Ohio Criminal Appeals Lawyer Blog

Ohio Revised Code Section 2953.52 "requires a trial court to hold a hearing before deciding an application for sealing a criminal record." A Franklin County trial judge held a two-minute hearing in which the trial judge listened to himself talk and listened to the prosecutor talk before denying the defendant's application. The Tenth District Court of Appeals reversed the judgment of the trial court and remanded the case "with instructions to conduct a hearing as required by R.C. 2953.52, weigh the interests of the parties, make the necessary findings, and express those findings on the record in some manner." Read the decision in State v. Esson, 2011-Ohio-5770, here.

If you are accused of a crime or have been convicted already, contact me if you can afford to hire a private criminal defense lawyer. Otherwise, contact your county or state public defender to see if they can help.

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Ohio Revised Code Section 2953.32 is where to start if you have convictions you would like to have sealed. Section 2953.36 lists convictions that cannot be sealed. Section 2953.36 specifically mentions misdemeanors of the first degree that are offenses of violence.

But what about unclassified misdemeanors? The Second District Court of Appeals for Montgomery County just addressed that issue. Misdemeanors were not classified by degree until 1974. A man convicted in 1971 of pointing a gun at someone sought to have his conviction sealed. The trial court ruled that he was not eligible. But the Court of Appeals ruled that nothing in R.C. 2953.36(C) prohibits the sealing of an unclassified misdemeanor. The trial judge's denial of the motion to seal was reversed and the case was remanded to the trial court as you can read here.

If you are accused of a crime or have been convicted already, contact me if you can afford to hire a private criminal defense lawyer. Otherwise, contact your county or state public defender to see if they can help.

When faced with a motion to seal the record of a conviction, a trial judge must make findings as required by R.C. 2953.32(C). Instead, a Perry County trial judge denied a motion to seal a record of a misdemeanor conviction simply because it was a serious case. When the defendant was 18 years old he had a car accident that killed his 18 year old passenger. Even though the defendant was a first offender and no criminal proceedings were pending against him when he moved to have his conviction sealed, the trial judge thought sealing the conviction would minimize the seriousness of the offense. The Fifth District Court of Appeals said this was not a proper analysis by the trial judge and the trial judge had to "make the necessary findings required by R.C. 2953.32 and weigh the interests of the parties to the expungement and cannot deny the motion for expungement because of the nature of the offense." Read the decision here.

If you are accused of a crime or have been convicted already, contact me if you can afford to hire a private criminal defense lawyer. Otherwise, contact your county or state public defender to see if they can help.

Today the Ohio Supreme Court decided a case on sealing of criminal records. Here is the syllabus by the Court: "[w]hen an applicant with multiple convictions under one case number moves to seal his or her criminal record in that case pursuant to R.C. 2953.32 and one of those convictions is exempt from sealing pursuant to R.C. 2953.36, the trial court may not seal the remaining convictions." Read the Ohio Supreme Court's decision in State v. Futrall, 2009-Ohio-5590, by clicking here. Watch the oral argument in the Ohio Supreme Court by clicking here. See Ohio's Ninth District Court of Appeals decision by clicking here.