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Sex-offender registration requirement met under Megan's Law
KEITH ARNOLD
Special to the Legal News
Published: September 15, 2023
The Supreme Court of Ohio determined that a Hamilton County man who had completed the 10-year sex-offender registration requirement while living in Kentucky need not begin the reporting requirement again upon his return to Ohio.
“That (Michael) Schilling lived in Kentucky during that time and was not obligated to register or report in Ohio but instead was obligated to register and report in Kentucky under that state’s laws does not change the dates during which Ohio’s Megan’s Law applied to him,” Justice Melody Stewart wrote for the 7-0 court.
The decision affirmed and reversed separate portions of the First District Court of Appeals holding.
Adopted in 1996, Megan’s Law classified sex offenders as either sexually oriented offenders, habitual offenders or sexual predators, according to a summary provided by the court. Registration periods and requirements to report to local law enforcement varied under the law.
The registration period for sexually oriented offenders was 10 years, the summary noted.
An update in 2003, made the law’s application retroactive.
The General Assembly passed the Adam Walsh Act in 2007 which created three tiers of sexually oriented offenders––Tier 1 being the lowest level, requiring an offender to register any residential address with the applicable county sheriff’s office annually for 15 years.
Additionally, the new law allowed a Tier I offender to apply to the court for discretionary release from registration and reporting after 10 years, summary continued.
Similar to Megan’s Law, the new law was devised to apply retroactively to offenders whose offenses occurred before its passage.
A challenge to the law’s constitutionality, however, determined that it could not, which left the state with two sets of sex offender laws––Megan’s Law for offenses committed before 2008 and the Adam Walsh Act for offenses committed in 2008 and thereafter.
Schilling was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of attempted voyeurism in September of 2007, the summary detailed.
He was convicted of the charge in 2008 in Hamilton County Municipal Court and sentenced to 90 days in jail, with 80 days suspended; a fine and three years of community control.
The municipal court judge signed, at the man’s sentencing, a document that explained Schilling’s duties to register as a sex offender under the Adam Walsh Act, despite the offense having occurred before the law’s enactment.
Neither Schilling nor the prosecutor raised the issue at the time, the summary noted. Nor did either party appeal the error.
Schilling registered with the Hamilton County Sherriff’s Office as a sex offender at the sentencing, noting that he was an out-of-state resident, having returned to his native Kentucky, where he registered as a sex offender with the state police there.
Upon relocating to Ohio in September of 2019, Schilling sought early termination of his sex offender registration in the Hamilton County Common Pleas Court, summary continued.
It was at this time that the prosecutor argued the man should have been sentenced according to Megan’s Law. Additionally, the prosecutor asserted that Schilling’s time reporting in Kentucky did not count and was tolled while he resided out of state.
The trial court ruled that the man should have been notified of his duty to report under Megan’s Law and indicated that Schilling would have to apply for credit with the local sheriff’s office, summary detailed.
Upon the sheriff’s denial of the request, Schilling sought a judgment from the court concluding that he had completed his 10-year registration period under Megan’s Law.
The trial court denied the request, prompting Schilling’s appeal to the First District for a ruling on the request to terminate reporting.
Citing the Supreme Court’s decision in State v. Henderson in 2020, the appellate panel ruled that the prosecutor could not challenge the trial court’s original sentencing announcement that placed Schilling under the Adam Walsh Act and held that Schilling had the right as a Tier I offender under Adam Walsh to apply for early termination of his reporting requirement.
The prosecutor appealed to the Supreme Court, which faulted the appellate court’s application of Henderson, which only applies to incidents in which the trial court has the discretion to make a ruling yet issues a mistaken decision, the summary provided.
Justices determined that Schilling’s reporting duties were dictated by the time at which he committed the offense and automatically set by the law, not by an act of the trial court.
As such, he was subject to Megan’s Law and required to report for 10 years. Under the law in effect, Schilling’s duty to comply with the law began in June 2008 when he was convicted and ended in June 2018, the court noted.
“Nothing in Megan’s Law establishes a different registration or reporting commencement date or duration or otherwise tolls the 10-year period of registration and reporting that applies to a sexually oriented offender who was convicted in Ohio merely because the offender lives out of state,” Stewart wrote.
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