COLUMBUS — The Ohio Supreme Court will weigh in on whether a convicted felon already behind bars can challenge the constitutionality of a new law that could keep him there two years longer based on future conduct.
At issue is the Reagan Tokes Law, enacted nearly two years ago in memory of the 21-year-old former Monclova Township woman who was kidnapped, robbed, raped, and murdered in 2017 while a senior at Ohio State University.
The law allows the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction to object to the release of inmates convicted of certain violent crimes upon completion of their minimum sentences, triggering part or all of longer maximum sentences.
The high court agreed to hear the case, citing conflicts with decisions in separate appellate courts.
The Toledo-based Sixth District Court of Appeals, in a burglary case, held that the time to challenge the law's constitutionality will come later if ODRC exercises its option to trigger the longer sentence.
But the 2nd and 12th District appellate courts, based in Dayton and Middletown respectively, had proceeded directly to considering constitutionality arguments when they heard appeals of sentences imposed in separate robbery and kidnapping cases.
In each of those other cases, the courts upheld the law.
Ms. Tokes' family pursued the law’s passage. They argued that Ohio's existing “truth in sentencing” law, requiring finite sentences instead of ranges with minimums and maximums, allowed her killer, Brian Lee Golsby, to walk out of prison after his prior sentence for attempted rape despite numerous infractions while behind bars.
Separately, the high court agreed last week to hear Golsby's appeal in Ms. Tokes' murder.
Under the Reagan Tokes Law, when it comes to certain violent felonies, judges can impose a minimum sentence as well as a potential maximum that could be 50 percent longer.
In the Lucas County case, Edward Maddox, 26, was convicted of one count of burglary and two of attempted burglary. He was sentenced last year to an aggregate minimum of four years and a potential maximum of six. He is incarcerated at Warren Correctional Institution.
Under the law, Maddox would presumably leave prison after four years. But ODRC could seek to hold onto him if, among other things, he commits prison rule infractions that endanger the institution, staff, or other inmates and demonstrates that he continues to pose a threat to society.
The added time cannot exceed the maximum initially set by the judge.
Maddox “has not yet been subject to the application of these provisions, as he has not yet served his minimum term, and therefore has not been denied release at the expiration of his minimum term of incarceration,” a three-judge Sixth District panel ruled.
In dismissing the appeal, the panel did not address the constitutionality questions as the 2nd and 12th district courts did.
“The very fact that we've got to wait and see what some unelected bureaucrat in the executive branch will do just punctuates why this unconstitutional legislation has ceded judicial power to another branch of government,” said Perrysburg attorney Andrew Mayle, representing Maddox.
Should the Supreme Court agree that the constitutionality arguments are ripe, the case would be sent back to the 6th District to consider the constitutionality arguments. Should the Supreme Court deem the issue premature, Mr. Mayle would argue that decisions already upholding the law are invalid.
The Supreme Court has also accepted another case out of the Canton-based 5th District that agreed with the 6th District’s holding that the constitutionality arguments are premature. It has put that case on hold pending its decision in the Maddox case.
First Published January 24, 2021, 6:00 p.m.
