Opinion ID: 2690570
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Juvenile-Delinquency Case

Text: {¶ 2} Jean-Baptiste was born in Haiti on January 18, 1989. According to Jean-Baptiste, he was brought to the United States from a Haitian orphanage in 1996 and was placed with Paula Kessler in Portsmouth, Ohio. There were no legal proceedings regarding his custody until December 2004, when the juvenile court placed him in the legal custody of Kessler. SUPREME COURT OF OHIO {¶ 3} On October 19, 2006, a Scioto County assistant prosecuting attorney filed a complaint in the Scioto County Juvenile Court alleging that Jean-Baptiste, then 17 years old, appeared to be a delinquent child for committing a rape of a ten-year-old child on August 19, 2006, an offense that would be a felony of the first degree if committed by an adult. In January 2007, Jean-Baptiste admitted the allegations of the complaint, and on the day after Jean-Baptiste turned 18 years old, Judge Kirsch adjudicated him to be a delinquent child. On February 5, 2007, following a dispositional hearing, Judge Kirsch ordered that Jean-Baptiste be committed to the permanent custody of the Ohio Department of Youth Services (“DYS”) for placement in an institution for a minimum of one year and for a maximum period not to extend beyond his 21st birthday—January 18, 2010. The judge also classified Jean-Baptiste as a sexual predator and ordered him to meet the registration requirements of that classification upon his release. {¶ 4} On appeal, the court of appeals vacated the juvenile court’s sexualpredator classification based on its holding that because the court committed JeanBaptiste to a secure facility as part of its dispositional order, the court could not classify him as a sexual predator under R.C. 2152.83(A)(1) until his release from the secure facility. In re P.B., 4th Dist. No. 07CA3140, 2007-Ohio-3937. No appeal was taken from this decision. {¶ 5} On May 23, 2008, the United States Department of Homeland Security placed an immigration detainer on Jean-Baptiste to assume custody of him. On July 17, 2008, DYS released Jean-Baptiste from its institution, and he was held in the Seneca County Jail until hearings could be conducted to determine his citizenship. In December 2009, DYS notified Judge Kirsch, the county sheriff’s office, and the county prosecutor that on January 18, 2010 (JeanBaptiste’s 21st birthday), he would be discharged from the department’s legal custody. Judge Kirsch had scheduled a status conference in the case for January 15, but continued it because Jean-Baptiste was still in the Seneca County Jail and 2 January Term, 2012 would not be released until January 26, 2010. Judge Kirsch ordered that JeanBaptiste’s juvenile-offender classification hearing be held on February 8, 2010. When Jean-Baptiste was released from the Seneca County Jail, he was placed by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services at the Faith Mission residential facility.