State v. Warren

• Decision Date: 06 May 2008
• Docket Number: No. 2006-2148.,2006-2148.
• Citation: 118 Ohio St.3d 200,2008 Ohio 2011,887 N.E.2d 1145
• Parties: The STATE of Ohio, Appellee, v. WARREN, Appellant.
• Court: Ohio Supreme Court

887 N.E.2d 1145

118 Ohio St.3d 200

2008-Ohio-2011

The STATE of Ohio, Appellee, v. WARREN, Appellant.

No. 2006-2148.

Supreme Court of Ohio.

Submitted February 6, 2008.

Decided May 6, 2008.

William D. Mason, Cuyahoga County Prosecuting Attorney, and Jon W. Oebker, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellee.

Robert L. Tobik, Cuyahoga County Public Defender, and Erika Cunliffe, Assistant Public Defender, for appellant.

O'CONNOR, J.

{¶ 1} This appeal requires us to consider the sole issue of whether due process is violated when the defendant receives a mandatory term of life imprisonment for forcible rape of a victim under age 13 when the defendant was 15 years of age at the time of the offense but not prosecuted until he had passed the age of 21. For the reasons that follow, we determine that principles of due process are not violated in this situation. We therefore affirm the judgment of the court of appeals and uphold the mandatory life sentence for rape imposed in this case.

I

{¶ 2} On November 9, 2004, defendant-appellant, Reginald Warren, was indicted on 12 counts of rape, each with a force specification; 12 counts of felonious sexual penetration, each with a force specification; 12 counts of gross sexual imposition; and 12 counts of kidnapping. Each count included a separate violence specification, and each count specifically noted that the victim was a child under age 13.

{¶ 3} The indictment stated the dates of the offenses as June 1988 to August 1988, meaning that the case was governed by the law in effect in 1988.¹ Warren was 15 years old at that time. The indictment stated that the female victim was born on April 8, 1979, making her nine years old during the dates in question.

{¶ 4} After Warren waived his right to a jury, the case was tried to the court. Warren moved to dismiss all charges, arguing that the preindictment delay was unjustified and prejudicial and that the statute of limitations barred prosecution. The motion was denied.

{¶ 5} At trial, the victim testified that during the summer of 1988, when she was nine years old, she and her younger sister stayed at the home of a neighbor and family friend, James Thomas, while their mother was at work. The victim testified that Thomas was physically disabled and that because he was unable to freely move around the house, he sat in a chair in the front room most of the time.

{¶ 6} Warren often did yard work and other tasks around Thomas's house that summer. In recounting the first incident in which Warren abused her, the victim stated that he came into an upstairs bedroom while she was playing and kissed her, then pulled up her shirt, fondled her breasts, and sucked on them. In a number of later incidents, Warren held her down, pulled down her shorts, and inserted his finger into her vagina, and also sometimes partially inserted his penis. In addition to those acts, Warren sometimes would rub his penis on her vagina without inserting it.

{¶ 7} The victim estimated that Warren had digitally penetrated her 11 or 12 different times and had placed his penis into her vagina about eight or nine different times. She also detailed incidents in which Warren attempted to force her to perform oral sex and in which he tried to insert a hairbrush handle into her vagina, with the handle penetrating about two inches. The victim testified that Warren molested her for a period of about two months.

{¶ 8} The victim testified that she tolerated the molestation and did not reveal it to others because Warren repeatedly threatened that if she did not cooperate, he would kill or hurt her, her family members, and her friends. Eventually, in response to a speculative question from her mother as to whether Warren "had ever done anything" to her, the victim, after first answering no, told her mother that Warren "messes with me." The victim refused to give her mother any specific details because she was fearful of Warren's threats. The victim's mother testified that she was unsure of what actually had taken place and told Thomas only that she was not comfortable with Warren being around her young daughters. Thomas took steps to ensure that Warren no longer did work at Thomas's house, and no more incidents occurred.

{¶ 9} The victim testified that she did not report the molestation to the police until 2004, when she saw a newspaper article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer stating that Warren had been sentenced to a prison term for sexually assaulting a nine-year-old girl. At that time, the victim went to authorities and gave a statement to a police detective, leading to the investigation that resulted in Warren's prosecution.

{¶ 10} After hearing testimony and arguments, the trial court dismissed some of the charges and specifications upon Warren's motion for acquittal under Crim.R. 29. Warren did not testify and presented no witnesses. The trial court subsequently found Warren guilty of eight counts of rape as charged, four counts of gross sexual imposition as charged, eight counts of gross sexual imposition without the violence specifications, and 12 counts of kidnapping as charged.

{¶ 11} The trial court held sexual-predator and sentencing hearings and adjudged Warren to be a sexual predator. The court sentenced Warren under the law in effect in 1988 to life sentences on each of the rape convictions, to terms of four to ten years' imprisonment on each of the convictions for gross sexual imposition with a violence specification, to terms of two years' imprisonment on each of the other gross sexual imposition convictions, and to terms of 15 to 25 years' imprisonment on each of the kidnapping convictions.² The trial court ordered some of the terms to run consecutively to others and some to run concurrently.³

{¶ 12} Of particular relevance to this appeal is former R.C. 2907.02(B), which provided:

{¶ 13} "Whoever violates this section is guilty of rape, an aggravated felony of the first degree. If the offender under division (A)(1)(b) of this section purposely compels the victim to submit by force or threat of force, whoever violates division (A)(1)(b) of this section shall be imprisoned for life."⁴ 141 Ohio Laws, Part II, 4481.

{¶ 14} Because former R.C. 2907.02(A)(1)(b) provided that rape is sexual conduct with a person "less than thirteen years of age," id., and because Warren was also found guilty of the force specifications accompanying the rape counts, the trial court was statutorily required to impose life sentences for the rape convictions and had no discretion to impose lesser sentences. See State v. Vaughn (1995), 106 Ohio App.3d 775, 783-784, 667 N.E.2d 82; State v. Gladding (1990), 66 Ohio App.3d 502, 512-513, 585 N.E.2d 838.

{¶ 15} The court of appeals affirmed in part and reversed in part. The court found insufficient evidence to support a number of the convictions, but affirmed Warren's conviction and mandatory life sentence for one of the counts of rape. The court of appeals also affirmed his convictions and sentences for four counts of gross sexual imposition and five counts of kidnapping. State v. Warren, 168 Ohio App.3d 288, 2006-Ohio-4104, 859 N.E.2d 998.

{¶ 16} The court of appeals rejected Warren's argument that his due process rights were violated by the 16-year delay between the offenses and the indictment, reasoning that the minor victim's delay in reporting the crimes to police officers could not be attributed to the state. Id. at ¶ 12. The court of appeals also found no merit to Warren's argument that the statute of limitations was unconstitutionally applied to him and that his prosecution should have been foreclosed because of the delay. Id. at ¶ 13-15. The court of appeals recognized that the running of the statute of limitations was tolled until 1997 when the victim reached the age of majority. Id. at ¶ 14.

{¶ 17} Warren's seventh assignment of error in the court of appeals argued that his constitutional rights were violated by the application of two specific statutes to his situation—former R.C. 2907.02, which mandated a life sentence for rape in these circumstances, and R.C. 2152.02(C)(3), which provides that "[a]ny person who, while under eighteen years of age, commits an act that would be a felony if committed by an adult and who is not taken into custody or apprehended for that act until after the person attains twenty-one years of age is not a child in relation to that act."

{¶ 18} Warren argued that the trial court erred in failing to consider that he was only 15 at the time of the offenses. As he stated in his brief, "Because the mandatory life sentence required by R.C. 2907.02 does not allow an offender's minority status to be considered in mitigation of his sentence, that section and R.C. 2151.02(C)(3) [sic, 2152.02(C)(3)], which provides that a child apprehended after age 21 must be prosecuted as an adult are unconstitutional in their application to him." The court of appeals found no merit to that claim.

{¶ 19} We accepted for review only Warren's Fifth Proposition of Law, see 113 Ohio St.3d 1511, 2007-Ohio-2208, 866 N.E.2d 511, which states: "R.C. 2907.02 and R.C. 2151.02(C)(3) [sic, 2152.02(C)(3)] were unconstitutionally applied to appellant, who was a minor at the time of the alleged crime; thus appellant's right to due process and a fair trial was denied when he was sentenced as an adult for crimes alleged to have been committed when he was only fifteen years old."

{¶ 20} The state did not cross-appeal from the court of appeals' reversal of some of the convictions. As a result, the proposition accepted for review implicates only the mandatory life sentence for the one rape conviction that was upheld by the court of appeals. None of the other convictions or sentences are at issue in this appeal.

II

{¶ 21} Our analysis begins with the well-established rule that statutes enjoy a strong presumption of constitutionality. State v. Carswell, 114 Ohio St.3d 210, 2007-Ohio-3723, 871 N.E.2d 547, ¶ 6; State v....