Ohio criminal sentencing legislation

Sentencing can be one of the most rapidly changing areas of law there is. In Ohio, 1995 Senate Bill 2, is often viewed as the first comprehensive revision of the state's criminal code since 1974. Senate Bill 2 and amending "clean-up" Senate Bill 269 went into effect July 1, 1996.

Enter federal sentencing cases Apprendi v. New Jersey(2000), Blakely v. Washington(2004), U.S. v. Booker(2005), Cunningham v. California(2007) and then resultant State of Ohio v. Foster in 2006. Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Burt Griffin and Case Western University Professor of Law Lewis Katz in their Ohio Felony Sentencing Law (Baldwin Ohio Handbook Series) wrote; "In the aftermath of Apprendi, Blakely, and Booker, but before Cunningham, the Ohio Supreme Court used an axe rather than a scalpel to bring Ohio sentencing reform legislation in line with Supreme Court rulings. In State v. Foster it did away with ten years of sentencing reform, essentially reinstating the pre-SB 2 system which had resulted in prison overcrowding and sentencing disparity…"

Last February, Ohio's Senate Judiciary-Criminal Justice Committee started new rounds of hearings on criminal sentencing reforms with current Senate Bill 10. Fairfield County Common Pleas Court Judge Richard Berens in testifying before the Committee last week "opposed aspects of SB10 as presently drafted, and other proposals to limit the discretion of Common Pleas judges to sentence certain felony offenders to prison."

The Ohio Sentencing Commission's recently-released 2011 Monitoring Report recommended reviving length-of-stay guidelines that were in the old SB2 and later invalidated by State v. Foster. The Sentencing Commission estimates that that decision, along with several federal cases, increased the prison population by 4,000 since 2006. It favors passage of the current SB 10.


Text of Senate Bill 10
Bill Analysis