Case Title: State ex rel. Gains v. Rossi

Citation: 1999-Ohio-213

Docket Number: 19990597

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 1999-09-29T00:00:00Z

Document:
[Cite as State ex rel. Gains v. Rossi, 86 Ohio St.3d 620, 1999-Ohio-213.] 
 
 
 
 
 
THE STATE EX REL. GAINS, PROSECUTING ATTORNEY, APPELLANT, v. ROSSI, 
APPELLEE. 
[Cite as State ex rel. Gains v. Rossi (1999), 86 Ohio St.3d 620.] 
Public employment — Writ of quo warranto ousting village councilman from office 
denied, when — Village councilman convicted of attempted tax evasion not 
disqualified from his position when federal conviction is expunged under 
R.C. 2953.32 and 2953.33. 
(No. 99-597 — Submitted August 25, 1999 — Decided September 29, 1999.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Mahoning County, No. 98CA51. 
 
In August 1988, the United States District Court for the Northern District of 
Ohio convicted appellee, Joseph J. Rossi, of attempted tax evasion in violation of 
Section 7201, Title 26, United States Code, a federal felony, fined him $10,000, 
and placed him on probation for three years.  In November 1997, Rossi was elected 
to the position of Councilman of the village of Lowellville, and he assumed office 
in January 1998. 
 
Appellant, Mahoning County Prosecuting Attorney Paul J. Gains, requested 
an opinion from the Ohio Attorney General on the issue of whether an individual 
who has been convicted of a federal felony is prohibited from holding the office of 
member of the legislative authority of an Ohio municipality, and in March 1998, 
the Ohio Attorney General issued an opinion, stating: 
 
“It is, therefore, my opinion, and you are hereby advised that, pursuant to 
R.C. 2961.01, an individual who has been convicted of a federal felony is 
prohibited from holding the office of member of the legislative authority of a 
municipality, unless that individual’s civil rights and privileges have been restored 
(1) as provided in R.C. 2961.01, by reversal or annulment of the conviction, or by 
grant of a federal pardon, or (2) as provided in R.C. 2953.32 and R.C. 2953.33, by 
 
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an order of a common pleas court sealing the record of conviction, if the individual 
is a ‘[f]irst offender,’ as defined in R.C. 2953.31(A).”  Ohio Atty.Gen.Ops. No. 98-
013. 
 
Shortly thereafter, Gains filed a complaint in the Court of Appeals for 
Mahoning County for a writ of quo warranto to remove Rossi from the office of 
Councilman for the village of Lowellville.  Rossi filed an answer, and on the same 
date, he filed an application in the Mahoning County Court of Common Pleas to 
seal the record of his criminal conviction pursuant to R.C. 2953.32.  While the quo 
warranto action was pending in the court of appeals, the common pleas court 
found that the interest of Rossi in having the records of his federal conviction 
sealed outweighed the needs of the government to maintain those records, and 
consequently granted Rossi’s application and ordered that the records be expunged 
by all state agencies, courts, and prosecutor’s offices concerned.  The parties filed 
motions for summary judgment in the quo warranto action. 
 
In 1999, the court of appeals granted Rossi’s motion, denied Gains’s motion, 
and denied the writ. 
 
This cause is now before the court upon an appeal as of right. 
__________________ 
 
Paul J. Gains, Mahoning County Prosecuting Attorney, pro se. 
 
James R. Lanzo and James E. Lanzo, for appellee. 
__________________ 
 
Per Curiam.  Gains asserts that the court of appeals erred in denying the writ 
of quo warranto.  In order to be entitled to the requested writ of quo warranto, 
Gains had to establish that Rossi should be ousted from his office of village 
councilman because he had usurped, intruded into, or unlawfully held or exercised 
the office.  R.C. 2733.01(A) and 2733.14; State ex rel. Watkins v. Fiorenzo (1994), 
71 Ohio St.3d 259, 643 N.E.2d 521. 
 
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The version of R.C. 2961.01 in effect when Rossi took office provided: 
 
“A person convicted of a felony under the laws of this or any other state or 
the United States, unless his conviction is reversed or annulled, is incompetent to 
be an elector or juror, or to hold an office of honor, trust, or profit.  When any such 
person is granted probation, parole, or a conditional probation, he is competent to 
be an elector during the period of probation or parole or until the conditions of his 
pardon have been performed or have transpired, and thereafter following his final 
discharge.  The full pardon of a convict restores the rights and privileges so 
forfeited under this section, but a pardon shall not release a convict from the costs 
of his conviction in this state, unless so specified.”  (Emphasis added.)  134 Ohio 
Laws, Part II, 1866, 2004.1 
 
The court of appeals determined that Rossi’s expungement of his federal 
conviction under the provisions of R.C. 2953.32 and 2953.33 restored the right to 
hold office that R.C. 2961.01 had taken away from him. 
 
Under R.C. 2953.32(C), in an expungement proceeding: 
 
“If the court determines, after complying with division (C)(1) of this section, 
that the applicant is a first offender or the subject of a bail forfeiture, that no 
criminal proceeding is pending against the applicant, and that the interests of the 
applicant in having the records pertaining to the applicant’s conviction or bail 
forfeiture sealed are not outweighed by any legitimate governmental needs to 
maintain those records, and that the rehabilitation of an applicant who is a first 
offender applying pursuant to division (A)(1) of this section has been attained to 
the satisfaction of the court, the court, except as provided in division (G) of this 
section, shall order all official records pertaining to the case sealed and, except as 
provided in division (F) of this section, all index references to the case deleted and, 
in the case of bail forfeitures, shall dismiss the charges in the case.  The 
proceedings in the case shall be considered not to have occurred and the 
 
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conviction or bail forfeiture of the person who is the subject of the proceedings 
shall be sealed, except that upon conviction of a subsequent offense, the sealed 
record of prior conviction or bail forfeiture may be considered by the court in 
determining the sentence or other appropriate disposition, including the relief 
provided for in sections 2953.31 to 2953.33 of the Revised Code.”  (Emphasis 
added.) 
 
The R.C. 2953.32(C)(2) order to seal the record of a person’s conviction 
“restores the person who is the subject of the order to all rights and privileges not 
otherwise restored by termination of sentence or probation or by final release on 
parole.”  (Emphasis added.)  R.C. 2953.33(A). 
 
Under the applicable rule of statutory construction, all statutes relating to the 
same general subject matter must be read in pari materia.  Cater v. Cleveland 
(1998), 83 Ohio St.3d 24, 29, 697 N.E.2d 610, 615.  Further, in interpreting related 
and co-existing statutes, we must harmonize and accord full application to each of 
these statutes unless they are irreconcilable and in hopeless conflict.  State v. 
Patterson (1998), 81 Ohio St.3d 524, 526, 692 N.E.2d 593, 595.  In addition, the 
remedial expungement provisions of R.C. 2953.32 and 2953.33 must be liberally 
construed to promote their purposes.  R.C. 1.11; Barker v. State (1980), 62 Ohio 
St.2d 35, 42, 16 O.O.3d 22, 26, 402 N.E.2d 550, 555. 
 
In construing these provisions in accordance with the foregoing guidelines, it 
is evident that expungement of a felony conviction under R.C. 2953.32 and 
2953.33 restores a person’s competency to hold an office of honor, trust, or profit. 
 
In other words, R.C. 2961.01 does not expressly provide that the reversal, 
annulment, or pardon mentioned in that statute are the sole methods for a convicted 
felon to restore that person’s competency to hold an office of honor, trust, or profit.  
And R.C. 2953.33(A) provides that an expungement order restores “all rights and 
privileges not otherwise restored by termination of sentence or probation or by 
 
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final release on parole.”  Unlike R.C. 2921.02(F), which was at issue in State v. 
Bissantz (1988), 40 Ohio St.3d 112, 532 N.E.2d 126,  and provides that a person 
convicted of bribery is “forever disqualified from holding any public office, 
employment, or position of trust in this state,” the more general provisions in R.C. 
2961.01 contain no similar, specific, and permanent disqualification. 
 
Therefore, in construing R.C. 2961.01, 2953.32, and 2953.33 in pari materia 
and liberally construing the expungement provisions in R.C. 2953.32 and 2953.33, 
the statutes are capable of being harmonized so that the expungement provisions of 
R.C. 2953.32 and 2953.33 provide certain convicted felons with an additional 
avenue to restore rights and privileges they forfeited under R.C. 2961.01.2  The fact 
that the phrase “or pardon” is not included in R.C. 2953.33(A) does not alter this 
conclusion because the plain language of R.C. 2953.33(A) supports its application 
to convicted felons who have received an order sealing the record of their 
conviction.  A convicted felon’s right or privilege, upon a successful election, to 
hold a public office is “not otherwise restored by termination of sentence or 
probation or by final release on parole.” 
 
The foregoing construction of the expungement statutes does not violate the 
Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution despite the fact that Rossi’s 
federal conviction continues to be an unsealed record in the federal district court 
that issued the conviction. 
 
Although the expungement provisions are imprecise regarding the manner in 
which the courts are to perform their statutory duties, these statutes require the 
expungement of only those records located within the territorial jurisdiction of the 
state.  See Barker, 62 Ohio St.2d at 42, 16 O.O.3d at 26-27, 402 N.E.2d at 555 
(expungement of West Virginia convictions).  “[R.C.] 2953.32 cannot be construed 
as affecting federal records either maintained or in the custody of federal officers,” 
but “[w]hat the States do with their records and information received [from federal 
 
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courts] concerns the States, not the federal courts.”  Schwab v. Gallas (N.D.Ohio 
1989), 724 F.Supp. 509, 510. 
 
More importantly, we agree with the court of appeals in In re Application of 
Pacifico (Sept. 18, 1998), Montgomery App. No. 16768, unreported, 1998 WL 
636994, that “where the state of Ohio has created a disability resulting from a 
federal conviction, it may constitutionally provide for the removal of that 
disability; by contrast, where the federal government has created, or mandated, a 
disability resulting from a federal conviction, the state of Ohio may not provide for 
the removal of that federally created disability without offending the Supremacy 
Clause.”  Here, Ohio has created a general disability resulting from a federal felony 
conviction under R.C. 2961.01 and has provided a means to remove that general 
disability in the expungement statutes.  This result does not violate the Supremacy 
Clause. 
 
Based on the foregoing, the court of appeals correctly denied the writ.  Gains 
did not establish that following the expungement order, Rossi was unlawfully 
holding the office of village councilman.3  We affirm the judgment of the court of 
appeals. 
Judgment affirmed. 
 
MOYER, C.J., DOUGLAS, RESNICK, F.E. SWEENEY and COOK, JJ., concur. 
 
PFEIFER and LUNDBERG STRATTON, JJ., dissent. 
FOOTNOTES: 
1. 
R.C. 2961.01 was amended effective March 17, 1998, in Amended 
Substitute Senate Bill No. 111, but remains substantially the same for purposes of 
our discussion here. 
2. 
The court of appeals in State v. Bissantz (Sept. 14, 1987), Clermont App. 
No. CA86-02-011, unreported, 1987 WL 16919, affirmed (1988), 40 Ohio St.3d 
112, 532 N.E.2d 126, reached a similar conclusion by noting that “[t]he 
 
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expungement statutes were designed to relieve the general disabilities of R.C. 
2961.01, not the specific disability of R.C. 2921.02(F).”  See, also, Gebell v. 
Dollison (1978), 57 Ohio App.2d 198, 200, 9 O.O.3d 23, 24, 386 N.E.2d 845, 846-
847. 
3. 
By so holding, we need not decide whether Rossi acted with sufficient 
diligence in removing his disability after assuming office because Gains does not 
raise this issue on appeal.