Offender continued on C2
COLUMBUS — The Ohio Supreme Court struck down parts of a law that requires people convicted of sex crimes as juveniles to register on sex offender lists for the rest of their lives.
On Tuesday, the court ruled 5-2 to overturn the mandatory lifelong notification requirement imposed on a 15-year-old Athens County boy convicted in 2009 on juvenile charges of raping a 6-year-old relative. The majority found the requirement constitutes cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and violates the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment.
This is the third time the Ohio Supreme Court has ruled unconstitutional parts of the state sex-offender law put on the books in 2007 to comply with the federal Adam Walsh Act. The act is named after the son of “America’s Most Wanted” TV host John Walsh.
The law reclassified sex offenders in three tiers based on the offense without consideration of a person’s likelihood to reoffend.
Eight juveniles have been convicted of crimes in the tier with the most severe punishment — lifetime registration and in-person verification every 90 days — according to the Ohio Attorney General’s office.
The number of offenders might be small, but advocates say the ruling is a significant win for the juvenile justice system.
The ruling acknowledges that kids are different from adults and should be treated differently and on an individualized basis in juvenile court, Jill Beeler, chief counsel for the Juvenile Division in the Office of the Ohio Public Defender, told the Hamilton JournalNews.
Butler County Juvenile Court Administrator Rob Clevenger said the high court decision doesn’t impact any cases in his court, because they haven’t had any with this set of circumstances.
“That case is very narrow, speaking about those juveniles who the state has proceeded with a serious youthful offender action...,” he said. “We have not had any of these cases.”
Beeler said the ruling does not create a public safety issue because juvenile sex offenders are already monitored on a separate, non-public list and are the least likely to reoffend of any group.
In the majority opinion, Justice Paul E. Pfeifer wrote that lifetime notification and registration is a harsher penalty for a juvenile than an adult sex offender.
“Before a juvenile can even begin his adult life, before he has a chance to live on his own, the world will know of his offense. He will never have a chance to establish a good character in the community. He will be hampered in his education, in his relationships, and in his work life,” Pfeifer wrote. “His potential will be squelched before it has a chance to show itself.”
Pfeifer noted a youth sex offender released at age 18 would have to wait until age 43 before his punishment could be reviewed and lifted.
Justices Terrence O’Donnell and Robert R. Cupp dissented. Cupp wrote that the offender’s juvenile status should not be used to lower the bar on what constitutes cruel and unusual punishment and lawmakers were well within their rights.
“The statutory requirements at issue apply only to a small and select category of juvenile offenders; those who have committed the most serious sex offenses after reaching the age of 14 and who have ultimately received a disposition as a serious youthful offender after all the procedural steps of the serious youthful offender process have been fulfilled,” Cupp wrote.
Arguments before the court focused on how best to treat serious juvenile offenders.
An attorney for the Athens County boy told the court that a judge had ruled that the boy could be fairly treated as a juvenile. Yet the 2007 law “conferred on him an automatic, public, and lifetime penalty, typically reserved for adult offenders,” according to a Sept. 30, 2010, filing by Brooke Burns, an assistant state public defender.
The state argued in its own filings that the requirement was not meant to punish the offender but rather to protect the public.
The Associated Press and Staff Writer Denise G. Callahan contributed to this report.
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