Ohio Supreme Court to debate long criminal sentences - again
Ohio trial court judges hold the power to give people convicted of multiple crimes sentences that run either concurrently or consecutively − something that can swing time in prison from a few years to a few decades.
Just ask Tommy Glover or Susan Gwynne. Or any of the thousands of people serving consecutive sentences in Ohio prisons.
Glover, 25, got a 60-year stacked sentence for forcing people at gunpoint to take him to ATMs and withdraw money. Hamilton County Common Pleas Court Judge Jody Luebbers ruled that consecutive sentences were needed to protect the public.
Glover appealed, arguing that the lengthy sentence wasn’t based on the case record. He won a partial victory at the 1st District Court of Appeals, but prosecutors then asked the Ohio Supreme Court to overturn that decision.
The Ohio Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Feb. 7 on the question of how much discretion an appeals court has to review or modify a sentence imposed by a trial court.
Justice Joseph Deters, who was Hamilton County prosecutor on the Glover case, will not recuse himself, a court spokeswoman said.
The ruling on Glover could overturn − or confirm − case law set in another criminal sentencing case heard by the Supreme Court: Gwynne.
In October the court issued a 4-3 decision that upheld the 65-year sentence for Gwynne, who was convicted of stealing from dozens of people in multiple nursing homes. Chief Justice Sharon Kennedy said in the majority opinion that state law directs appellate courts to generally defer to trial courts’ sentencing decisions.
That October ruling reversed a December 2022 split decision that was issued before Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor left the court. Justices in the majority then said trial courts need to consider the overall prison term when imposing consecutive sentences and that appeals courts do have authority to review and vacate sentences.
No one-stop shop for sentencing data
Both the Gwynne and Glover cases highlight a need for a statewide system that tracks criminal sentences.
Sentencing decisions by Ohio's 723 elected judges are a matter of public record but they aren't collected in a single database.
As a result, judges, lawyers, researchers or others can't answer basic questions such as how many people were sentenced for a particular crime in a given year, how many were found not guilty, how many took plea bargains or which judges are handing out the most consecutive sentences.
For several years, O’Connor and others have advocated for the creation of a statewide database that would make answering those questions easy. It would also allow comparisons judge by judge and county by county and expose egregious disparities.
With the departure of O'Connor and retirement of the long-time Ohio Sentencing Commission director, the project is now at a crossroads.
The state paid the University of Cincinnati nearly $1.4 million for work on the database so far. The contract with the university ends June 30.
Just two judges have been using the system so far this year. Many judges are reluctant to start using it without knowing if it'll be permanent. Other judges are concerned that a database that reveals disparities in criminal sentences doled out to offenders could be misconstrued by the public.
A newly created data committee is reviewing the project and will recommend next steps to the Ohio Sentencing Commission. Kennedy, who chairs the commission, has expressed concerns about the criminal sentencing database project.
During the 2022 campaign for chief, Kennedy said there were too many unanswered questions about how it would operate.
"There are no rules yet and no one has a clear understanding of the transparency parts of this, of what is it the public is going to be allowed to see versus the court versus its collection versus its ownership," Kennedy said at the time.
A spokesperson for the court said this year: "Chief Justice Kennedy maintains that collection and use of data, where appropriate, is one component of examining and understanding any policy issue."
Laura Bischoff is a reporter for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, which serves the Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio Supreme Court to decide appeals courts' power to change sentences
