Court Opinion

ID: 9628013
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:04:51.66669+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:55.826147
License: Public Domain

MARTHA CRAIG DAUGHTREY, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
Because, as the majority opinion makes clear, the Ohio Supreme Court’s interpretation of Ohio Revised Code section 2907.323(A)(3) has proven to be linguistically difficult at least and thoroughly ambiguous at most, I would send this case to *617that court with the following certified question:
Was the United States Supreme Court, in its opinion in Osborne v. Ohio, correct in assuming that “[t]he context of the opinion [below] indicates that the Ohio Supreme Court believed that ‘the term “nudity” as used in R[evised] C[ode] 2907.323(A)(3) refers to a lewd exhibition of the genitals’ ”? Osborne, 495 U.S. 103, 114 n. 11, 110 S.Ct. 1691, 109 L.Ed.2d 98 (1990) (citing State v. Young, 37 Ohio St.3d 249, 525 N.E.2d 1363, 1373 (Ohio 1988) (emphasis added)).
The Ohio Supreme Court has never clarified this ambiguity, and the Ohio Courts of Appeals have rendered inconsistent opinions on the question. Compare, e.g., State v. Walker, 134 Ohio App.3d 89, 730 N.E.2d 419, 422 (1999) (quoting Osborne and citing Young for the proposition that the Ohio statute refers to a “lewd exhibition of the genitals”) with State v. Kerrigan, 168 Ohio App.3d 455, 860 N.E.2d 816, 825-26 (2006) (appeal from a conviction under section 2907.323(A)(3) in which “lewd exhibition” is interpreted as a separate offense from a “graphic exhibition of the genitals”). Clarity on this issue would then permit us to determine with some assurance whether or not the appellant’s conviction under Ohio Revised Code section 2907.323(A)(3) qualifies as a prior conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(b)(l).