State v. Herrick, 2019 Ohio 5047

In March 2015 Thomas Herrick was charged after his car crashed into a restaurant, killing a patron: vehicular homicide (1st‑degree misdemeanor), vehicular manslaughter (2nd‑degree misdemeanor), and failure to control (minor misdemeanor).
Herrick pleaded no contest to vehicular manslaughter and failure to control; the vehicular homicide count was dismissed. He received one year probation and a one‑year license suspension for the manslaughter conviction.
After completing probation Herrick moved to seal the record of his vehicular manslaughter conviction; the trial court denied the motion after a hearing.
The controlling statute is R.C. 2953.61(A), which bars sealing when a person is charged with multiple offenses arising from the same act and at least one charge has a different final disposition than the others until the person can apply to have all records sealed.
The court of appeals distinguished State v. Pariag, concluding the minor misdemeanor (failure to control) is not a "conviction" under the sealing statutes (R.C. 2953.31(A)(2)), and therefore R.C. 2953.61(A) did not mechanically bar consideration of Herrick’s sealing motion.
The majority reversed and remanded for a substantive ruling on the sealing application; the presiding judge dissented, arguing Pariag and related precedent compel affirmance of the trial court’s denial.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether R.C. 2953.61(A) bars sealing when multiple offenses arise from the same act and one disposition differs, where the differing disposition is a minor misdemeanor (failure to control).	The State: apply Pariag — when multiple offenses from the same act have different dispositions, the statute bars sealing unless all records can be sealed.	Herrick: failure to control is a minor misdemeanor and not a "conviction" under the sealing statutes, so R.C. 2953.61(A) should not automatically preclude consideration of sealing the manslaughter conviction.	Majority: R.C. 2953.61(A) does not automatically bar Herrick’s motion because the minor misdemeanor is not a statutory "conviction"; remanded for substantive consideration.
Whether the court may avoid an absurd result by construing R.C. 2953.61(A) to allow consideration of an otherwise eligible sealing application.	The State: adhere to plain statutory language and Pariag; deny sealing when dispositions differ.	Herrick: a strict application would yield an absurd outcome (denying a hearing to an otherwise eligible applicant); courts should avoid that result.	Majority: invoked absurd‑result principle to interpret statute so the trial court must consider the application; dissent viewed Pariag and precedent as controlling and would affirm denial.

State v. Pariag, 998 N.E.2d 401 (Ohio 2013) (holds R.C. 2953.61 bars sealing when a dismissed charge arises from the same act as a non‑sealable conviction)
State v. Futrall, 918 N.E.2d 497 (Ohio 2009) (explains sealing statutes operate on cases rather than individual convictions and highlights difficulty of partial sealing)
Lawson v. FMR, L.L.C., 571 U.S. 429 (U.S. 2014) (discusses avoiding statutory interpretations that produce absurd results)