If your idea of a good time is to read murky, deceptive, and confusing fiction, check out Ohio’s new juvenile parole law, Senate Bill 256. It’s got something for everyone: tedium, wordiness, repetition, and a really lousy goal that has already upended hundreds of lives across Ohio. This law has retroactively granted parole to juvenile criminals (including killers and rapists), and it ought to light a fire under any resident who might generally ignore Columbus.
Calling SB256 “The Teen Killer Empowerment Act” is not hyperbole. That’s precisely what the law does, and it’s a zero-sum game. It grants new and special rights to killers and rapists, while stealing from victims the closure and peace of mind they once enjoyed. I know this first hand because I’m the grandson of Marie Belcastro. She was murdered in Ohio in 2015 by a teenager whose prospects are infinitely improved by this new law.
Jacob Larosa was sentenced, very wisely, to life without parole, plus 31 years, for the burglary, robbery, attempted rape, and murder of my beloved grandmother. Since 2018, I’ve rested easy, knowing that my family and other innocents would be protected from the killer forever.
For us specifically, this bill erases the life sentence and replaces it with a 19-year sentence (25 years minus time served), renewable (or not) every five years. Since learning about this grave injustice, I’ve been fighting back primarily against my own party from my home in Florida.
Gov. Mike DeWine, who I’ve known for 31 years, has yet to send even a form letter response to my personal five-page handwritten letter. Needless to say, I’m motivated, so I thought I’d “kiss the demon on the lips” as it were, and spend a few days really getting to know this bill.
SB256 would be laughable if it weren’t so harmful to victims, past, present, and future. Its length (28,874 words) is a strong enough deterrent to keep most folks away. By comparison, Texas recently introduced its own version of this bill. It consists of just 781 words. There are 4,543 words in the US Constitution, 7,591 if you include all 27 amendments. Why does granting special parole rights to teen killers in Ohio take over six U.S. Constitutions worth of words?
Page one of this bill spells it all out rather nicely: “A bar against a sentence of life without parole, and special parole dates.” I love specials! It continues with gems like: “The juvenile court may conduct its hearing in an informal manner” and “The court may exclude the general public.” Wow, I’m sold already! The transparency, the specials, the bar? Sign me up!
Page 5 is where the Ohio GOP and Gov. DeWine literally become the “soft on rape” party. Didn’t they learn anything from former Congressman Todd Akin? “A court shall not impose a term of life without parole on an offender for rape if the offender was under eighteen years of age at the time of the offense.” The TV ads write themselves.
The part of the Ohio Revised Code SB 256 impacts has the occasional “red meat” tough-on-crime statement, but they’re only a setup for a cruel punchline that comes later, usually preceded by the word “notwithstanding.” The law reads like a “Choose Your Own Adventure” scavenger hunt to other sections of the Ohio Revised Code, which are apparently too logical to quote or summarize. From page 6: “…if the most serious underlying specified offense the defendant committed is aggravated murder, the offender shall be sentenced to life imprisonment without parole or death pursuant to sections 2929.02 to 2929.06 of the Revised Code.” Wow! Death!
Now Rep. Tuff On Crime can say, “Nonsense! This bill brings back death for teen killers!” But he’d be lying. Because a few paragraphs later, we learn that “if the offender was under eighteen years of age at the time of the violation, the offender shall not be sentenced to life imprisonment without parole, but instead the offender shall be sentenced to an indefinite prison term of thirty years to life.”
Confused yet? Let’s take a break. Here’s how I think this whole thing went down. The sponsor(s) went to a free Continuing Legal Education class taught by a closet Marxist. There, the innocent representative was hypnotized by the slick ACLU attorney disguised as a reasonable human being. Rep. and Sen. X then told all of their colleagues that the US Supreme Court was mandating changes to juvenile sentencing in Ohio (they weren’t), and that these politicians were so savvy (they aren’t), they found a way to do so AND keep school shooter and prison escapee TJ Lane in custody forever.
“What’s this?” asks Rep. What’s Hizname.
“This is S.B. 256, it brings Ohio in line with SCOTUS on juvi sentencing, bruh, and it’ll keep TJ Lane in prison forever,” says co-sponsor. “Do I have to read it?” asks What’s Hizname. “Nope, leadership wants us to support it,” says co-sponsor. See how it works?
Okay, back to the bill.
On page 7, we find the retroactive language, or as it used to be called, ex post facto.
“(C) If an offender receives or received a sentence of life imprisonment without parole, a
sentence of life imprisonment, a definite sentence, or a sentence to an indefinite prison term under this chapter for an aggravated murder or murder that was committed when the offender was under eighteen years of age, the offender’s parole eligibility shall be determined under section 2967.132 of the Revised Code.”
If you’re still awake, this is the part where the legislature and governor tell county judges, juries, prosecutors, and victims that the previous sentence announced to the world was just one big lie, because now Columbus is here, and not only do they determine laws, but they determine what the law should have been back when it was against the law to do what the law now says they can do.
SB256 will die, and I hope it dies in the courts because that is the branch it most insults, and yet county courts are the only institution designed to deal with crime and punishment. Does the legislature or the governor have the time, staff, and resources to administer justice in a deliberate way? In Jacob Larosa’s case (my grandmother’s killer), there were 42 months between arrest and conviction. I doubt whether most legislators spent 4.2 minutes reading this bill.
On page 13 we learn once again that “A court shall not impose a sentence of life imprisonment without parole on a person… for an offense that was committed when the person was under eighteen years of age.” But they repeat themselves.
There’s some great news here for intellectually disabled teen killers! They can be re-sentenced by the trial court if at a later time (future tense, ex-ante) a Supreme Court (Ohio or US) has “determined that the offender is a person with an intellectual disability.” This is also known as the “Primal Fear” defense.
Oh, and from Page 15, did they fail to mention that “A court shall not impose a sentence of life imprisonment without parole on a person under division (A) or (B) of this section for an offense that was committed when the person was under eighteen years of age”? Well, they mentioned it again, if you’re keeping track.
Oh, here it is again, for you real morons out there in the sticks: “Sec. 2929.07. (A) Notwithstanding any provision of the Revised Code to the contrary, a court shall not impose a sentence of life imprisonment without parole on any person for an offense that was committed when the person was under eighteen years of age.”
Derp. I don’t get it!
“(L) If an offender receives or received a sentence of life imprisonment without parole, a
sentence of life imprisonment, a definite sentence, or a sentence to an indefinite prison term under this chapter for a felony offense that was committed when the offender was under eighteen years of age, the offender’s parole eligibility shall be determined under section 2967.132 of the Revised Code.”
Oh, now I get it!
“(b) If the offense was committed when the offender was under eighteen years of age, in
addition to other factors considered, consider youth and its characteristics as mitigating factors,
Including:”
This is where it gets really fun. The legal tests listed below applied to the accused, even before the juvenile was bonded over to adult court. But it must be required for legislative types to repeat themselves.
So we’re supposed to consider the following before judging someone like my grandmother’s killer:
“(i) The chronological age of the offender at the time of the offense and that age’s hallmark features, including intellectual capacity, immaturity, impetuosity, and a failure to appreciate risks and consequences;
(ii) The family and home environment of the offender at the time of the offense, the offender’s inability to control the offender’s surroundings, a history of trauma regarding the offender, and the offender’s school and special education history;”
First of all, awwwwww! So cute! I have sooooo much sympathy for the monster who splattered my grandmother’s brains all over her own kitchen. But I digress. The hallmark features of youth sound like a great TV series. However, the legislature seems to be lumping in every young person who stole a pack of gum once with sadistic, psychotic, necrophiliac killers. I was young once, and never have I ever murdered anyone, despite having zero access to the Hallmark Channel in the late 1980s.
I still like to think I have the sense of humor of my formerly 15-year-old self. This does not make me at all like Jacob Larosa or Gavon Ramsay, even though I happen to like watching Beavis and Butthead reruns on YouTube. And I just adore how this law assumes all these punks are in special ed. There’s no and/or. There’s just a blanket assumption: “…and the offender’s school and special education history.” Elitist much, Denison grads?
“(iii) The circumstances of the offense, including the extent of the offender’s participation in the conduct and the way familial and peer pressures may have impacted the offender’s conduct;”
Jacob Larosa talks like white rapper Eminem, so I’m paraphrasing and speculating here: “Yo, my dad and muh sista was always, like, tellin’ me to get back at that old lady an’ shit, because one time her cookies wasn’t as good as da udder time… an’ shit.”
“(iv) Whether the offender might have been charged and convicted of a lesser offense if not for the incompetencies associated with youth, such as the offender’s inability to deal with police officers and prosecutors during the offender’s interrogation or possible plea agreement or the offender’s inability to assist the offender’s own attorney;”
Awwwwwwwwwwwww! How about the incompetencies associated with being a state legislator? Easily influenced by the ACLU (peer pressure), inability to listen to police officers and prosecutors during the hearings on SB256, I could go on. But I’m a serious adult, and my heart really goes out to those youth who kill cops and nonagenarians. These monsters seemingly have no issue killing another human being, but God forbid we don’t make special mention of their potential lack of assertiveness when dealing with lawyers and cops. The problem with these punks is too much self-esteem, not too little.
(v) Examples of the offender’s rehabilitation, including any subsequent growth or increase in maturity during confinement.
“Um, yeah. I like, got this beard, so, like, that’s growfth. And, um, like, I aged, didn’t I? So that’s like an increase in maturity. In dog years, I’m done wiff my sentence, dawg!”
On page 36, the hard truth that Sen. Matt Dolan’s staffer hasn’t grasped (aggravated murder vs. aggravated homicide), comes out. Aggravated murder is defined by Section 2903.01 of the Ohio Revised Code. A murder is aggravated if it involves prior calculation and design, a victim under age 13, a law enforcement officer victim, or a first responder or military member victim or if it is committed during the commission of another violent felony. The geniuses who wrote the piece of trash law that is SB 256 call a much different crime an “aggravated homicide offense.” It’s not plain on its face, at all. An aggravated homicide offense means killing three or more people. In that case, you’re screwed, retroactively.
The aggravated homicide exception was created for the because of TJ Lane. There’s basically an exception for him in this bill, but they don’t ever say his name. SAY HIS NAME! TJ Lane is a despicable school shooter who killed three people. If this bill made any provision to let his sorry ass out ever (he’s already escaped once), this bill would have been dead on arrival (pardon the pun). So, congratulations, legislators. TJ stays in prison, but future school shooters who kill one or two people won’t necessarily have to, nor will my grandmother’s killer. Here are some gems from pages 37-38:
(1) “Aggravated homicide offense” means any of the following that involved the purposeful killing of three or more persons, when the offender is the principal offender in each offense:
(C) Notwithstanding any provision of the Revised Code to the contrary, and regardless of when the offense or offenses were committed and when the sentence was imposed, a prisoner who is serving a prison sentence for an offense other than an aggravated homicide offense and who was under eighteen years of age at the time of the offense, or who is serving consecutive prison sentences for multiple offenses none of which is an aggravated homicide offense and who was under eighteen years of age at the time of the offenses, is eligible for parole as follows:
(1) Except as provided in division (C)(2) or (3) of this section, the prisoner is eligible for parole after serving eighteen years in prison.
(2) Except as provided in division (C)(3) or (4) of this section, if the prisoner is serving a sentence for one or more homicide offenses, none of which are an aggravated homicide offense, the prisoner is eligible for parole after serving twenty-five years in prison.
Here comes the TJ Lane exception:
(D) If the prisoner is serving a sentence for an aggravated homicide offense, or for a violation of section 2909.24 of the Revised Code when the most serious underlying specified offense the defendant committed in the violation was aggravated murder or murder, the prisoner is not eligible for parole review other than in accordance with the sentence imposed for the offense.
This just melts my heart: “The parole board shall ensure that the review process provides the prisoner a meaningful opportunity to obtain release.” A far cry from what Sen. Dolan’s office wrote to me. They said since Larosa committed an aggravated homicide offense, that’s an automatic denial, and that he won’t breathe free air. But his own bill that he co-sponsored says the parole board must provide a “meaningful opportunity for release.”
Oh, and just in case there wasn’t enough crap to repeat ad nauseum, here’s them saying the same thing again.
In addition to any other factors, the board is required or authorized to
consider by rule or statute, the board shall consider the following factors as mitigating factors:
(a) The chronological age of the prisoner at the time of the offense and that age’s hallmark features, including intellectual capacity, immaturity, impetuosity, and a failure to appreciate risks and consequences;
Copy paste. Copy paste. Copy paste. Are we at 30,000 words yet?
(G) If the parole board denies release on parole pursuant to this section, the board shall conduct a subsequent release review not later than five years after release was denied.
Thank you! Because I want to see the killer when I’m 66, 71, 76, 81, 86, 91, 96, and 101. Seems like a totally normal way to spend my golden years. Same with my kids, all of whom are currently younger than their GG’s executioner.
(H) In addition to any notice required by rule or statute, the parole board shall notify the state public defender, the victim, and the appropriate prosecuting attorney of a prisoner’s eligibility for review under this section at least sixty days before the board begins any review or proceedings involving that prisoner under this section.
Wow! Notification for victims? What a concept! Since we’re conceptualizing, below is the paragraph where the legislature performs the modern-day miracle of turning wine into grape juice.
“(I) This section shall apply to determine the parole eligibility of all prisoners described in this section who committed an offense prior to, on, or after the effective date of this section, regardless of when the prisoner committed or was sentenced for the offense and, for purposes of this section, a prisoner is “serving” a prison sentence for an offense if on or after the effective date of this section, the prisoner is serving a prison sentence for that offense, regardless of when the sentence was imposed or the offense was committed.”
That’s where these Time Traveling Lawyers from Hell made the entire thing retroactive. In all honesty, I may not have had a problem with this bill if it just applied to future cases. But even then, my research has turned up a major problem. My mother and aunt would never have testified in open court had they known there was even a tiny chance Larosa would be eligible for parole.
Another issue? Imagine you are an ex-convict. You served your time. You’ve already been released. And this law gives you no consideration because you were unfortunate enough to serve your time before Manning and his Wizards of Smart rode into town. If I’m one of those ex-prisoners, I’m suing the state because I was treated more harshly. It’s equal protection. And also because… why not? Since we’re all playing retroactive justice, give those ex-cons theirs! Since it looks good when I quote big chunks, here’s something from page 38:
Sec. 2971.03. (A) Notwithstanding divisions (A) and (D) of section 2929.14, section 2929.02, 2929.03, 2929.06, 2929.13, or another section of the Revised Code, other than divisions (B) and (C) of section 2929.14 of the Revised Code, that authorizes or requires a specified prison term or a mandatory prison term for a person who is convicted of or pleads guilty to a felony or that specifies the manner and place of service of a prison term or term of imprisonment, the court shall impose a sentence upon a person who is convicted of or pleads guilty to a violent sex offense and who also is convicted of or pleads guilty to a sexually violent predator specification that was included in the indictment, count in the indictment, or information charging that offense, and upon a person who is
convicted of or pleads guilty to a designated homicide, assault, or kidnapping offense and also is convicted of or pleads guilty to both a sexual motivation specification and a sexually violent predator specification that were included in the indictment, count in the indictment, or information charging that offense, as follows:
(1) If Except as provided in division (A)(5) of this section, if the offense for which the sentence is being imposed is aggravated murder and if the court does not impose upon the offender a sentence of death, it shall impose upon the offender a term of life imprisonment without parole. If the court sentences the offender to death and the sentence of death is vacated, overturned, or otherwise
set aside, the court shall impose upon the offender a term of life imprisonment without parole.…or when the offender during or immediately after the commission of the rape caused serious physical harm to the victim; or if the offense is an offense other than aggravated murder or murder for which a term of life imprisonment may be imposed, it shall impose upon the offender a term of life imprisonment without parole.
On page 40, all I could do was think about an obscure Simon & Garfunkel called “Cloudy.” The opening lines are “Coudy, the sky is grey and white and cloudy…” These “public servants” mock us in their condescension, and they are purposely making this bill “Cloudy” so they can obfuscate an already exhausted, disengaged, and distrustful public. Sen. Dill Weed can say, “No, the bill actually strengthens life without parole, because the word death appears a few times in the bill, see.” Notwithstanding reading the entire bill and seeing it for yourself, this charade might be clever if it wasn’t ruining actual lives. Here’s some more bull-crap from our “betters”:
(ii) If the attempted rape for which sentence is being imposed was committed on or after January 2, 2007, and if the offender also is convicted of or pleads guilty to a specification of the type described in section 2941.1418 of the Revised Code, it shall impose an indefinite prison term consisting of a minimum term of five years and a maximum term of twenty-five years. (iii) If the attempted rape for which sentence is being imposed was committed on or after January 2, 2007, and if the offender also is convicted of or pleads guilty to a specification of the type described in section 2941.1419 of the Revised Code, it shall impose an indefinite prison term consisting of a minimum term of ten years and a maximum of life imprisonment.
Oh good! What a relief!
(5) Notwithstanding [no!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!]divisions (A)(1), (2), and (4) of this section, the court shall not impose a sentence of life imprisonment without parole upon any person for an offense that was committed when the person was under eighteen years of age. In any case, described in division (A)(1), (2), or (4) of this section, if the offense was committed when the person was under eighteen years of age, the court shall impose an indefinite prison term consisting of a minimum term of thirty years and a maximum term of life imprisonment.
How many times are they going to do this? The roller coaster of reading this nonsense is a preview of the roller coaster that is to come, unless and until the public gets sufficiently outraged so as to effect lasting change on these basic issues of crime and punishment. Now, I expect this kind of garbage from the ACLU. What I did not see coming was that our current representatives and senators would be so dull as to fall for it. And Gov. DeWine was a county prosecutor back in the day. He was Ohio’s attorney general, for crying out loud! His own BCI helped the Niles PD with their investigation that put Larosa away for life. Let’s proceed, shall we?
This legislature is so out of touch that they write rules for who may appear/speak at a parole hearing, as though they can just override Marsys’s Law and The Ohio Constitution because they feel like it.
(5) With respect to a full board hearing held pursuant to division (A)(2) of this section, all of the following:
(a) The spouse of the victim of the original offense; [deceased]
(b) The parent or parents of the victim of the original offense; [deceased]
(c) The sibling of the victim of the original offense; [deceased]
(d) The child or children of the victim of the original offense [oh, thank God!]
Yep. Nothing in there about grandchildren or nieces. But let’s not forget about reporters, fellow geniuses!
The persons who may attend a full board hearing are the persons described in divisions (B)(1) to (6) of this section, and representatives of the press, radio and television stations, and broadcasting networks who are members of a generally recognized
professional media organization.
I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that bloggers and OAN, RightSide Broadcasting, etc. are not generally recognized professionals, according to the wizards of smart over on Capital Square.
The board may permit interested persons other than those listed in this division and division (B) of this section to attend full board hearings pursuant to rules adopted by the
adult parole authority.
…the family of the victim may show at a full board hearing a video recording not exceeding five minutes in length memorializing the victim.
Thanks for throwing me that bone. I may just use that five minutes of video to loop autopsy photos over and over and over and over and over. OR…
We the People can fight back. WE MUST FIGHT BACK. We can sue for an injunction. We can DEMAND a legislative fix. We can request that the Ohio Attorney General issue some guidance that perhaps calls into question this entire debacle. We can pursue a Constitutional Amendment. And we can take a cue from the ACLU playbook, and make it really easy to understand. I envision Ohio Issue 1 on the 2022 general election ballot “The Teen Killer Empowerment Act (SB256) is hereby repealed.”
Dream this dream with me, and we will return our great state to a place of moral standing as it relates to the promises it makes to her people. This law offered nothing but true pain to victims, and false hope for prisoners. Let this be the moment we all rise up, and tell the ACLU and all the other forces of evil that seek to destroy our way of life, that they may have duped the 133rd General Assembly, but the people of Ohio see through it. We won’t tolerate it. Not now, not ever.