The Ohio Supreme Court today ruled in 10 cases involving adults convicted of illegal firearm possession based on juvenile offenses. On the authority of its August decision in State v. Carnes, the Supreme Court affirmed the appellate court decisions in all 10 cases.

In Carnes, the Court upheld a man’s conviction after determining that the state may criminalize firearm possession by adults who were found to be delinquent when they were juveniles. In the 6-1 decision, the Court ruled that Anthony Carnes’ constitutional due process rights were not violated when he was convicted of having a weapon under “disability” based on a juvenile offense. Carnes was prohibited from having a firearm because of his 1994 adjudication of delinquency for committing felonious assault as a teenager. (See “Juvenile Offenses Can Be Used to Convict Adult of Illegal Firearm Possession.”)

Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor dissented in Carnes, writing that she would find the use of a juvenile adjudication as an element of an adult’s disability unconstitutional. She stated that having the consequences of a juvenile act follow the person into adulthood without any time limit was “profoundly unfair.”

The vote in seven of today’s decisions was 6-1, with the chief justice dissenting, as she did in Carnes. The remaining three were 5-1 rulings, with the chief justice dissenting and Justice Patrick F. Fischer not participating.

The cases arose from four counties – Cuyahoga, Hamilton, Montgomery, and Stark. The Supreme Court issued one-sentence entries in each of the 10 cases:

2017-1610: State v. St. Jules
2017-1623: State v. Barfield
2017-1681: State v. McCray
2017-1750: State v. Sally
2017-1751: State v. Young
2017-1753: State v. Jackson
2018-0042: State v. Ortiz
2018-0092: State v. Herron
2018-0166: State v. Jones
2018-0375: State v. Gause

Please note: Opinion summaries are prepared by the Office of Public Information for the general public and news media. Opinion summaries are not prepared for every opinion, but only for noteworthy cases. Opinion summaries are not to be considered as official headnotes or syllabi of court opinions. The full text of this and other court opinions are available online.

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