COLUMBUS — The Ohio House soon could vote to reduce parole officers’ caseloads and mandate real-time monitoring of GPS devices of offenders as part of a bill directly inspired by last year’s murder of former Monclova Township resident Reagan Tokes.
The House Criminal Justice Committee overwhelmingly voted to send House Bill 365, sponsored by Reps. Jim Hughes (R., Columbus) and Kristin Boggs (D., Columbus), to the full chamber despite arguments it could hike operating costs nearly $200 million a year and pack more inmates into prisons already 29 percent overcrowded.
“You can’t put a price tag on somebody’s life, certainly,” Ms. Boggs said. “We have to do, though, what is reasonable, and it is very reasonable to implement these measures to make sure that people on GPS are monitored appropriately [and] people on parole have enough parole officers working to manage those caseloads.”
This bill goes further than the version of the Reagan Tokes Act that recently passed the Senate. The upper chamber’s bill focused largely on sentencing reforms. The Senate version did not deal with the parole and GPS monitoring issues, in part because of the price tag involved.
Those issues are also key to the recent wrongful death lawsuit brought by Ms. Tokes’ estate and family against the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.
The lawsuit contends the state’s failure to monitor in real time the GPS ankle device of Brian Lee Golsby, the man later convicted of kidnapping, raping, robbing, and shooting her, played a role in the Ohio State University senior’s death in February, 2017. He is serving multiple consecutive life sentences without parole.
Ohio Court of Claims Magistrate Anderson M. Renick on Monday dismissed the lawsuit’s claim against NISRE Inc., a nonprofit, faith-based organization that operated the Exit Program, a house to which Golsby was sent. The magistrate said only state agencies and its “instrumentalities” can be sued in the Court of Claims. The claim against DRC remains.
“If they consider NISRE not to be an instrumentality of the state, we will refile the claims against NISRE in the Common Pleas Court of Franklin County,” said Robert B. Newman, the Tokeses’ Cincinnati attorney. “We’re going to proceed vigorously against NISRE, because we feel they bear significant responsibility for what happened.”
The lawsuit contends NISRE failed to notify the state of Golsby’s violations of restrictions placed on his activities and failed to monitor its residents for weapons.
“The leaders of the EXIT Program continue to mourn the loss of Reagan Tokes, especially given that the program’s first and foremost goal is making our community safer,” EXIT spokesman Matt Dole said.
“The EXIT Program provides housing and is not a halfway house,” he said. “He had a curfew, which is an EXIT Program rule over and above state requirements. The only reason to be out past curfew was for a job, which he had. The EXIT Program is not contractually obligated to provide monitoring, and his ankle monitor was administered by an outside third party.”
Ohio Public Defender Tim Young predicted the total price tag tied to the sentencing reforms, parole staff increases, and real-time GPS monitoring would be much higher than has been predicted.
“You’re talking about a $200 million annual obligation that you’re about to lay on Ohio taxpayers,” he said.
He predicted the state would need to build four more prisons at a cost of about $1 billion each and, in the meantime, overcrowding problems would worsen.
“I would suggest to you that if Ohioans have $4 billion to spend over the next 20 years, we have far better ways to spend it that would actually prevent crime, because this bill won’t,” Mr. Young said.
Contact Jim Provance at jprovance@theblade.com or 614-221-0496.
First Published May 22, 2018, 2:02 p.m.
