Opinion ID: 2690786
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Retroactive Application of R.C. 2929.06(B)

Text: {¶ 26} The principal issue in this case is whether the application of R.C. 2929.06(B) to White on remand would violate the Retroactivity Clause of the Ohio Constitution. {¶ 27} Determining whether a statute’s retroactive application violates the Retroactivity Clause requires a two-step analysis. First, we must determine whether the General Assembly intended that the statute apply retroactively. If not, the statute may not be so applied. See R.C. 1.48. If the General Assembly has expressly indicated its intention that the statute apply retroactively, we must determine whether the statute is remedial, in which case retroactive application is permitted, or substantive, in which case retroactive application is forbidden. See State v. Walls, 96 Ohio St.3d 437, 2002-Ohio-5059, 775 N.E.2d 829, ¶ 10, 15; Bielat v. Bielat, 87 Ohio St.3d 350, 353, 721 N.E.2d 28 (2000); State v. Cook, 83 Ohio St.3d 404, 410-411, 700 N.E.2d 570 (1998); Van Fossen v. Babcock & Wilcox Co., 36 Ohio St.3d 100, 522 N.E.2d 489 (1988), paragraphs one and two of the syllabus.
{¶ 28} In this case, the result of the first step is obvious. The trial court determined that R.C. 2929.06(E) expressly indicates the intention of the General Assembly that R.C. 2929.06(B) apply retroactively. Both parties agree with the trial court’s conclusion. So do we. {¶ 29} R.C. 2929.06(E) provides that R.C. 2929.06, as amended, “shall apply to all offenders who have been sentenced to death for an aggravated murder that was committed on or after October 19, 1981.” (Emphasis added.) October 9 SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 19, 1981, is the effective date of Ohio’s current death-penalty statute, 139 Ohio Laws, Part I, 1, 18-19, so all prisoners now on death row in Ohio were sentenced to death for an aggravated murder committed on or after that date. Thus, R.C. 2929.06(E) expressly makes R.C. 2929.06—including R.C. 2929.06(B)—apply to all offenders sentenced under Ohio’s death-penalty statutes. {¶ 30} To ensure that the legislative intent is clear, R.C. 2929.06(E) further provides that R.C. 2929.06, as amended by H.B. 184   , shall apply equally to all such offenders sentenced to death prior to, on, or after March 23, 2005, including offenders who, on March 23, 2005, are challenging their sentence of death and offenders whose sentence of death has been set aside, nullified, or vacated by any court of this state or any federal court but who, as of March 23, 2005, have not yet been resentenced. (Emphasis added.) By enacting R.C. 2929.06(E), the General Assembly has clearly expressed its intent that R.C. 2929.06(B) apply retroactively.
{¶ 31} In construing the Retroactivity Clause, we have determined that “retroactivity itself is not always forbidden by Ohio law.” Bielat, 87 Ohio St.3d at 353, 721 N.E.2d 28. Thus, having determined that R.C. 2929.06(B) was intended to apply retroactively, we proceed to the second step of retroactivity analysis: determining whether the statute is remedial or substantive. 1. Does R.C. 2929.06(B) Increase the Punishment for the Offense? {¶ 32} If a statute’s intent is punitive in nature, it cannot be considered merely remedial. See Cook, 83 Ohio St.3d at 418, 700 N.E.2d 570. Thus, Ohio retroactivity analysis prohibits a retroactive increase in punishment for a criminal 10 January Term, 2012 offense. See State v. Ferguson, 120 Ohio St.3d 7, 2008-Ohio-4824, 896 N.E.2d 110, ¶ 39. White contends that applying R.C. 2929.06(B) retroactively to his case violates the Retroactivity Clause because it would increase the punishment he faces for murdering Trooper Gross. {¶ 33} We disagree. R.C. 2929.06(B) does not increase the punishment for aggravated murder. The death penalty for aggravated murder existed on January 19, 1996, the date of Trooper Gross’s murder. White plainly faces no greater punishment as a result of R.C. 2929.06(B) than he faced on January 19, 1996. 2. Did White Have a Vested or Accrued Right to Be Resentenced Without a Jury? {¶ 34} “The prohibition against retroactive laws    is a protection for the individual who is assured that he may rely upon the law as it is written and not later be subject to new obligations thereby.” Lakengren, Inc. v. Kosydar, 44 Ohio St.2d 199, 201, 339 N.E.2d 814 (1975). Thus, “the constitutional test for substantive legislation focuses on new laws that reach back in time and create new burdens, deprivations, or impairments of vested rights.” Bielat, 87 Ohio St.3d at 359, 721 N.E.2d 28. [A] statute is substantive when it    impairs or takes away vested rights; affects an accrued substantive right; imposes new or additional burdens, duties, obligations, or liabilities as to a past transaction; creates a new right out of an act [that] gave no right and imposed no obligation when it occurred; creates a new right; [or] gives rise to or takes away the right to sue or defend actions at law. (Citations omitted.) Van Fossen, 36 Ohio St.3d at 107, 522 N.E.2d 489. 11 SUPREME COURT OF OHIO {¶ 35} An “accrued right” is “a matured right; a right that is ripe for enforcement.” Garner, Black’s Law Dictionary 1436 (9th Ed.2009). “A right, not absolute but dependent for its existence upon the action or inaction of another, is not basic or vested   .” Hatch v. Tipton, 131 Ohio St. 364, 2 N.E.2d 875 (1936), paragraph two of the syllabus. {¶ 36} On January 19, 1996, the day he murdered Trooper Gross, White did not have an “absolute” or “matured” right to be resentenced under Penix. That right could not come into existence until several intervening events took place. First, White would have to be convicted of aggravated murder with at least one death specification; then, after the penalty phase, the jury would have to recommend a death sentence, and the trial judge would have to impose one; then upon appellate review the death sentence would have to be vacated. Only if all these conditions came to pass could the question of resentencing arise. Only then could White’s right to be resentenced in accordance with Penix come into existence. {¶ 37} Ultimately, each of these preconditions for resentencing did come to pass. But the last of them did not occur until December 7, 2005, the date when the Sixth Circuit invalidated White’s death sentence. Before that date, White had no vested or accrued right to be resentenced under Penix. But before December 7, 2005, the General Assembly had not only enacted R.C. 2929.06(B), but had enacted R.C. 2929.06(E), which made R.C. 2929.06 retroactive to October 19, 1981. Thus, upon the enactment of R.C. 2929.06(B), the Penix right was extinguished. When the Sixth Circuit vacated White’s death penalty, there was no Penix right to vest. For the same reason, White could not plausibly contend that he relied on Penix when he committed the murder. We conclude that retroactive application of R.C. 2929.06(B) does not impair any vested or accrued right belonging to White. 12 January Term, 2012 3. Would Retroactive Application of R.C. 2929.06(B) Create a New Right for the State While Imposing a New Burden on White? {¶ 38} The trial court rejected the state’s argument that “the law is not substantive because the Defendant did not have a ‘vested right’ to be resentenced to a life sentence   .” The court stated: “There need not be a deprivation of a vested right in order for the law to be deemed a substantive retroactive law. It is sufficient that the law creates a new right and imposes corresponding burdens.” {¶ 39} The trial court concluded that R.C. 2929.06(B) was substantive because it both created a new right and imposed a corresponding burden on White. The court identified the new right created by the statute as the state’s right “to empanel a new jury for death penalty resentencing.” The burden imposed on White was “the burden to defend a second death penalty proceeding where no such obligation existed under the prior law.” {¶ 40} The trial court’s statement that “[i]t is sufficient that the law creates a new right and imposes corresponding burdens” is incomplete. We have held that, to be deemed substantive, a law must impose a new burden on the complaining party. “[T]he constitutional test for substantive legislation focuses on new laws that reach back in time and create new burdens, deprivations, or impairments of vested rights.” Bielat, 87 Ohio St.3d at 359, 721 N.E.2d 28. The Retroactivity Clause prohibits the General Assembly from “passing new laws to reach back and create new burdens, new duties, new obligations, or new liabilities not existing at the time.” Miller v. Hixson, 64 Ohio St. 39, 51, 59 N.E. 749 (1901). {¶ 41} The burden identified by the trial court was “the burden to defend a second death penalty proceeding where no such obligation existed under the prior law.” But that was no new burden. The burden of defending a death-penalty proceeding was the same burden to which White was liable on January 19, 1996, after the murder of Trooper Gross. As the court of appeals aptly observed: 13 SUPREME COURT OF OHIO “Appellee always had a right to have the death penalty determined by a jury and always had the obligation to defend against it.” 2009-Ohio-3869, ¶ 22. {¶ 42} Moreover, “a later enactment will not burden or attach a new disability to a past transaction or consideration in the constitutional sense, unless the past transaction or consideration, if it did not create a vested right, created at least a reasonable expectation of finality.” State ex rel. Matz v. Brown, 37 Ohio St.3d 279, 281, 525 N.E.2d 805 (1988). {¶ 43} In this case, White can point to no event preceding the enactment of R.C. 2929.06(B) and (E) that entitled him to a reasonable expectation of finality. White asks us to apply the law as it existed on the date he murdered Trooper Gross. But in Matz, we held that “the commission of a felony” is not a transaction that creates a reasonable expectation of finality. “Except with regard to constitutional protections against ex post facto laws   , felons have no reasonable right to expect that their conduct will never thereafter be made the subject of legislation.” Id. at 281-282. {¶ 44} Because White could have no reasonable expectation of finality with respect to Penix on the date of the murder, retroactive application of R.C. 2929.06(B) to White’s resentencing does not create a new burden “in the constitutional sense.” Matz at 281. 4. Is a Statute Creating a New Jury-Trial Right Necessarily Substantive? {¶ 45} R.C. 2929.06(B) requires the trial court, when resentencing a capital offender who was tried by a jury and whose death sentence has been set aside, to empanel a new jury on resentencing if the offender was originally tried by a jury. In its opinion, the trial court noted that the right to a jury trial was described as “substantive, not procedural” in Kneisley v. Lattimer-Stevens Co., 40 Ohio St.3d 354, 356, 533 N.E.2d 743 (1988), citing Cleveland Ry. Co. v. Halliday, 127 Ohio St. 278, 188 N.E. 1 (1933), paragraph one of the syllabus. 14 January Term, 2012 {¶ 46} But the creation of a new right—even a new substantive right—is not, by itself, enough to support a claim of unconstitutional retroactivity. We have held that a claim that a statute is substantive, and hence unconstitutionally retroactive, “cannot be based solely upon evidence that a statute retrospectively created a new right, but must also include a showing of some impairment, burden, deprivation, or new obligation accompanying that new right.” Bielat, 87 Ohio St.3d 350, 721 N.E.2d 28, paragraph two of the syllabus. The court must inquire “whether the creation of rights in one party reciprocally impaired a right of the party challenging the retroactive law. In other words, substantive, retroactive legislation that unconstitutionally creates a new right also impairs a vested right or creates some new obligation or burden as well.” Id. at 359. This is true even if the new right itself may be characterized as substantive. {¶ 47} Kneisley is not to the contrary. In Kneisley, we held that legislation eliminating a party’s accrued right to a jury trial was substantive and could not be retroactively applied. 40 Ohio St.3d at 356-357, 533 N.E.2d 743. Kneisley does not stand for the proposition that legislation granting a right to a jury trial is substantive, where such legislation does not impose a new burden on the other party. Since the creation of a jury-trial right on remand does not impose any new burden on White—i.e., any burden that he did not face on January 19, 1996—the substantive nature of the jury-trial right does not itself preclude retroactive application of R.C. 2929.06(B). {¶ 48} To sum up, the application of R.C. 2929.06(B) to White’s resentencing would not increase White’s potential sentence, impair any of White’s vested or accrued rights, violate any reliance interest or any reasonable expectation of finality, or impose any new burdens on him. We therefore hold that R.C. 2929.06(B) is remedial, not substantive. Hence, the Retroactivity Clause of the Ohio Constitution does not bar its retroactive application in cases 15 SUPREME COURT OF OHIO where the aggravated murder was committed before its enactment, but the death sentence was set aside after its enactment.