Title: In re A.W.

State: ohio

Issuer: Ohio Supreme Court

Document:

[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as In 
re A.W., Slip Opinion No. 2020-Ohio-1457.] 
 
 
 
NOTICE 
This slip opinion is subject to formal revision before it is published in an 
advance sheet of the Ohio Official Reports.  Readers are requested to 
promptly notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of Ohio, 65 
South Front Street, Columbus, Ohio 43215, of any typographical or other 
formal errors in the opinion, in order that corrections may be made before 
the opinion is published. 
 
 
SLIP OPINION NO. 2020-OHIO-1457 
IN RE A.W. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it 
may be cited as In re A.W., Slip Opinion No. 2020-Ohio-1457.] 
Juvenile law—Subject-matter jurisdiction—Juvenile court loses subject-matter 
jurisdiction over child when the child attains 21 years of age—Juvenile 
court’s order invoking adult portion of child’s sentence that was not 
journalized until the day of child’s 21st birthday is void—Court of appeals’ 
judgment reversed and adult portion of child’s serious-youthful-offender 
sentence vacated. 
(No. 2018-1182—Submitted December 10, 2019—Decided April 16, 2020.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Cuyahoga County, 
No. 105845, 2018-Ohio-2644. 
__________________ 
STEWART, J. 
{¶ 1} We accepted this discretionary appeal to address the scope of the 
notice that a juvenile who has been designated as a serious youthful offender 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
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(“SYO”) must receive regarding the conditions of detention and how a failure to 
abide by those conditions could result in the imposition of a discretionary adult 
sentence.  We do not reach this issue, however, because the juvenile court’s order 
invoking the adult sentence under the SYO specification was not journalized until 
the child turned 21 years of age.  The juvenile court therefore lacked subject-matter 
jurisdiction when it entered the adult portion of the sentence.  We thus reverse the 
court of appeals’ decision and sua sponte vacate the adult portion of A.W.’s 
sentence. 
Background 
{¶ 2} In October 2016, A.W. admitted that in 2013, at the age of 17, he 
committed an act which, if committed by an adult, would constitute the offense of 
rape.  The count was later amended to include an SYO specification.  At the time 
he entered the admission, A.W. was 20 years old.1  The court placed A.W. in the 
custody of the Department of Youth Services (“DYS”) until May 23, 2017, when 
A.W. would turn 21 years of age.  The juvenile court also found A.W. to be an SYO 
and imposed a stayed adult sentence of three years in prison.  Although the court 
made statements on the record indicating its desire to have “sex offender treatment 
put in place for ODYS,” its October 2016 dispositional entry made no mention of 
sex-offender treatment. 
{¶ 3} In January 2017, approximately three months after issuing the 
dispositional order, the juvenile court ordered A.W. to “participate and engage in 
sex offender treatment” and further stated that the failure to engage in treatment 
“may result in the adult SYO disposition being invoked.”  The court’s January 2017 
entry noted that “[a]lthough the youth was committed for a sex offense, [the] youth 
                                                     
 
1. The state filed the complaint in 2014, when A.W. was 17 years old.  By his own admission, A.W. 
“went on the run” after the state filed a motion to have the juvenile court relinquish custody to the 
general division of the court of common pleas in order to try him as an adult. 
January Term, 2020 
 
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refuses to take responsibility for his actions nor participate in sex offender 
treatment.” 
{¶ 4} In early May 2017, the juvenile court acknowledged that A.W. had 
been unable to complete sex-offender treatment and that the delay was because (1) 
A.W. failed initially to acknowledge his issues, thus making it impossible for him 
to complete treatment by his 21st birthday, (2) DYS did not provide adequate timely 
treatment options, (3) A.W.’s initial failure to engage in treatment was not brought 
to the court’s attention soon enough, and (4) the court itself failed to make specific 
orders for treatment at the time of disposition. 
{¶ 5} On May 18, as A.W. neared his 21st birthday, the state filed a motion 
to invoke the adult portion of A.W.’s SYO sentence on the grounds that he had 
failed to complete “mandatory” sex-offender treatment, thereby “failing to comply 
with court orders.”  The juvenile court conducted a hearing on the state’s motion 
on May 22, 2017—the day before A.W.’s 21st birthday.  A psychologist testified 
that A.W. had completed only 10 to 15 percent of the sex-offender treatment.  Based 
on these representations concerning A.W.’s lack of rehabilitation while in DYS 
custody, which the court emphasized was due in large part to A.W.’s failure to 
“avail[] himself of the Juvenile System” by not appearing for multiple hearings, the 
court found by clear and convincing evidence that A.W. had engaged in conduct 
that created a substantial risk to safety by failing to participate in sex-offender 
treatment. The juvenile court terminated the juvenile disposition and invoked the 
adult sentence but reduced the term of that sentence from three years to two years. 
{¶ 6} Acknowledging that the juvenile court’s October 2016 dispositional 
judgment entry did not order A.W. to complete sex-offender treatment, the Eighth 
District Court of Appeals determined that an order for sex-offender treatment was 
unnecessary because, under R.C. 5139.04, DYS has “broad authority to * * * ‘issue 
any orders, as it considers best suited’ ” for the treatment of children committed to 
its care.  (Emphasis added in court of appeals’ opinion.) 2018-Ohio-2644, 116 
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N.E.3d 819, ¶ 25, quoting R.C. 5139.04.  The court of appeals also rejected A.W.’s 
argument that he was not notified that his failure to complete court-ordered sex-
offender treatment would result in the invocation of his adult sentence.  Id. at  
¶ 30-31.  It found that the juvenile court told A.W. at the time of disposition that it 
“wanted him to receive sex offender treatment,” id. at ¶ 30, and it would be 
reviewing the case in 90 days to make sure that he was doing what he was supposed 
to do and if he was not, the court would end the sentence at DYS and send him to 
prison.  Finally, the court of appeals rejected A.W.’s argument that completion of 
sex-offender treatment was an impossibility given the seven-month duration of his 
commitment with DYS, noting that the juvenile court did not condition the adult 
portion of the SYO sentence on completion of the treatment.  Id. at ¶ 32.  We agreed 
to consider a single proposition of law: “The adult portion of an SYO sentence 
cannot be invoked for failure to complete ODYS programming unless the offender 
was given notice that the failure to comply could trigger invocation of the adult 
sentence and it was possible for the offender to have completed it.”  See 154 Ohio 
St.3d 1422, 2018-Ohio-4496, 111 N.E.3d 20. 
Analysis 
{¶ 7} The juvenile court has “exclusive original jurisdiction” over any 
person under 18 years of age who is alleged to be delinquent.  State ex rel. Jean-
Baptiste v. Kirsch, 134 Ohio St.3d 421, 2012-Ohio-5697, 983 N.E.2d 302, ¶ 18, 
citing R.C. 2151.23(A)(1).  With respect to dispositional orders entered by the 
juvenile court, the original jurisdiction exists—with certain inapplicable 
exceptions—“until terminated or modified by the court or until the child attains 
twenty-one years of age.”  R.C. 2152.22(A). 
January Term, 2020 
 
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{¶ 8} A.W. turned 21 years of age on May 23, 2017.2  Although the juvenile 
court issued its order invoking the adult sentence on May 22, 2017, the clerk of the 
court did not enter that order upon the journal until May 23, 2017.  A court speaks 
only through its journal, State v. Hampton, 134 Ohio St.3d 447, 2012-Ohio-5688, 
983 N.E.2d 324, ¶ 15, and it is the date of journalization, not the date when an order 
or judgment is signed, that determines when the order takes effect.  Craig v. Welply, 
104 Ohio St. 312, 315, 136 N.E. 143 (1922); see also Cleveland v. Trzebuckowski, 
85 Ohio St.3d 524, 527, 709 N.E.2d 1148 (1999) (stating that a judgment would 
become a final appealable order on the date of journalization).  Because the clerk 
did not journalize the order invoking the adult portion of the SYO sentence until 
after A.W. turned 21, the juvenile court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over him.  
The order is therefore void.  See State v. Apanovitch, 155 Ohio St.3d 358, 2018-
Ohio-4744, 121 N.E.3d 351, ¶ 42.  We therefore reverse the court of appeals and 
sua sponte vacate the adult portion of A.W.’s juvenile disposition.  The proposition 
of law is now moot, so we need not address it. 
Judgment reversed  
and adult portion of juvenile disposition vacated. 
O’CONNOR, C.J., and KENNEDY, FRENCH, FISCHER, DEWINE, and 
DONNELLY, JJ., concur. 
_________________ 
Michael C. O’Malley, Cuyahoga County Prosecuting Attorney, and 
Anthony T. Miranda, Tasha L. Forchione, and Jeffrey M. Maver, Assistant 
Prosecuting Attorneys, for appellee. 
Mark A. Stanton, Cuyahoga County Public Defender, and Cullen Sweeney 
and Francis Cavallo, Assistant Public Defenders, for appellant. 
                                                     
 
2. A.W.’s date of birth was May 23, 1996, and therefore, he turned 21 years of age at 12:01 a.m., 
on May 23, 2017.  See State v. Yarger, 181 Ohio App.3d 132, 2009-Ohio-543, 908 N.E.2d 462,  
¶ 22 (3d Dist.). 
SUPREME COURT OF O1110