The Akron Legal News

DeWine backs bill targeted at violent career criminals

TIFFANY L. PARKS
Special to the Legal News
Published: May 23, 2013

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine is offering his support to a new bill designed to reduce the number of gun crimes in Ohio.

Senate Bill 121, sponsored by Sen. Jim Hughes, R-Columbus, is known as the Violent Career Criminal Act and would change current gun specification sentencing laws and increase some penalties for offenders with two or more violent felony convictions.

“During my first year in office as Ohio’s attorney general, it became shockingly clear that too many people were losing their lives to gun violence,” DeWine said in a statement released before the bill’s introduction. “We don’t want to take guns away from law abiding citizens; instead we want to take the violent offenders away from the guns.”

SB 121, which is jointly sponsored by Sen. Frank LaRose, R-Copley, would double the mandatory prison term for an offender who is convicted of a firearm specification and also had been previously convicted of a firearm specification.

Under current state law, felons convicted of illegal possession of a firearm face prison terms of one to five years.

SB 121 calls for a mandatory 11-year prison sentence for repeat offenders.

The proposal would similarly double the period of authorized or mandatory commitment to the Ohio Department of Youth Services of a delinquent child who is guilty of a firearm specification and previously has been adjudicated a delinquent child for committing an act that would constitute a violation of a firearm specification if committed by an adult.

Also, SB 121 would prohibit violent career criminals from knowingly acquiring, having, carrying or using any firearm or dangerous ordnance and require a mandatory prison term for a violent career criminal convicted of committing a violent felony offense while armed with a firearm.

The bill would double gun specification penalties if an offender has previously been convicted of a crime involving a firearm.

DeWine said current gun specification sentences range from one to seven years in prison, depending on the underlying gun crime.

The measure defines a “violent career criminal” as a person who within the preceding 15 years has been convicted of or pleaded guilty to two or more violent felony offenses or has been adjudicated a delinquent child for committing an act that would constitute a violent felony offense if committed by an adult and also has been convicted of or pleaded guilty to a violent felony offense.

“This legislation is designed to go after the worst of the worst and take offenders off the streets who prey on women, children and society’s most vulnerable,” Hughes said.

Franklin County Prosecuting Attorney Ron O’Brien is also backing the proposed legislation.

“Most of the violent crime that we see in Franklin County involves guns,” he said. “If we target those committing gun crimes, especially the violent career criminals, I believe we can both prevent and reduce crime.”

DeWine formed the Violent Crimes with Guns Advisory Group in 2011 to study gun violence in Ohio and provide recommendations to law enforcement and the legislature on how to best prevent gun crimes.

The attorney general’s statement said the group commissioned Deanna Wilkinson, a researcher at The Ohio State University, to conduct an in-depth study of data from the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction and the Bureau of Criminal Investigation from 1974 to 2010.

DeWine said the study found that people with two or more violent felony offenses, who make up less than 1 percent of Ohio’s adult population, are responsible for 57 percent of Ohio’s violent felony convictions.

“It is really only a small percentage of people who are committing the majority of these very violent crimes, and the Violent Career Criminals Act targets those people,” he said.

The study also found that nearly 56 percent of all of Ohio’ violent felony convictions happened in Cuyahoga, Hamilton, Summit and Franklin counties.

Those counties, along with Montgomery, Stark, Lucas, Lorain, Butler, Lake, Clark and Mahoning counties, account for 83 percent of violent crime.

“We know that longer prison sentences alone will not completely solve the gun crime problem in this state,” DeWine said. “That is why my office is also planning additional outreach initiatives, which we will announce in the next few weeks.”

SB 121 is co-sponsored Sen. Tom Patton, R-Strongsville.

The bill has been referred to the Senate Criminal Justice committee.

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