State v. WarrenState v. Warren
Lead Opinion
{¶ 1} This appeal requires us to consider the sole issue of whether due process is violated when the defendant receives a mandatory term of life imprisonment for forcible rape of a victim under age 13 when the defendant was 15 years of age at the time of the offense but not prosecuted until he had passed the age of 21. For the reasons that follow, we determine that principles of due process are not violated in this situation. We therefore affirm the judgment of the court of appeals and uphold the mandatory life sentence for rape imposed in this case.
I
{¶ 2} On November 9, 2004, defendant-appellant, Reginald Warren, was indicted on 12 counts of rape, each with a force specification; 12 counts of felonious sexual penetration, each with a force specification; 12 counts of gross sexual imposition; and 12 counts of kidnapping. Each count included a separate violence specification, and each count specifically noted that the victim was a child under age 13.
{¶ 3} The indictment stated the dates of the offenses as June 1988 to August 1988, meaning that the case was governed by the law in effect in 1988.
{¶ 4} After Warren waived his right to a jury, the case was tried to the court. Warren moved to dismiss all charges, arguing that the preindictment delay was
{¶ 5} At trial, the victim testified that during the summer of 1988, when she was nine years old, she and her younger sister stayed at the home of a neighbor and family friend, James Thomas, while their mother was at work. The victim testified that Thomas was physically disabled and that because he was unable to freely move around the house, he sat in a chair in the front room most of the time.
{¶ 6} Warren often did yard work and other tasks around Thomas’s house that summer. In recounting the first incident in which Warren abused her, the victim stated that he came into an upstairs bedroom while she was playing and kissed her, then pulled up her shirt, fondled her breasts, and sucked on them. In a number of later incidents, Warren held her down, pulled down her shorts, and inserted his finger into her vagina, and also sometimes partially inserted his penis. In addition to those acts, Warren sometimes would rub his penis on her vagina without inserting it.
{¶ 7} The victim estimated that Warren had digitally penetrated her 11 or 12 different times and had placed his penis into her vagina about eight or nine different times. She also detañed incidents in which Warren attempted to force her to perform oral sex and in which he tried to insert a hairbrush handle into her vagina, with the handle penetrating about two inches. The victim testified that Warren molested her for a period of about two months.
{¶ 8} The victim testified that she tolerated the molestation and did not reveal it to others because Warren repeatedly threatened that if she did not cooperate, he would kül or hurt her, her family members, and her friends. Eventually, in response to a speculative question from her mother as to whether Warren “had ever done anything” to her, the victim, after first answering no, told her mother that Warren “messes with me.” The victim refused to give her mother any specific detaüs because she was fearful of Warren’s threats. The victim’s mother testified that she was unsure of what actually had taken place and told Thomas only that she was not comfortable with Warren being around her young daughters. Thomas took steps to ensure that Warren no longer did work at Thomas’s house, and no more incidents occurred.
{¶ 9} The victim testified that she did not report the molestation to the police until 2004, when she saw a newspaper article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer stating that Warren had been sentenced to a prison term for sexually assaulting a nine-year-old girl. At that time, the victim went to authorities and gave a statement to a police detective, leading to the investigation that resulted in Warren’s prosecution.
{¶ 11} The trial court held sexual-predator and sentencing hearings and adjudged Warren to be a sexual predator. The court sentenced Warren under the law in effect in 1988 to life sentences on each of the rape convictions, to terms of four to ten years’ imprisonment on each of the convictions for gross sexual imposition with a violence specification, to terms of two years’ imprisonment on each of the other gross sexual imposition convictions, and to terms of 15 to 25 years’ imprisonment on each of the kidnapping convictions.
{¶ 12} Of particular relevance to this appeal is former
{¶ 13} “Whoever violates this section is guilty of rape, an aggravated felony of the first degree. If the offender under division (A)(1)(b) of this section purposely compels the victim to submit by force or threat of force, whoever violates division (A)(1)(b) of this section shall be imprisoned for life.”4 141 Ohio Laws, Part II, 4481.
{¶ 14} Because former
{¶ 16} The court of appeals rejected Warren’s argument that his due process rights were violated by the 16-year delay between the offenses and the indictment, reasoning that the minor victim’s delay in reporting the crimes to police officers could not be attributed to the state. Id. at ¶ 12. The court of appeals also found no merit to Warren’s argument that the statute of limitations was unconstitutionally applied to him and that his prosecution should have been foreclosed because of the delay. Id. at ¶ 13-15. The court of appeals recognized that the running of the statute of limitations was tolled until 1997 when the victim reached the age of majority. Id. at ¶ 14.
{¶ 17} Warren’s seventh assignment of error in the court of appeals argued that his constitutional rights were violated by the application of two specific statutes to his situation — former
{¶ 18} Warren argued that the trial court erred in failing to consider that he was only 15 at the time of the offenses. As he stated in his brief, “Because the mandatory life sentence required by
{¶ 19} We accepted for review only Warren’s Fifth Proposition of Law, see
{¶ 20} The state did not cross-appeal from the court of appeals’ reversal of some of the convictions. As a result, the proposition accepted for review implicates only the mandatory life sentence for the one rape conviction that was
II
{¶ 21} Our analysis begins with the well-established rule that statutes enjoy a strong presumption of constitutionality. State v. Carswell,
{¶ 22} Because Warren argues that the relevant statutes are unconstitutional as applied to his particular situation, he “bears the burden of presenting clear and convincing evidence of a presently existing state of facts that make the statutes unconstitutional and void when applied to those facts.” Harrold v. Collier,
{¶ 23} The court of appeals interpreted Warren’s seventh assignment of error as arguing that his sentence of life imprisonment is “cruel and unusual punishment” under the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution, based on Warren’s citations of Roper v. Simmons (2005),
{¶ 24} “The life sentence imposed here was mandated by statute. ‘Severe, mandatory penalties may be cruel, but they are not unusual in the constitutional sense, having been employed in various forms throughout our Nation’s history.’ Harmelin v. Michigan (1991),
{¶ 25} “Outside the death penalty context, the Eighth Amendment does not require strict proportionality between crime and sentence but forbids only extreme sentences that are grossly disproportionate to the crime. [Harmelin ] at 1001,
{¶ 26} Warren now makes clear that the court of appeals misinterpreted his argument. His essential position is that in the specific circumstances of his case, the interplay of
{¶ 27} We therefore construe Warren’s proposition of law as asserting that the mandatory life sentence for rape in his case violates basic due process principles of fundamental fairness. He urges us to hold that the challenged statutes cannot apply to him, to remand this cause to the trial court for resentencing on the rape count, and to direct that court to consider that Warren was a minor at the time of the offenses. In short, Warren asks us to instruct the trial court to disregard former
{¶ 28} As we recently noted in In re C.S.,
{¶ 29} Warren specifically targets
{¶ 30} Although Warren does not assert that his life sentence constitutes cruel and unusual punishment under Roper v. Simmons or Thompson v. Oklahoma, those cases and others involving juvenile offenders are central to his primary argument. Warren contends that those decisions recognized that juvenile offenders are entitled to special protections and asserts, “Due Process requires that in ascertaining an offender’s culpability for a crime, the trial court take account of the offender’s minority status at the time of the offense.”
{¶ 31} In support of his argument, Warren refers to the following passage from Justice Stevens’s plurality opinion in Thompson:
{¶ 32} “It is generally agreed ‘that punishment should be directly related to the personal culpability of the criminal defendant.’ California v. Brown,479 U.S. 538 , 545,107 S.Ct. 837 , 841,93 L.Ed.2d 934 (1987) (O’Connor, J., concurring). There is also broad agreement on the proposition that adolescents as a class are less mature and responsible than adults. We stressed this difference in explaining the importance of treating the defendant’s youth as a mitigating factor in capital cases:
{¶ 33} “ ‘But youth is more than a chronological fact. It is a time and condition of life when a person may be most susceptible to influence and to psychological damage. Our history is replete with laws and judicial recognition that minors,especially in their earlier years, generally are less mature and responsible than adults. Particularly “during the formative years of childhood and adolescence, minors often lack the experience, perspective, and judgment” expected of adults. Bellotti v. Baird, 448 U.S. 622 , 635,99 S.Ct. 3035 , 3043,61 L.Ed.2d 797 (1979).’ Eddings v. Oklahoma,455 U.S. 104 , 115-116,102 S.Ct. 869 , 877,71 L.Ed.2d 1 (1982) (footnotes omitted).
{¶ 34} “To add further emphasis to the special mitigating force of youth, Justice Powell [in Eddings] quoted the following passage from the 1978 Report of the Twentieth Century Fund Task Force on Sentencing Policy Toward Young Offenders:
{¶ 35} “ ‘ “[Ajdolescents, particularly in the early and middle teen years, are more vulnerable, more impulsive, and less self-disciplined than adults. Crimes committed by youths may be just as harmful to victims as those committed by older persons, but they deserve less punishment because adolescents may have less capacity to control their conduct and to think in long-range terms than adults. Moreover, youth crime as such is not exclusively the offender’s fault; offenses by the young also represent a failure of family, school, and the social system, which share responsibility for the development of America’s youth.” ’455 U.S., at 115, n. 11 , 102 S.Ct. [at] 877, n. 11, [71 L.Ed.2d 1 , n. 11].” Thompson,487 U.S. at 834 ,108 S.Ct. 2687 ,101 L.Ed.2d 702 .
{¶ 36} Warren notes that the Supreme Court in Roper expressed similar sentiments. For example, the court stated in that case,
{¶ 37} The state asserts that Warren’s argument is based on an “overly broad reading of Roper ” and its predecessors and further asserts — with some justification — that Roper is read most appropriately, in context, as a narrow examination of the propriety of executing juveniles who have committed capital crimes.
{¶ 38} We recognize that Warren’s argument centers on some broad principles from Roper, Thompson, and other cases that do transcend the Eighth Amendment. See, e.g., In re C.S.,
{¶ 39} However, we determine that our decision in State v. Walls,
{¶ 40} In Walls, the defendant was indicted in 1998 for an aggravated murder that occurred in 1985 when the defendant was 15 years old. Although Walls was a minor at the time of the offense, the statutes in effect at the túne of his indictment, which were enacted in 1997, allowed the state to try him as an adult.
{¶ 41} Walls urged this court to void his conviction, arguing that the common pleas court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction because the statutes allowing for his trial as an adult were unconstitutionally retroactive as applied. In affirming, this court held that the application of the jurisdictional statutes did not violate the Retroactivity Clause, Section 28, Article II of the Ohio Constitution, or the Ex Post Facto Clause, Section 10, Article I of the United States Constitution. Walls,
{¶ 42} As to the Retroactivity Clause, this court first determined that the General Assembly intended the 1997 amendments to apply retrospectively be
{¶ 43} We then proceeded to consider whether the statutes were substantive or remedial for purposes of retroactivity analysis. We rejected Walls’s argument that the 1997 statutory changes were substantive in that they deprived him of his vested right to a bindover proceeding:
{¶ 44} “The 1997 changes to R.C. Chapter 2151 did not impair any of Walls’s vested rights within the meaning of our retroactivity jurisprudence. Although the 1997 amendments to the juvenile statutes allowed criminal prosecution without the bindover proceeding required under the 1985 law, we cannot characterize this change as anything other than remedial. Even under the law in effect in 1985, Walls was subject to criminal prosecution in the general division of a court of common pleas if the juvenile court made certain determinations specified by statute. See formerR.C. 2151.26(A) and (E), 140 Ohio Laws, Part I, 585-586. Thus, under either the 1985 law or the 1997 law, Walls was on notice that the offense he allegedly committed could subject him to criminal prosecution as an adult in the general division of the court of common pleas. The 1997 law merely removed the procedural prerequisite of a juvenile-court proceeding. Even though they may have an occasional substantive effect on past conduct, ‘it is generally true that laws that relate to procedures are ordinarily remedial in nature.’ ” Walls,96 Ohio St.3d 437 ,2002-Ohio-5059 ,775 N.E.2d 829 , at ¶ 17.
{¶ 45} Accordingly, we held that “application of the juvenile statutes in place at the time the state commenced criminal proceedings in this case did not impair Walls’s substantive rights” within the meaning of the test set forth in Van Fossen v. Babcock & Wilcox Co. (1988),
{¶ 46} As to the Ex Post Facto Clause, this court dismissed Walls’s claim that the 1997 statutes increased the measure of punishment for his conduct as “speculative at best” and noted that although ‘Walls perhaps remained eligible for retention within the jurisdiction of the juvenile court under a technical reading of the old statutes, the practical reality is that Walls had virtually no chance of being kept in the juvenile system.” Id. at ¶ 31. We reviewed the statutory criteria in place in 1985 for deciding whether to transfer a child to common pleas court for trial as an adult and concluded that there was “no basis to conclude that Walls had any realistic chance of remaining in the juvenile system under the 1985 law.” Id. at ¶ 38.
{¶ 47} We further noted: “Notwithstanding the broad degree of discretion afforded to juvenile courts in bindover decisions, see State v. Watson (1989), 47
{¶ 48} Walls is not directly on point with this case because it did not involve a due process argument based upon principles of fundamental fairness. However, the similarities between the situation in this case and in Walls are substantial, and the essential principles that emerge from Walls make it impossible for Warren to prevail on his due process argument.
{¶ 49} Most important, as in Walls, the application of the statutes requiring that Warren be tried as an adult in common pleas court (in this case,
{¶ 50} In addition, Walls stands squarely in the way of any argument that Warren might make about the lack of a bindover hearing in his case, because although Warren “perhaps remained eligible for retention within the jurisdiction of the juvenile court under a technical reading of the old statutes, the practical reality is that [he] had virtually no chance of being kept in the juvenile system.” Walls, at ¶ 31. As in Walls, any bindover hearing under the statute that was in place in 1988 would have been simply a procedural step in the process of transferring Warren for prosecution as an adult. Walls,
{¶ 51} Warren does not explicitly argue that he was prejudiced by the absence of a bindover hearing or that the juvenile court should have retained jurisdiction over his case. Instead, he claims to have been prejudiced by the trial court’s inability to consider his age at the time of the offenses in sentencing him for rape. Warren argues that he would have received more favorable treatment if he had been charged with rape while still a juvenile and that that favorable treatment should extend to the rape conviction in this case. Those arguments are signifi
{¶ 52} In State v. Schaar, Stark App. No. 2003CA00129,
{¶ 53} Warren additionally argues that
{¶ 54} First, the record contains no indications that the victim delayed this prosecution so that Warren could be charged as an adult instead of a juvenile and thereby face an increased penalty. To the contrary, the record establishes that the victim refrained from telling anyone about the incidents because Warren had threatened her and others with harm and that she later tried to put the incidents behind her and deal with them internally. It was only when she read the 2004 newspaper article that she developed the resolve to come forward. In these circumstances, the victim’s delay in reporting the molestation could hardly be termed “unjustified.”
{¶ 55} Second, this argument is in substantial part based on underlying claims of prejudicial preindictment delay (see Walls,
{¶ 56} Third, to the extent that this argument supports the proposition of law we agreed to review, it must fail under Walls. Warren’s sentencing exposure did not arbitrarily increase, because the application of the relevant juvenile statutes to him “did not increase his available punishment in any manner other than a speculative and attenuated one.” Id. at ¶ 41.
{¶ 57} Warren asserts the further secondary argument that his mandatory life sentence for rape is unfair because it is disproportionate to sentences imposed on “similarly situated offenders” — those juveniles who are charged with rape shortly
Ill
{¶ 58} For all the foregoing reasons, Warren does not demonstrate that his rights to due process and fundamental fairness were violated by the application of the challenged statutes to him as they are written to impose a mandatory life sentence for rape. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the court of appeals.
Judgment affirmed.
Notes
. The extensive revisions to criminal statutes that were enacted in Am.Sub.S.B. No. 2, 146 Ohio Laws, Part IV, 7136, effective July 1, 1996, are inapplicable to this case. See State v. Rush (1998),
. Warren’s parole eligibility is determined by former
. The trial court additionally ordered that the sentences imposed in this case be served consecutively to a nine-year prison term that Warren had earlier received for unrelated convictions for lddnapping and gross sexual imposition in a different ease. The earlier offenses occurred in 2003, involving a female victim under 13 years of age.
. Although current
. {¶ a}
{¶ b} “If a person under eighteen years of age allegedly commits an act that would be a felony if committed by an adult and if the person is not taken into custody or apprehended for that act until after the person attains twenty-one years of age, the juvenile court does not have jurisdiction to hear or determine any portion of the case charging the person with committing that act. In those circumstances, divisions (A) [mandatory transfer] and (B) [discretionary transfer] of section 2152.12 of the Revised Code do not apply regarding the act, and the case charging the person with committing the act shall be a criminal prosecution commenced and heard in the appropriate court having jurisdiction of the offense as if the person had been eighteen years of age or older when the person committed the act. All proceedings pertaining to the act shall be within the jurisdiction of the court having jurisdiction of the offense, and that court has all the authority and duties in the case that it has in other criminal cases in that court.”
{¶ c}
{¶ d} “If a person under eighteen years of age allegedly commits an act that would be a felony if committed by an adult and if the person is not taken into custody or apprehended for that act until after the person attains twenty-one years of age, the juvenile court does not have jurisdiction to hear or determine any portion of the case charging the person with committing that act. In those circumstances, divisions (A) [mandatory transfer] and (B) [discretionary transfer] of this section do not apply regarding the act, and the case charging the person with committing the act shall be a criminal prosecution commenced and heard in the appropriate court having jurisdiction of the offense as if the person had been eighteen years of age or older when the person committed the act. All proceedings pertaining to the act shall be within the jurisdiction of the court having jurisdiction of the offense, and that court has all the authority and duties in the case as it has in other criminal cases in that court.”
. {¶ a} The applicable statutes were former
{¶ b} Am.Sub.S.B. No. 179, effective January 1, 2002, 148 Ohio Laws, Part IV, 9447, significantly revised many juvenile statutes and reorganized the Revised Code by moving delinquency into a new chapter, R.C. Chapter 2152.
Concurrence Opinion
concurring in judgment only.
{¶ 59} The sole issue accepted by this court for resolution confines us, I believe, to affirming the court of appeals. Even if we were to accept Reginald Warren’s arguments regarding due process and fundamental fairness, we cannot order the trial court to consider his status as a juvenile to be a mitigating sentencing factor because former
{¶ 60} This case is troublesome on the facts. In 2004, Reginald Warren was indicted, tried, convicted, and sentenced for a 1988 forcible rape of a child under 13, based solely on the testimony of the complaining witness and without any physical evidence. In 1988, he was 15 years old and subject to adjudication in juvenile court; 17 years later, he received a mandatory life sentence as an adult. Of all the issues raised — preindictment delay, extension and tolling of the statute
{¶ 61} I join in the sentiments expressed by Justice Pfeifer, dissenting in State v. Walls,
{¶ 62} Referring to the same phrase in former
{¶ 63} Warren committed the offense in 1988.
{¶ 64} Former
{¶ 65} Thus, even under current law allowing sentencing mitigation for the youth of an offender, Warren would still be subject to a term of life imprisonment without parole, because his victim was younger than ten at the time of the offense. If former
Lundberg Stratton and O’Donnell, JJ., concur in the foregoing opinion.
. The current version of
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting.
{¶ 66} I dissented in State v. Walls,
{¶ 67} “The dichotomy between juvenile and criminal courts exists because we understand the important differences between children and adults, not just in their ultimate disposition once they are adjudged, but also in the motivations behind their behaviors.
{¶ 68} “Whenever the juvenile offender is ultimately apprehended, at the time of the crime or after he turns twenty-one, the fact remains that a child committed the offense. Who of us is the same person we were as a teenager? Who of us is the person we aspired to be as a teenager? Our juvenile laws and courts takeinto account that we are eminently changeable and reformable at that age. The juvenile court structure recognizes our undeveloped judgment capabilities, our nonappreciation of the future, and the temporary and evolving nature of our influences.” Watts, 96 Ohio St.3d 437 ,2002-Ohio-5059 ,775 N.E.2d 829 , at ¶ 67-68 (Pfeifer, J., dissenting).
{¶ 69} The fact that Warren could not even argue that his youth was a mitigating factor in the commission of his crimes is fundamentally unfair. I would reverse the judgment of the court of appeals.