These cases follow up on a ruling from last June, in which the Ohio Supreme Court decided parts of Ohio’s version of the federal Adam Walsh sex offender law were unconstitutional. The law re-classified sex offenders into three tiers, and the justices ruled the state couldn’t override the sentencing decisions made by local judges in reclassifying offenders who’d already been sentenced. These two cases involve people who were caught in between the old law – Megan’s Law – and the new Adam Walsh Law, also known as Senate Bill 10.
Katherine Szudy represents George Williams of Warren County, who was 19 in 2007 when he had sex with a 14 year old girlfriend. Szudy says Williams was supposed to register annually with law enforcement for 10 years – now that’s been bumped to twice a year for 25 years. And Szudy says because Williams has already served his sentence, that is unconstitutional punishment.
“Senate Bill 10 makes information on all sex offenders available to the general public without restriction and without regard as to whether the individual actually poses any particular risk to society. And contrary to the common misconception, the recidivism rate for sex crimes is no worse than the recidivism rate for other crimes.”
The Ohio Supreme Court has upheld other laws on sex offenders. Michael Greer with the Warren County prosecutor’s office says the Adam Walsh law does not differ that much from the older Megan’s Law in requiring information from sex offenders at regular intervals so the public can keep track of where they are.
But Justice Paul Pfeifer wasn’t sure.
“That’s very reasonable, and probably should have been included in Megan’s Law. I mean—we don’t want to confuse...” Pfeifer: “If that had been included in Megan’s Law, we might have made a different call on whether or not it was punitive.” Greer: “But I don’t think you would have, because….” Pfeifer: “How do you know? I don’t know that we know. I sure don’t know.” Greer: “But this information, this additional information is necessary to carry out the goal of Senate Bill 10.”
The second case involves Lambert Dehler of Trumbull County, who’s in prison for sex crimes including rape – he won’t be eligible for parole till he’s 114 years old. But when he was notified that he’d been classified into the worst category of sex offender, Dehler argued that wasn’t constitutional because he’d never had a hearing.
Deena DeVico from the Trumbull County prosecutor’s office told Justice Judith Lanzinger that even though the reclassification was correct and Dehler will never leave prison, his claims raise important concerns.
“The state feels that this court at least would be willing to consider Mr. Dehler’s contentions.” Lanzinger: “And whatever we decide may apply to somebody who is going to get out.” “That is true, Your Honor.”
And both sides do hope that these cases may finally settle the classification issues for thousands of sex offenders - and their prosecutors and defense attorneys - caught in limbo between the old and new laws. Jay Macke represents Lambert Dehler.
“The amount of money that’s been spent by local governments dealing with reclassification has been astronomical. Millions and millions of dollars that aren’t on the state budget, but they’re on the local budgets. Hopefully we’re coming towards the end of that.”
Some 5,000 sex offenders could be affected by the rulings in these cases. Ohio was the first state to fully comply with the federal Adam Walsh law on sex offenders – other states have moved much more slowly.
