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S. B. No. 365 As IntroducedAs Introduced
127th General Assembly | Regular Session | 2007-2008 |
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Cosponsors:
Senators Seitz, Padgett, Miller, R., Miller, D., Roberts, Morano, Niehaus
A BILL
To create a Capital Case Commission to study the
imposition and administration of capital
punishment
in Ohio and to make recommendations for
improving
Ohio's procedures in capital cases and
its capital
sentencing procedures.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF OHIO:
Section 1. (A) A sixteen-member Capital Case Commission shall
be established as provided in this section. The Speaker and the
Minority Leader of the
House of Representatives, one member of the
House of
Representatives who is a member of the same political
party as the
Speaker and is designated by the Speaker, one
member
of the
House of Representatives who is a member of the same
political
party as the Minority Leader and is designated by the
Minority
Leader, the President and Minority Leader of the
Senate,
one
member of the Senate who is a member of the same political
party
as the President and is designated by the President, and one
member
of the Senate who is a member of the same political party
as the
Minority Leader and is designated by the Minority Leader
shall jointly appoint the members of the
Commission.
The members of the Commission shall be
appointed in
accordance with the criteria described in this
paragraph. Two
members of the Commission shall be
members of the House
of
Representatives and shall not be members
of
the same political
party. Two members of the
Commission shall be
members of the
Senate and shall not be members
of the same political party. Two
members of the
Commission shall be judges of a court of common
pleas, two members shall be judges of a court of appeals, two
members shall be prosecuting attorneys, two
members shall be
attorneys whose practice of law primarily
involves the
representation of criminal defendants and who are
qualified under
Rule 20 of the Rules of Superintendence for the
Courts of Ohio to
be appointed as lead counsel in capital cases or
as appellate
counsel
in cases where a death penalty has been
imposed, one
member shall
be
a representative of an
organization that
advocates
for the
rights of
victims of crime,
one member shall be
a
representative
of an organization
that advocates for crime
victims' families for
reconciliation, and two members
shall be
members of the
general
public. The members of the
Commission who
are members of
the House
of Representatives or
Senate shall be
different
individuals than
the House or Senate
members who make
the
appointments to the
Commission. Not
more
than eight members of
the
Commission shall
be members of the
same
political party. When
all
members are
appointed, the
Commission
promptly shall meet,
select
a
chairperson and a
vice-chairperson,
and organize its
activities.
The Attorney General, the State Public Defender, and the
staff and employees of both of those public officials shall
provide to the Commission, upon its request, research and
technical services and support. Independent of this provision of
services and support, the Commission may seek and obtain research
and technical services and support from any individual,
organization, association, college, or university.
(B) The Commission shall review and study all issues that
are
related to the imposition and administration of capital
punishment
in Ohio, specifically with respect to resolving capital
cases in a
fair and orderly manner, to ensuring that all persons
charged with
a capital offense receive adequate representation,
and to
eliminating undue delay in capital cases. The activities of the
Commission shall not affect, delay, or interfere with any pending
capital case, including any appeal of a capital case in state or
federal court or any postconviction relief proceeding or habeas
corpus proceeding related to a capital case, and the case shall
proceed during the Commission's performance of its activities and
duties as if the Commission had not been created. The Commission
shall do all of the following:
(1) Review all aspects of Ohio's procedures in capital cases
and procedures related to capital sentencing and
punishment,
including, but not limited to, the
pre-trial, trial, sentencing,
direct appeal, and postconviction relief
procedures related to
capital cases and to capital sentencing and punishment;
(2) For all trials that involved a charge that a person
committed a capital offense on or after October 19, 1981, review
and analyze all aspects of the trial, including, but not limited
to, the
facts of each case, including any aggravating and
mitigating
circumstances specified in sections 2929.03 and 2929.04
of the
Revised Code or otherwise present in the case, the race,
gender,
religious preference, economic
status, age, and education
of the defendant and the
victims, any mental impairment of the
defendant, the adequacy of representation for the defendant and,
if the defendant was indigent, the adequacy of funding for the
defense of the defendant, the result of the case, and the sentence
imposed upon the
defendant. In performing the duties prescribed in
this division, the Commission shall not predict or attempt to
predict the outcome in any pending case or critique the outcome in
any resolved case but shall compile data and statistics from the
cases regarding all aspects of the trial as described in this
division.
(3) Review and analyze in general the procedures in
capital
cases, including, but not limited to, the adequacy of counsel in
all stages of capital cases
and the sufficiency of any existing
guidelines or rules for the
appointment and performance of that
counsel, the adequacy of funding for the defense of indigent
defendants in capital cases, the process for judicial review in
state postconviction
and federal habeas corpus proceedings of the
merits of
constitutional claims present in or resulting from the
cases,
whether there is any disproportional impact from
any aspect
of
capital case procedures and proceedings, whether there is
discrimination in capital sentencing,
on any illegal basis,
whether
prosecutorial misconduct is present as a factor
in the
imposition
of the death penalty, and the possibility that there
are innocent
persons who have
been sentenced to death in Ohio;
(4) Obtain information regarding all aggravated murder cases
in the two Category One counties selected under division (D)(1) of
this section and
in the two Category Two counties selected under
that division that
is necessary to comply with division (D)(2)(b)
of
this section, including, but not limited to, information, to
the extent it can be obtained, regarding the reasons for the
prosecutorial decision as to whether to prosecute the cases as
capital cases or to prosecute them as aggravated murder cases that
are not capital cases;
(5) Appoint subcommittees to assist in the discharge of its
duties, including, but not limited to, the four subcommittees
described in divisions (C)(1) to (4) of this section to perform
the functions described in those divisions;
(6) Separate its findings regarding the information it
collects under this section into the three data sets described in
divisions (D)(2)(a), (b), and (c) of this section, and utilize the
information in those data sets for the purposes described in
those
divisions;
(7) Study other topics that the Commission determines
appropriate for study because of their relationship to the
commission of capital offenses, procedures in capital cases,
sentencing or punishment in capital cases, or offenders and
victims in capital cases;
(8) Make legislative recommendations for improving Ohio's
procedures in capital cases and procedures related to
capital
sentencing and punishment in Ohio based on its
review, studies,
and analysis described in divisions (B)(1) to (7) and (D) of this
section;
(9) Not later than one year after the effective date of this
section, prepare and submit to the Speaker and Minority Leader of
the
House of Representatives, the President and Minority Leader of
the
Senate, and the Governor a preliminary report that sets forth
its preliminary findings
regarding the imposition and
administration of capital sentencing
and punishment in Ohio and
its preliminary recommendations for
improving Ohio's procedures in
capital cases and procedures
related to capital sentencing and
punishment in
Ohio;
(10) Not later than eighteen months after the effective date
of this section, prepare and submit to the persons identified in
division (B)(9) of this section a final report that sets forth its
final findings regarding the imposition and administration of
capital sentencing and punishment in Ohio and its final
recommendations for improving Ohio's procedures in capital cases
and procedures related to capital sentencing and punishment in
Ohio.
(C) The Commission shall appoint the following four
subcommittees to perform the following functions, in the discharge
of the Commission's duties under divisions (B) and (D) of this
section:
(1) A subcommittee to examine pre-trial issues related to
capital cases;
(2) A subcommittee to examine trial issues related to
capital
cases and sentencing, including, but not limited to,
issues
involving the guilt phase of the trial in a capital case
and the
sentencing phase of the trial in a capital case;
(3) A subcommittee to examine issues related to direct
appeals of the judgment of the trial court in capital cases and
issues related to postconviction relief petitions and proceedings
under sections 2953.21 to 2953.23 of the Revised Code as they
pertain to capital cases;
(4) A Data Research Subcommittee to compile data and provide
statistical analyses for the Commission and the subcommittees
described in divisions (C)(1) to (3) of this section.
(D)(1) The Commission, for purposes of division (D)(2) of
this section, shall do all of the following:
(a) Determine the two Category One counties in which the
highest and second highest number of capital offense indictments
have been returned, out of all Category One counties, on or after
October 19, 1981, and not later than July 1, 2006;
(b) Determine the two Category Two counties in which the
highest and second highest number of capital offense indictments
have been returned, out of all Category Two counties, on or after
October 19, 1981, and not later than July 1, 2006;
(c) Select the four counties determined under divisions
(D)(1)(a) and (b) of this section as the counties to be covered by
the data set described in division (D)(2)(b) of this section.
(2)
The Commission shall separate its findings regarding
the
information it collects under this section into the following
three data sets:
(a) A data set that contains information for all Ohio
capital
cases in which a defendant was sentenced on or after
October 19,
1981, and not later than July 1, 2006. This data set
shall profile
all defendants and victims of capital offenses in
those cases and
shall summarize the processing of those cases,
including, but not
limited to, the time frames between major
decision points in the
cases, an analysis of the statutes and
rules governing the
litigation of those cases, and an in-depth
study of those cases
that required corrective appellate action.
(b) A data set that contains information for all cases in
the
four counties selected under division (D)(1) of this section
in
which a person was sentenced, on or after October 19, 1981, and
not
later than July 1, 2006, for aggravated murder. This
data set
shall
contain profiles and summaries of
the type
described in
division
(D)(2)(a) of this section, as they
relate to
the cases
described
in this division, shall specify for each of those cases
whether the case was a capital case or was not a capital case, and
shall specify for each of those cases, to the extent it can be
determined, the reasons for the prosecutorial decision to
prosecute the case as a capital case or to prosecute it as an
aggravated murder case that was not a capital case. This data set
shall be
further
separated into a
subcategory that contains the
specified information
for the
two Category One counties
selected
under division (D)(1) of this section and a separate
subcategory
that
contains the specified information for the two Category Two
counties selected under that division. This data set shall
contain
the
specified information
for all aggravated murder cases
in the
four subject counties,
including capital cases and cases
that are
not
capital cases.
(c) A data set that consists of a comparative analysis of the
information contained
in the data set described in division
(D)(2)(b) of this section
to the information contained in the data
set described in division (D)(2)(a) of this section, with the
analysis focusing on the difference between a capital case and an
aggravated murder case that is not a capital case. Using a
representative sample of the cases to which the data set described
in division (D)(2)(b) of this section pertains, the analysis shall
include, but not be limited to, a determination of the incremental
additional costs of prosecution, defense, and appeals of a capital
case as compared to an aggravated murder case that is not a
capital case. The Commission may utilize the information in the
data sets described in divisions (D)(2)(a) and (b) of this section
for any other purpose in the performance of its duties under this
section.
(E) The Capital Case Commission and all subcommittees of the
Commission shall cease to exist on the date on
which the
Commission submits its final report to the General Assembly and
the
Governor.
(F) As used in this section:
(1) "Capital case" means a case in which a person is charged
with a capital offense.
(2) "Capital offense" has the same meaning as in section
2901.02 of the Revised Code.
(3) "Category One counties" means Butler County, Cuyahoga
County, Franklin County, Lorain County, Hamilton County, Lucas
County, Mahoning County, Montgomery County, Stark County, and
Summit County.
(4) "Category Two counties" means all counties in this state
that are not Category One counties.
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