In re S.J., 2016 Ohio 7540

Juvenile S.J. had multiple delinquency adjudications (2013–2016) for offenses including receiving stolen property, theft, parole violations, and attempted robbery; repeated probation/parole violations resulted in multiple WCDC detentions and DYS commitments.
In March 2015 S.J. was committed to DYS after admitting a parole violation; the commit order was later amended to a minimum of 90 days institutionalization (Feb. 17, 2016 entry, nunc pro tunc).
In Jan. 2016 S.J. admitted to attempted robbery (2016 FEL 01); the juvenile court ordered DYS institutionalization for a minimum of six months and expressly ordered that sentence to run consecutive to the earlier DYS commitment for the parole violation.
S.J. moved to vacate the consecutive-sentence order, arguing it violated R.C. 5139.52(F) (which requires parole-revocation institutionalization to be served concurrently with any other DYS commitment); the trial court denied the motions.
S.J. appealed, arguing the court erred by permitting the 2016 commitment to run consecutive to the earlier parole-violation commitment.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether the juvenile court erred by ordering the 2016 DYS commitment to run consecutive to the DYS commitment imposed for a parole violation	S.J.: R.C. 5139.52(F) requires that institutionalization ordered for a parole violation be served concurrently with any other DYS commitment, so the consecutive order is void	State/Trial Court: No statutory bar to ordering the later commitment to run consecutive; trial court has discretion (trial court relied on pre-amendment Ohio Supreme Court precedent)	Court affirmed: Although trial court’s reasoning relied on pre-amendment case, the judgement was correct because the statute bars ordering the parole-violation commitment itself to run consecutively, but does not prohibit ordering a separate later commitment to run consecutive to the parole-violation commitment; discretion to impose consecutive sentence allowed

In re H.V., 138 Ohio St.3d 408, 2014-Ohio-8012 (Ohio 2014) (addressed juvenile consecutive commitments under the statute version predating the 2014 amendment)
Agricultural Ins. Co. v. Constantine, 144 Ohio St. 275 (Ohio 1944) (announces principle that a correct judgment will not be reversed solely because the trial court gave erroneous reasons)