Group challenges Ohio’s stand your ground law
A national gun control group joined forces with two Democratic lawmakers on Thursday and filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Ohio’s new “stand your ground” law – but not in the way you might think.
The lawsuit, which was filed in the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas, doesn’t question whether people should have to retreat before firing a gun in self-defense.
Instead, Everytown For Gun Safety is asking the judge to decide whether Republican lawmakers broke the rules when they added stand your ground onto another bill and passed it without taking public testimony.
“The Ohio Constitution has very strong provisions to make sure our legislators can’t throw in bills close to midnight that haven’t been properly debated,” attorney Rachel Bloomekatz said. “That’s what was violated here.”
How the bill became law
Around 10:30 p.m. on Dec. 17, Republican Rep. Kyle Koehler stood on the floor of the Ohio House and asked to add “one simple thing” onto a bill protecting churches and other nonprofits from civil suits that might be brought after a shooting on their properties.
Senate Bill 175 had near unanimous support and was expected to sail through the statehouse in the final days of Ohio’s two-year legislative session.
Koehler’s amendment changed all that.
Democrats in both the House and Senate were outraged. Sen. Cecil Thomas, D-cincinnati, even removed his name as a co-sponsor. But the bill passed on a party-line vote and Gov. Mike Dewine signed it into law in January. The law went into effect in April.
Was it legal?
Thomas, Rep. Stephanie Howse, Dcleveland, and the Ohio NACCP all say no.
They allege in the complaint that Koehler’s amendment violated two provisions of the state constitution:
h The single-subject rule (Article 2, Section 15D) says “no bill shall contain more than one subject.”
h The three-considerations rule (Article 2, Section 15C) requires lawmakers to consider a bill on three different days.
Koehler, who said he’s not an attorney, disagreed.
“I’m not trying to tell anyone they are right or wrong, but I believe it was a single subject,” he said.
SB 175 was about what happens after the “use of force” at churches and other nonprofits, and his amendment was about how Ohioans could use deadly force outside of their homes and cars.
“The bill dealt with handgun use, and we amended it with something with handgun use,” Koehler said.
But the lawsuit pointed to testimony from the bill’s original sponsor that seemed to contradict that argument.
“I want to be very clear that Senate Bill 175 does not expand concealed-carry rights or locations. This is not a ‘gun bill,’” Sen. Tim Schaffer, R-lancaster, said when he testified about his bill in May 2019.
The lawsuit also argues that Republican lawmakers had two separate bills removing the legal duty to retreat that they could have passed during the twoyear legislative session.
“Given the well-founded concerns Ohioans have about this policy, it’s no surprise that its backers could only pass it when they shut the public out of the process,” Howse said. “This lawsuit is about making clear that’s unacceptable.”
What happens next
The lawsuit asks for something called a declaratory judgment, which Bloomekatz said “allows a judge to decide whether a law is valid or invalid.”
That could reinstate Ohio’s duty to retreat requirement immediately.
Ohio (which is represented by Attorney General Dave Yost) could appeal and the decision could ultimately end up before the Ohio Supreme Court.
The state supreme court has invalidated some laws for violating the single-subject rule. One example cited in the lawsuit was a 1995 case called Simmons-harris v. Goff where lawmakers put a school voucher program into the state budget.
According to that ruling, “This principle is particularly relevant when the subject matter is inherently controversial and of significant constitutional importance.”
Lawmakers, in that case, came back with a separate school voucher bill and passed the law again. Koehler said he would expect that to happen if the court strikes down SB 175.
Anna Staver 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.