Login | September 18, 2024
Tenth District Appeals panel reverses lower court’s decision regarding early prison release
KEITH ARNOLD
Special to the Legal News
Published: September 13, 2024
A Franklin County appellate panel sided with prosecutors who sought reversal of a trial-court ruling that granted judicial release to a Columbus man who had served a 12-month sentence for a gun charge related to a felony drug-trafficking offense.
The Tenth District Court of Appeals held that the Franklin County Common Pleas Court’s ruling in favor of 35-year-old Louis Snowden was contrary to the state’s judicial release statute, R.C. 2929.20, which permits certain offenders to apply for early release from prison.
“Judicial release is a privilege, not an entitlement,” Tenth District Judge Betsy Luper Schuster wrote for the 3-0 panel, citing multiple precedents. “There is no constitutional or inherent right to be conditionally released before the expiration of a valid sentence. Courts have no inherent power to suspend execution of a sentence, and they must strictly construe statutes allowing such relief.”
According to case background, Snowden was indicted in August 2020 on multiple drug offenses, including a first-degree felony aggravated trafficking in drugs charge with a one-year firearm specification.
Snowden pleaded guilty in January 2021 to a second-degree aggravated drug-trafficking charge with a one-year firearm specification as part of a plea agreement and was sentenced to an indeterminate prison term of two to three years, with a mandatory consecutive 12 months in prison for the firearm specification, the summary provided.
The appellate panel noted that the judgment entry did not state whether the prison term for the drug offense was mandatory.
Snowden filed a request for judicial release in August 2023, asserting he was eligible for that release 180 days after the expiration of his mandatory 12-month prison term for the firearm specification. The trial court granted the request Oct. 19, 2023.
The state subsequently appealed.
“Noting that not all second-degree felony drug trafficking offenses under R.C. 2925.03 require a mandatory prison term, such as R.C. 2925.03(C)(2)(d), Snowden argues the lack of subsection specificity and resulting ambiguity in the judgment entry should be construed in his favor,” Luper Schuster wrote. “Snowden’s arguments are unpersuasive. Snowden correctly notes that the trial court’s judgment entry does not state that the prison term for the aggravated trafficking in drugs offense was mandatory––it is silent as to this issue. But the fact that the trial court’s judgment entry does not expressly state the imposed prison term for the aggravated trafficking in drugs offense was mandatory did not alter the mandatory nature of that term.”
Although the judgment entry does not specify the subsection of R.C. 2925.03 that Snowden violated, she added, the entry indicates he was convicted of “aggravated trafficking in drugs” in violation of that statute, as a second-degree felony.
“The only subsection in R.C. 2925.03 that applies to aggravated trafficking in drugs is R.C. 2925.03(C)(1), and a prison term is mandatory for a second-degree felony aggravated trafficking in drugs offense,” the judge continued. “Thus, there is no ambiguity or uncertainty––pursuant to statute, the prison term was mandatory for Snowden’s drug offense. Consequently, Snowden was ineligible for judicial release as a matter of law.”
Tenth District judges Julia Dorrian and Carly Edelstein concurred with Luper Schuster’s opinion.
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