686 N.E.2d 531 | Ohio Ct. App. | 1996
[EDITORS' NOTE: THIS PAGE CONTAINS HEADNOTES. HEADNOTES ARE NOT AN OFFICIAL PRODUCT OF THE COURT, THEREFORE THEY ARE NOT DISPLAYED.] *8
On March 30, 1992, defendant-appellant, Jefferley A. Davenport, was indicted on four counts of gross sexual imposition in violation of R.C.
On December 21, 1995, appellant filed a petition to expunge the record of his convictions pursuant to R.C.
"(A)(1) Except as provided in section
"* * *
"(B) Upon the filing of an application under this section, the court shall set a date for a hearing and shall notify the prosecutor for the case of the hearing on the application. The prosecutor may object to the granting of the application by filing an objection with the court prior to the date set for the hearing. The prosecutor shall specify in the objection the reasons he believes justify a denial of the application. The court shall direct its regular probation officer, a state probation officer, or the department of probation of the county in which the applicant resides to make inquiries and written reports as the court requires concerning the applicant.
"(C)(1) The court shall do each of the following:
"(a) Determine whether the applicant is a first offender * * *;
"(b) Determine whether criminal proceedings are pending against the applicant;
"(c) If the applicant is a first offender who applies pursuant to division (A)(1) of this section, determine whether the applicant has been rehabilitated to the satisfaction of the court;
"(d) If the prosecutor has filed an objection in accordance with division (B) of this section, consider the reasons against granting the application specified by the prosecutor in the objection;
"(e) Weigh the interests of the applicant in having the records pertaining to his conviction sealed against the legitimate needs, if any, of the government to maintain those records.
"* * *
"(2) If the court determines, after complying with division (C)(1) of this section, that the applicant is a first offender * * *, that no criminal proceeding is pending against him, and that the interests of the applicant in having the records pertaining to his conviction * * * sealed are not outweighed by any legitimate governmental needs to maintain such records, and that the rehabilitation of an applicant who is a first offender applying pursuant to division (A)(1) of this section has been attained to the satisfaction of the court, the court * * * shall order all official records pertaining to the case sealed * * *."
The trial court held that R.C.
"Assignment of Error No. 1:
"The trial court committed plain error in ruling that R.C.
"Assignment of Error No. 2:
"The trial court committed plain error in ruling that R.C.
"Assignment of Error No. 3:
"The trial court committed plain error in ruling that R.C.
"Assignment of Error No. 4:
"The trial court erred in deciding that the amendment of R.C.
In his first assignment of error, appellant contends that R.C.
The defendant in Santobello was arrested and charged with several gambling offenses. Id. at 258,
On appeal, the Supreme Court vacated the defendant's guilty plea. Id. at 263,
Appellant urges us to extend the rationale of Santobello to the facts of this case. Appellant argues that he accepted the plea bargain offered by the state in 1992 with the expectation that he would be able to petition for the expungement of his convictions one year after completing his probation and that R.C.
The record indicates that neither the prosecutor nor any other representative of the state ever promised appellant that he would be able to expunge his convictions at some later date if he accepted the plea bargain in this case. The mere fact that appellant chose to accept the state's plea bargain based upon some unilateral hope that he might be able to expunge his convictions in the future does not render expungement a fundamental right protected by due process or in any way restrict the General Assembly's authority to limit the offenders eligible for expungement under R.C.
In his second assignment of error, appellant contends that R.C.
In his third assignment of error, appellant contends that R.C.
Equal protection under the law requires that no person or class of persons be denied the protection afforded by the law to other persons or classes in like *12
circumstances. Huntington Natl. Bank v. Limbach (1994),
The first step in our equal protection analysis is to determine the appropriate standard of review. Statutes which discriminate based upon a "suspect classification" or which deprive a certain class of individuals of a fundamental right are subject to a "strict scrutiny" test, while statutes which do not need only be rationally related to some legitimate governmental interest.Conley v. Shearer (1992),
The second step in our equal protection analysis is to determine whether R.C.
The General Assembly could certainly have concluded that it is necessary to protect society from sexual offenders such as appellant by making the criminal records of those convicted of sex crimes available to the public. R.C.
In his fourth assignment of error, appellant contends that the application of R.C.
"The general assembly shall have no power to pass retroactive laws, or laws impairing the obligation of contracts; but may, by general laws, authorize courts to carry into effect, upon such terms as shall be just and equitable, the manifest intention of parties, and officers, by curing omissions, defects, and errors, in instruments and proceedings, arising out of their want of conformity with the laws of this state."
In State v. Bottom (Feb. 29, 1996), Licking App. No. 95-CA-101, unreported, 1996 WL 132284, the Ohio Fifth District Court of Appeals considered whether R.C.
The court of appeals held that the trial court had not violated Section 28, Article II by applying R.C.
Our review of the record indicates that appellant filed his petition for expungement on December 21, 1995, more than one year after R.C.
Judgment affirmed.
WILLIAM W. YOUNG, P.J., and KOEHLER, J., concur.
On appeal, we held that R.C.
Nothing in our decision today should be read as overruling or in any way undercutting our decision in Heaton. The peculiar facts of the Heaton case simply required us to determine the nature of Ohio expungement law in order to resolve the retroactivity issue, a task which we need not undertake in order to decide the question presented by this appeal.