Juvenile’s Suspended Commitment to DYS May be Reinstated After Release from Probation
2007-2239. In re J.F., Slip Opinion No. 2009-Ohio-318.
Greene App. No. 06-CA-123, 2007-Ohio-5652. Judgment affirmed and cause remanded to the trial court.
Moyer, C.J., and O'Connor, O'Donnell, and Cupp, JJ., concur.
Pfeifer, Lundberg Stratton, and Lanzinger, JJ., dissent.
Opinion: http://www.supremecourt.ohio.gov/rod/docs/pdf/0/2009/2009-Ohio-318.pdf 
Please note: Opinion summaries are prepared by the Office of Public Information for the general public and news media. Opinion summaries are not prepared for every opinion released by the Court, but only for those cases considered noteworthy or of great public interest. Opinion summaries are not to be considered as official headnotes or syllabi of Court opinions. The full text of this and other Court opinions from 1992 to the present are available online from the Reporter of Decisions. In the Full Text search box, enter the eight-digit case number at the top of this summary and click "Submit."
(Feb. 4, 2009) The Supreme Court of Ohio held today that a juvenile court has authority to order a juvenile offender to serve a previously suspended commitment (term of confinement) with the Ohio Department of Youth Services (DYS) when the juvenile violates the terms of a community control order after a designated period of probation supervision has been terminated, but while other elements of court-imposed community control remain in effect.
The Court’s 4-3 majority opinion was written by Chief Justice Thomas J. Moyer.
In February 2004, a juvenile identified by the initials J.F. admitted his guilt on seven delinquency counts, six of which would have been felony offenses if committed by an adult. The Greene County Juvenile Court committed J.F. to DYS, but suspended that commitment based on several conditions. According to the trial court’s entry of March 24, 2004, the conditions of the suspended commitment included compliance with monitored time until age 18, completion of community control, and payment of fines, court costs, and restitution. “Monitored time” is “a period of time during which an offender continues to be under the control of the sentencing court ... subject to no conditions other than leading a law-abiding life.”
In March 2006 the court issued an order terminating his “intensive community control.” Five months later, before his 18th birthday, J.F. was arrested and charged with two new misdemeanor offenses. At a subsequent hearing J.F. admitted the new offenses. In its sentencing order, the court ordered J.F. to serve the previously suspended commitment for one of his 2004 offenses.
J.F. appealed the reinstatement of the DYS commitment for his 2004 offense, asserting among several assignments of error that the juvenile court no longer had jurisdiction over him for those offenses because its March 2006 order had released him from all the conditions of community control imposed for the 2004 charges. The Second District Court of Appeals remanded the case to the trial court for further proceedings based on a separate due process issue, but ruled that the juvenile court’s March 2006 order releasing J.F. from intensive community control had not relinquished the court’s jurisdiction over him with regard to the 2004 counts. J.F. appealed the 2nd District’s ruling regarding the continuing jurisdiction of the juvenile court over him, and the Supreme Court agreed to review that issue.
Writing for the majority in today’s opinion, Chief Justice Moyer noted that legislation effective in 2002 changed the terminology used by juvenile courts in sentencing youthful offenders and specifically replaced the term “probation” with “community control.” He pointed out that under the newer version of the sentencing statute, “a dispositional order of community control may include one or several conditions—such as ‘intensive probation supervision,’ ‘basic probation supervision,’ and ‘community service’—all of which are subject to ongoing supervision by the court. Probation, no longer a stand-alone disposition, has become a subcategory or optional element of community control. It follows that the expiration of probation supervision—as one component of an order of community control—does not automatically trigger the loss of the juvenile court’s jurisdiction; as long as other community-control sanctions remain in effect, the juvenile remains subject to the court’s supervision.”
In this case, the Chief Justice wrote, while the juvenile court’s dispositional order in J.F.’s 2004 case and its March 26 order revising his status mistakenly referred to probation as “community control,” it was clear from the record of the 2006 hearing and the context of the 2006 order that the court intended to release J.F. only from the portion of his sentence that required him to report to a probation officer, but to leave in place other community control sanctions from his 2004 sentence, including the requirements that he perform community service and remain on monitored time until his 18th birthday.
“As of August 2006, when J.F. committed the new offenses, J.F. had not yet reached the age of 18; therefore his community-control sanction of monitored time had not expired,” Chief Justice Moyer wrote. “ ... We conclude that the juvenile court had continuing jurisdiction over J.F. to enforce the ongoing conditions of community control. Therefore, the juvenile court was authorized to order J.F. to serve the previously suspended commitment to Youth Services when J.F. violated those conditions.”
Chief Justice Moyer’s opinion was joined by Justices Maureen O’Connor, Terrence O’Donnell and Robert R. Cupp.
Justice Evelyn Lundberg Stratton entered a dissent, joined by Justices Paul E. Pfeifer and Judith Ann Lanzinger, stating that in her view the juvenile court’s March 2006 order releasing J.F. from community control ended the court’s jurisdiction over him for the offenses that led to that sanction. Justice Stratton pointed out that, although the record of the March 2006 hearing showed that J.F.’s probation officer recommended terminating his monitored probation but continuing the requirement of monitored time, the court’s judgment entry made no mention of monitored time and did not state that the court was adopting the probation officer’s recommendation.
“A court speaks through its journal entries,” wrote Justice Stratton, “Therefore, the March 3, 2006 entry terminating J.F.’s community control and allowing him to obtain his driver’s license, without mentioning ‘monitored time,’ controls. If the court intended to maintain continuing jurisdiction over J.F., the court could have continued him on community control. It did not. It terminated his community control. ... When J.F.’s community control ended on March 1, 2006, the juvenile court’s jurisdiction to impose the suspended commitment ceased. The two new offenses with which J.F. was subsequently charged should have been considered independent of any prior adjudication.”
Contacts
Julia B. Dillon, 614.837.2699, for the state and Fairfield County prosecutor’s office.
Andrew T. Sanderson, 740.345.0417, for Billy Thompson II.