[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as State 

ex rel. Grant v. Collins, Slip Opinion No. 2018-Ohio-4281.] 

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. 2018-OHIO-4281

THE STATE EX REL. GRANT, APPELLANT, v. COLLINS, JUDGE, APPELLEE. 

[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it 

may be cited as State ex rel. Grant v. Collins, Slip Opinion No. 

2018-Ohio-4281.] 

Prohibition—Megan’s Law provisions remain in effect for those who committed 

their offenses before enactment of the Adam Walsh Act—Judgment 

dismissing writ action affirmed. 

(No. 2017-0686—Submitted February 13, 2018—Decided October 24, 2018.) 

APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Lake County, No. 2016-L-106, 

2017-Ohio-1338. 

________________ 

 KENNEDY, J. 

{¶ 1} Scott A. Grant appeals from a judgment of the Eleventh District Court 

of Appeals dismissing his complaint for a writ of prohibition to prevent Judge 

Richard L. Collins Jr. from proceeding with a hearing to determine whether Grant 

should be designated a sexual predator pursuant to Megan’s Law. Grant’s 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO

2

complaint alleged that since the General Assembly enacted 2007 Am.Sub.S.B. No. 

10, the Adam Walsh Act (“AWA”), Megan’s Law has been repealed and cannot be 

applied to him. Our caselaw, however, holds that when a new law cannot be applied 

retroactively, the legislature’s repeal of the former version of that law is a nullity. 

For this reason, our holding in 2011 that the retroactive application of the AWA is 

unconstitutional means that Megan’s Law continues to apply to offenders convicted 

before 2008, including Grant. Consequently, Judge Collins does not patently and 

unambiguously lack jurisdiction to conduct a sexual-predator adjudication hearing 

relating to Grant’s 1986 convictions for kidnapping and involuntary manslaughter, 

and Grant has an adequate remedy in the ordinary course of law to challenge Judge 

Collins’s exercise of jurisdiction. We therefore affirm the judgment of the Eleventh 

District Court of Appeals dismissing Grant’s prohibition action. 

Facts and Procedural Background 

{¶ 2} In September 1985, a grand jury indicted Grant on one count each of 

aggravated murder, kidnapping, and rape for the killing of a 17-year-old female. 

State v. Grant, 11th Dist. Lake No. 11-252, 1987 WL 26720, *1. After the trial 

court dismissed the rape count at the close of the state’s case-in-chief, the jury found 

Grant guilty of kidnapping and the lesser-included-offense of involuntary 

manslaughter, and the court imposed an aggregate sentence of 8 to 25 years in 

prison. Id. Grant remains in prison. 

{¶ 3} On August 24, 2016, Judge Collins scheduled a sexual-offenderclassification hearing to determine whether Grant should be classified as a sexual 

predator pursuant to Megan’s Law. 

{¶ 4} Grant petitioned the Eleventh District Court of Appeals for a writ of 

prohibition, alleging that Megan’s Law had been repealed and that the scheduling 

order was therefore unauthorized by law. The court of appeals granted Judge 

Collins’s motion to dismiss, explaining that he did not patently and unambiguously 

lack jurisdiction to proceed because the hearing provisions of Megan’s Law 
January Term, 2018 

3

required the judge imposing sentence or the judge’s successor to determine whether 

an offender is a sexual predator. 11th Dist. Lake No. 2016-L-106, 2017-Ohio-1338, 

¶ 9. The court concluded that Grant had an adequate remedy by way of a direct 

appeal and therefore could not show entitlement to a writ of prohibition. Id. at 

¶ 11-12. 

{¶ 5} Grant appealed to this court as of right. 

Law and Analysis 

{¶ 6} Megan’s Law, enacted in 1996 in Am.Sub.H.B. No. 180, 146 Ohio 

Laws, Part II, 2560 (“H.B. 180”) and subsequently amended in 2003 by 

Am.Sub.S.B. No. 5, 150 Ohio Laws, Part IV, 6558 (“S.B. 5”), established a 

comprehensive system of sex-offender classification and registration that expressly 

applies retroactively regardless of when the offender committed the underlying sex 

offense. Former R.C. 2950.04(A), 146 Ohio Laws, Part II, at 2609-2610; see also

150 Ohio Laws, Part IV, at 6657-6661. H.B. 180 took effect on January 1, 1997. 

146 Ohio Laws, Part II, at 2668. 

{¶ 7} We have upheld the General Assembly’s decision to apply Megan’s 

Law to those offenders who committed a sexually oriented offense before the law’s 

effective date, concluding that Megan’s Law is remedial and not punitive and 

therefore does not violate constitutional protections against retroactive laws. E.g., 

State v. Cook, 83 Ohio St.3d 404, 412, 700 N.E.2d 570 (1998); State v. Ferguson, 

120 Ohio St.3d 7, 2008-Ohio-4824, 896 N.E.2d 110, ¶ 40. 

{¶ 8} Relevant here, the former version of R.C. 2950.09(C) in effect under 

both the H.B. 180 and S.B. 5 versions of Megan’s Law applied to any person 

convicted of and sentenced for an unexempt sexually oriented offense before 

January 1, 1997. 146 Ohio Laws, Part II, at 2620-2621 and 150 Ohio Laws, Part 

IV, at 6691-6712. Those statutes required the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation 

and Correction (“DRC”) to notify the sentencing court of particular offenders who 

had committed specific sexually oriented offenses or posed an identifiable risk to 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO

4

society, and upon notification from DRC, directed the court to conduct a sexualpredator adjudication hearing before the offender’s release. Id. 

{¶ 9} In 2007, the General Assembly passed the AWA, repealing former 

R.C. 2950.09’s hearing provisions. See State v. Williams, 129 Ohio St.3d 344, 

2011-Ohio-3374, 952 N.E.2d 1108, ¶ 41 (O’Donnell, J., dissenting). In place of 

Megan’s Law, the AWA created a system under which offenders are classified as 

Tier I, Tier II, or Tier III sex offenders based solely on the offense. Id.; R.C. 

2950.01(E), (F), and (G). In Williams, however, we concluded that the provisions 

of the AWA are punitive and therefore cannot be applied retroactively. Williams

at ¶ 22. 

{¶ 10} Grant’s petition for a writ of prohibition asserted that because the 

AWA repealed Megan’s Law, and because the AWA cannot be applied 

retroactively to him, Judge Collins lacks jurisdiction to determine whether he is a 

sexual predator. This analysis is flawed. 

{¶ 11} In State v. Brunning, 134 Ohio St.3d 438, 2012-Ohio-5752, 983 

N.E.2d 316, we considered whether a sex offender who had been convicted of rape 

in 1983, classified as a sexually oriented offender under Megan’s Law in 1997, and 

reclassified as a Tier III sex offender pursuant to the AWA in 2008 could be 

prosecuted for failing to give the sheriff notice of an address change after Megan’s 

Law had been repealed by the AWA. We explained that in enacting the AWA and 

repealing Megan’s Law, the General Assembly had not intended to relieve 

offenders classified under the earlier law of their registration and notification 

duties. Id. at ¶ 21. Rather, we noted: 

“When a court strikes down a statute as unconstitutional, and 

the offending statute replaced an existing law that had been repealed 

in the same bill that enacted the offending statute, the repeal is also 

invalid unless it clearly appears that the General Assembly meant 
January Term, 2018 

5

the repeal to have effect even if the offending statute had never been 

passed.” 

Id., quoting State v. Sullivan, 90 Ohio St.3d 502, 739 N.E.2d 788 (2001), paragraph 

two of the syllabus. Noting that the AWA was “more onerous” than Megan’s Law, 

this court declared it “self-evident” that the General Assembly would not have 

repealed Megan’s Law if the AWA had not been enacted: “It is unimaginable that 

the General Assembly would have intended offenders originally classified under 

Megan’s Law to be free from any reporting requirements if the AWA were to be 

struck down.” Brunning at ¶ 22. Accordingly, we concluded that the registration 

and notification provisions of Megan’s Law continued to apply to offenders subject 

to that law. 

{¶ 12} And in State v. Howard, 134 Ohio St.3d 467, 2012-Ohio-5738, 983 

N.E.2d 341, ¶ 29, we explained that not only does a sex offender classified pursuant 

to Megan’s Law remain subject to its registration and notification provisions after 

January 1, 2008, but also the penalty provisions enacted as part of Megan’s Law to 

punish violations of its provisions continue to apply as well. We recognized that 

Ohio has, in effect, separate statutory schemes governing sex 

offenders depending on when they committed their underlying 

offense. Those who committed their offense before the effective 

date of the AWA are subject to the provisions of Megan’s Law; 

those who committed their offense after the effective date of the 

AWA are subject to the AWA. 

Id. at ¶ 17. 

{¶ 13} Megan’s Law’s separate statutory scheme continues to apply to 

offenders who committed a sexually oriented offense prior to the effective date of 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO

6

the AWA, and the repeal of the hearing provisions required to classify those 

offenders is ineffective as it affects offenders subject to Megan’s Law. 

Accordingly, former R.C. 2950.09(C) applies to Grant, and Judge Collins has 

subject-matter jurisdiction to conduct a sexual-predator adjudication hearing to 

classify Grant before his release from prison. 

{¶ 14} Grant maintains that Megan’s Law cannot be applied to him, 

however, because he has never been classified as a sexually oriented offender. This 

assertion misunderstands the statute, because as we explained in State v. Hayden, 

96 Ohio St.3d 211, 2002-Ohio-4169, 773 N.E.2d 502, ¶ 15, an offender is 

“automatically classified as a sexually oriented offender” upon conviction for a 

sexually oriented offense. 

{¶ 15} Grant was convicted of kidnapping and involuntary manslaughter 

arising from the 1985 slaying of a 17-year-old. Although the trial court acquitted 

Grant of rape, kidnapping a minor was a sexually oriented offense under the H.B. 

180 version of Megan’s Law, 146 Ohio Laws, Part II, at 2601-2602, 2618-2619, 

and kidnapping was a sexually oriented offense pursuant to the S.B. 5 amendments 

to Megan’s Law if committed with a sexual motivation, regardless of the age of the 

victim, 150 Ohio Laws, Part IV, at 6634-6635. Grant admits in his brief that he 

killed a minor while having sexual intercourse with her, and it is possible that his 

kidnapping conviction resulted in his automatic classification as a sexually oriented 

offender. 

{¶ 16} Accordingly, there is at least a factual question regarding whether 

Grant committed a sexually oriented offense, and Judge Collins does not patently 

and unambiguously lack jurisdiction to conduct a sexual-predator adjudication 

hearing to decide that factual question in the first instance. Grant has an adequate 

remedy by way of appeal from any erroneous exercise of that jurisdiction. See State 

v. Clayborn, 125 Ohio St.3d 450, 2010-Ohio-2123, 928 N.E.2d 1093, ¶ 16 (a 
January Term, 2018 

7

sexual-offender classification may be appealed, and the appeal must be filed within 

30 days after judgment is entered). 

{¶ 17} Lastly, Grant’s reliance on cases upholding the finality of criminal 

sentences is misplaced, because classification as a sex offender under Megan’s Law 

is a civil, remedial consequence of the conviction and not a punitive component of 

criminal sentencing. Cook, 83 Ohio St.3d at 417, 700 N.E.2d 570; State v. 

Williams, 88 Ohio St.3d 513, 528, 728 N.E.2d 342 (2000); State v. Wilson, 113 

Ohio St.3d 382, 2007-Ohio-2202, 865 N.E.2d 1264, ¶ 32; Ferguson, 120 Ohio St.3d 

7, 2008-Ohio-4824, 896 N.E.2d 110, at ¶ 36. Sex-offender classification and 

registration laws therefore do not affect the finality of Grant’s convictions and 

sentence. 

{¶ 18} Here, Grant’s allegations are insufficient to establish either that 

Judge Collins patently and unambiguously lacks jurisdiction to proceed or that 

appeal from any erroneous exercise of that jurisdiction would not be an adequate 

remedy in the ordinary course of the law. Accordingly, we affirm the dismissal of 

this prohibition action. 

 Judgment affirmed. 

O’CONNOR, C.J., and O’DONNELL, FRENCH, FISCHER, DEWINE, and

DEGENARO, JJ., concur. 

_________________ 

Scott A. Grant, pro se. 

Charles E. Coulson, Lake County Prosecuting Attorney, and Teri R. Daniel, 

Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellee. 

_________________