Criminals could face '3 strikes'
Ohio House passes bill to get tough on felons

By Jim Siegel
Enquirer Columbus Bureau

COLUMBUS - Committing three major felonies in a span of 20 years could mean a long, mandatory prison sentence under a bill passed 80-15 by the Ohio House Tuesday.

The bill, termed "three strikes lite" by sponsor Rep. Bill Seitz, R-Green Township, would require judges to impose a maximum sentence of eight or 10 years on repeat violent felons, depending on the severity of the third crime.

In addition, the bill would require a judge to tack an additional one to 10 years onto the mandatory sentence under Ohio's "repeat violent offender" law.

John Murphy, executive director of the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association, said the bill would deter crime and send a strong message to repeat offenders.

"By the time they get to that point, we feel we ought to be coming down heavily on these folks," he said.

Murphy said most judges are good at sentencing repeat felons.

"The mandatory is for the few judges that have problems with that,'' he said.

Joe Deters, who will take over as Hamilton County prosecutor in January, was more pointed.

Deters said judges who don't sentence three-time violent offenders to the maximum penalty don't deserve to be re-elected.

"This is not a savable criminal," he said. "This is someone who needs to be put in prison for as long as possible."

Deters said he would favor an even stronger bill, one that mandates a life sentence for repeat violent offenders.

Seitz said the bill differs from the pioneering three-strikes law in California, where the first two strikes must be violent felonies, but the third can be any felony, and a judge must impose a 25-years-to-life sentence.

Seitz said his bill focuses on the most violent criminals: "This is a weak three-strikes bill."

But Rep. Ed Jerse, D-Euclid, created a scenario where an 18-year-old burglarizes two homes, and then at age 37, gets into a bar fight. Based on the burglaries, the man would spend nine years or more in prison.

"We are still casting too broad a net," he said.

Rep. Tyrone Yates, D-Cincinnati, was among those voting against the bill.

"Many of the penalties are severe enough already. We are becoming a more mean society toward those who are incarcerated."

If enacted, the bill would be the first update to Ohio's "repeat violent offender" law since the state's truth-in-sentencing bill was passed in 1996.

David Diroll, executive director of the Ohio Criminal Sentencing Commission, which helped write the 1996 law, said Seitz's bill will make it easier for judges to use the repeat-violent-offender law and tack on prison time.

Unlike current law, prosecutors could label a felon a repeat violent offender without showing he or she committed actual physical harm to a victim in the prior offenses, he said.

Diroll said he supports the bill because it's focused on violent offenders.

"You don't want to create geriatric wards of aging burglars and robbers," he said.

Reginald Wilkinson, director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, has expressed concern about how mandatory-sentencing bills will place further strain on his prison system, which has seen budget reductions of more than $150 million since 2001.

The system, currently operating at 124 percent capacity, would have to add more than 200 beds to meet demands created by Seitz's bill, Wilkinson told a House committee in May. A state legislative analysis shows the bill will cost the state "millions" at its peak in 2025.

Barry Wilford thinks that might be a lowball figure. The chief lobbyist for the Ohio Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers said he looked at data from Franklin and Montgomery counties and estimates hundreds of felons could be subject to the new sentences.

Wilford said the bill doesn't allow judges enough discretion.

"There is nothing wrong with the idea of giving the sentencing judge a big hammer to use," Wilford said. "But the bill intrudes on judicial discretion by concluding that a judge is not doing his job by not using the big hammer."

Sen. Steve Austria, R-Beavercreek, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, would not predict whether the bill could make it through the Senate before session ends in mid-December.

E-mail jsiegel@enquirer.com