Proposed change to wrong ful imprisonment statute is absurd

Editor’s note: Another Viewpoint is a column The News-Herald makes available so all sides of an issue may be aired. Brian Gutkoski has been an assistant county prosecutor in Cuyahoga County since 2011. He argued Mansaray v. State to the Ohio Supreme Court in 2013.

All aboard the budget bill train! Silently lurking in nearly 4,700 pages of proposed changes to our state’s laws passed by the Ohio House last month is a wholesale rewrite of Ohio’s wrongful imprisonment statute.

If you asked, “How does changing the statutory definition of wrongful imprisonment relate to the biennial budget?” you’d be asking a good question. The only conceivable answer is you’ll be paying more money to those who successfully challenge their convictions on appeal.

In 1986, Ohio’s legislature empowered courts to declare innocence. Qualifying claimants had to show five things: a felony charge, they didn’t admit to doing, they went to prison, the prosecutor couldn’t retry them and they were innocent. In 2003, Ohio amended the statute’s final requirement to include those who proved, “Subsequent to sentencing or during or subsequent to imprisonment, an error in procedure resulted in release...”

Former convicts argued that even though they committed the crime, if their convictions were overturned on appeal, they should get paid for their prison stay under this amendment.

They argued that, “An error in procedure resulted in release.”

For instance, a jury convicted Yanko Mansaray of drug possession and weapons violations a decade ago. Prior to trial, he filed a motion to suppress the large quantities of Ecstasy pills found in his Cleveland home claiming that police violated his Fourth Amendment rights. The police had an arrest warrant for someone known to live with Mansaray, but was not there that day. The court denied Mansaray’s motion. The jury convicted Mansaray, and the judge sentenced him to 11 years in prison.

In 2010, the appeals court ruled that the trial judge made the wrong decision. The trial court should have thrown out the evidence and dismissed the charges. Upon his release, Mansaray wanted compensation for the roughly two years he spent in prison waiting for the reversal of his conviction.

The Ohio Supreme Court held that the 2003 amendment did not grant Mansaray the right to compensation. The Ohio House’s recent budget bill expressly overrules this Ohio Supreme Court decision. The changes to R.C. 2743.48(A) found in House Bill 49 would arguably mean those convicted of crimes, who are fortunate enough to have their convictions overturned on appeal, will receive $50,000 per year in prison, plus attorney fees.

This is not the law; nor should it be the law on wrongful imprisonment in Ohio. It is shocking that Ohio’s majority party who are professed fiscal conservatives would knowingly rewrite of Ohio’s wrongful imprisonment laws in this fashion. Cutting our state’s Public Library Fund by $7.7 million in 2018, yet increasing pay to former convicts in the same budget bill is absurd.

The budgetary implications of these changes have not been fully vetted. More concerning is that these amendments are expressly retroactive to the date of the Ohio Supreme Court’s decision, meaning every single person having their wrongful imprisonment cases dismissed in the last three years, will likely refile their claims. The proposed changes will have initial costs in the tens of millions, and ongoing costs in the range of $1 million to $2 million every year.

No other state in our nation defines “wrongful imprisonment” as expansively as the statutory definition buried on page 870 of H.B. 49’s 4,675 pages of text. If you agree with my views, email your state senator demanding removal of these changes from the final budget bill. Or drop Senate President Larry Obhof a line. In a post he published on May 2, he lists his state email address and “welcome(s) your input.”

Reasonable people could debate whether Mansaray deserves compensation.

That’s precisely why we have a General Assembly and its members should cast recorded votes on a single topic. Surreptitiously sticking these amendments in the budget bill cannot stand.

If H.B. 49’s changes become law, let me suggest the Senate add one more. Strike “God” and redraft our state motto as follows: “With the budget bill, all things are possible.”

Brian Gutkoski