas.’”
Justice O’Connor also rejected a secondary argument advanced by Warren that his mandatory life sentence for rape was unfair because it was disproportionate to sentences imposed on ‘similarly situated offenders’— i.e., juveniles who are charged with rape while they are still juveniles, and who are not bound over for trial as adults. She wrote: “Walls is dispositive of this argument as well. Warren’s vested rights were not impaired because under the juvenile statutes in effect when he committed his offenses, he was always subject to criminal prosecution as an adult. ... Warren is not ‘similarly situated’ to a juvenile who is charged with rape and not bound over for a trial; therefore, his sentence need not be proportionate to a sentence received by such an offender.”
Justice O’Connor’s opinion was joined by Chief Justice Thomas J. Moyer and Justice Robert R. Cupp.
In a separate opinion that was joined by Justices Evelyn Lundberg Stratton and Terrence O’Donnell, Justice Lanzinger wrote that while she agreed that the Walls precedent required affirmance of Warren’s life sentence, “if we were not bound to follow the precedent established in Walls, I would hold that juveniles who committed offenses in 1988 are subject to juvenile penalties only.”
Noting that she found a number of the facts in the case “troublesome,” including the 16-year delay between the crime and its prosecution, the lack of any physical evidence and the imposition of a mandatory life sentence on a defendant who was 15 years old at the time of the crime, Justice Lanzinger pointed out that in 1988 “a juvenile who committed forcible rape of a child under ten would have faced either confinement until 21 as a juvenile or a bindover to adult court. If Warren had been charged and convicted while still a juvenile, he would not have been automatically sentenced to life in prison and, although subject to bindover, could have disputed his disposition as an adult and have forced the state to demonstrate that he could not be rehabilitated within the juvenile system.”
“If former R.C. 2907.02(B) had allowed the sentencing court to consider Warren’s status as a juvenile when the crime was committed, I would vacate the sentence and remand to the trial court for resentencing,” she wrote. “But because the General Assembly had not provided in former R.C. 2907.02(B) that youth could be mitigating, I concur in judgment only.”
In his dissent, Justice Pfeifer noted that he also dissented from the Court’s 2002 majority opinion in Walls, and reiterated his view that the application of a mandatory life sentence for an offense committed by a 15-year-old “ignores this state’s distinctions between how it treats juveniles and how it treats adults.”
Quoting from his dissent in Walls, Justice Pfeifer wrote: “‘The dichotomy between juvenile and criminal courts exists because we understand the important differences between children and adults, not just in their ultimate disposition once they are adjudged, but also in the motivations behind their behaviors. Whenever the juvenile offender is ultimately apprehended, at the time of the crime or after he turns twenty-one, the fact remains that a child committed the offense. Who of us is the same person we were as a teenager? Who of us is the person we aspired to be as a teenager? Our juvenile laws and courts take into account that we are eminently changeable and reformable at that age. The juvenile court structure recognizes our undeveloped judgment capabilities, our nonappreciation of the future, and the temporary and evolving nature of our influences.’ The fact that Warren could not even argue that his youth was a mitigating factor in the commission of his crimes is fundamentally unfair. I would reverse the judgment of the court of appeals.”
Contacts
Erika Cunliffe, 216.443.7580, for
Reginald Warren.
Jon Oebker, 216.443.8146, for the State of Ohio and Cuyahoga County prosecutor’s office.