COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Ohio Senate passed a bill Thursday evening that urges more drug treatment and makes it easier for people to have their criminal records sealed.
But a broader criminal justice reform measure that reclassifies many smaller-level drug possession felonies to misdemeanors and requires addicts get treatment looks like it will die in these final days of the 133rd Ohio General Assembly.
House Bill 1 passed unanimously in the Senate. The bill heads back to the House for concurrence on amendments adopted in the Senate, such as one from Sen. Nickie Antonio, a Lakewood Democrat, that would prohibit the use of shackles on pregnant inmates. If House members agree to the changes, then the bill heads to Gov. Mike DeWine’s desk for signature.
Other amendments are from sections of Senate Bill 3, which has stalled in the Ohio House and likely will not receive a floor vote. Those parts parts of SB 3 will make HB 1 a stronger criminal justice reform measure but don’t include the reclassification part, reform advocates say.
“Barring a miracle, I believe it’s dead,” said the Buckeye Institute’s Greg Lawson. “Everything I’ve heard is it’s not coming to the floor.”
A large coalition that includes dozens of organizations across the ideological spectrum -- from the conservative Buckeye Institute and the Ohio chapter of Americans for Prosperity to the progressive American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio and Faith in Public Life – was pushing for both bills to pass. Advocates are disappointed that SB 3 appears to have failed.
The bills came after 2018′s failed measure to amend the Ohio Constitution to reduce drug crime sentences, reclassify drug felonies, and release inmates convicted of low-level drug crimes, among other changes. It failed – seen as too radical by some and as a worthy issue albeit one that had no place to be forever enshrined in the Constitution by others. Still, 36% of voters cast ballots for it and in 2019 lawmakers got to work, attempting reform.
SB 3 had powerful detractors in prosecutors and judges – including Ohio Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor – who felt the bill would strip judges of discretion, would neutralize the tools that drug courts can use to nudge people through rehabilitation, and would remove an incentive to overcome addiction if there was no threat of a felony conviction.
Gov. Mike DeWine, a former Ohio attorney general and county prosecutor, has said he opposed the bill.
What that ignores, argued Micah Derry, AFP Ohio director, is that felonies follow people for the rest of their lives, even when someone does recover from addiction. These days, with the power of data mining on the Internet, sealing a record may not shut the books on one’s past. Many companies that specialize in employment background checks can still find past crimes, thanks to capturing and saving data over time.
“There’s not a single county prosecutor who is a person of color,” Derry said. “Not to get too racial about it, but there’s a reason why people of color have the books thrown at them more than other people.”
Earlier on Thursday, Harm Reduction Ohio, the largest distributor of naloxone in the state, reported drug overdose deaths were high in 2020, with many counties reporting records for the year – especially in Central Ohio and the Appalachian part of the state. Final data for the year isn’t expected until mid-2021 from the Ohio Department of Health.
The crux of SB 3, mandatory treatment for addicts and reclassification of many felonies to misdemeanors, will unlikely be resurrected next year, said ACLU of Ohio’s Chief Lobbyist Gary Daniels. DeWine will still be in office. So will Ohio House Speaker Bob Cupp, a former Ohio Supreme Court justice who hasn’t brought it to a floor vote. Sen. John Eklund, the Geauga County Republican who sponsored SB 3, is leaving office due to term limits.
“For people that carry around the felony stigma, Ohio has now affected for generations, especially for brown and black people,” Daniels said. “We think it’s irresponsible of the General Assembly to keep doing the same thing and sticking with the status quo when that clearly does not work and is in desperate need of change.”