The state of state sentencing in Ohio

I have previously called Ohio a Blakely bellwether — or maybe I should call it a Blakely swing state — because the impact of Blakely‘s formal rule on Ohio’s functional sentencing laws could be extreme or extremely minor (background here and here).

To its great credit, members of the Ohio Criminal Sentencing Commission earlier this month put together a number of helpful documents about Blakely in Ohio, including an overview of Blakely cases in Ohio Courts and memos here and here on Blakely‘s possible impact on Ohio law. Though the passage of a few weeks already makes these documents a bit dated (more recent developments are noted here), collectively these materials provide a valuable overview of Blakely developments in Ohio.

And for folks interested in broader sentencing reform stories, there is a lot more to learn from Ohio’s development of its modern sentencing structure. The full Ohio story is well told by Ohio Judge Burt W. Griffin and Professor Lewis Katz in Sentencing Consistency: Basic Principles Instead of Numerical Grids: The Ohio Plan, 53 Case W. Res. L. Rev. 1 (2002). And, by way of the kind Professor Jerry Israel, I have here to be downloaded a short description of “the Ohio Plan” authored by Judge Griffin. Professor Israel astutely says “I suspect that the Ohio approach, if it gains the attention it deserves, will receive widespread support among judges.”
Download summary_of_ohio_sentencing_system.rtf