State v. Kelly, 2017 Ohio 6884

In 1995 Kelly pleaded guilty to rape after he and three others broke into an apartment, gang-raped a victim, and stole property; Kelly admitted the facts in his plea despite later minimizing his role to the court-appointed psychiatrist.
While incarcerated Kelly accumulated ~20 institutional infractions, refused sex-offender treatment, and had a 2015 infraction alleging masturbatory conduct near his cell.
A court psychiatric clinic prepared a risk assessment that produced two statistical outcomes: one (including Kelly’s disclosed juvenile record) placed him at moderate–high risk of sexual recidivism; the other (excluding the juvenile history) placed him at moderate–low risk.
The trial court considered both assessments, credited Kelly’s admission of juvenile history as credible, relied on the moderate–high assessment plus aggravating factors (violent crime, multiple offenders, refusal of treatment, prison infractions), and classified Kelly a sexual predator under former R.C. Chapter 2950.
Kelly appealed, arguing the hearing was inadequate, the court failed to make the statutorily required finding that he is likely to reoffend, the classification lacked competent, credible evidence (pointing to the lower statistical risk), and raised authenticity/admissibility concerns about the clinical report.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument (State)	Defendant's Argument (Kelly)	Held
Adequacy of classification hearing	Hearing was proper; Kelly waived additional time and evidence	Hearing was inadequate and relied on limited evidence	Waiver/invited-error doctrine bars complaint; no reversible error
Necessity of explicit finding of likelihood to reoffend	Classification itself implies likelihood; no separate finding required	Court failed to make required statutory finding of likely future offending	No separate finding required; sexual predator label implies likelihood
Weight of competing clinical assessments (juvenile history included vs. excluded)	Court may credit the assessment that includes Kelly’s admitted juvenile history	The lower-risk analysis (no juvenile history) shows no clear-and-convincing proof of risk	Court permissibly credited the moderate–high assessment given Kelly’s statements and other evidence
Admissibility/authenticity of clinical/institutional reports	State properly introduced authenticated documents; Kelly stipulated authenticity	Stipulation to authenticity did not mean substantive evidence; reports should not be used substantively	Authentication stipulation was sufficient; substantive objections raised too late and waived

State v. Trem, 58 N.E.3d 555 (Ohio 2016) (Megan’s Law classification standards and relevance of actuarial risk in predator findings)
State v. Wilson, 865 N.E.2d 1264 (Ohio 2007) (civil manifest-weight standard applies to sexual-offender classifications)
State v. Murphy, 747 N.E.2d 765 (Ohio 2001) (invited-error doctrine: litigant may not profit from errors he induced)
Hal Artz Lincoln-Mercury, Inc. v. Ford Motor Co., 502 N.E.2d 590 (Ohio 1986) (articulating invited-error principle)