State v. Williams ( 2024 )

[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as State
v. Williams, Slip Opinion No. 2024-Ohio-1433.]
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. 2024-OHIO-1433THE STATE OF OHIO, APPELLANT, v. WILLIAMS, APPELLEE.
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it
may be cited as State v. Williams, Slip Opinion No. 2024-Ohio-1433.]
Criminal law—Juvenile law—Stare decisis—State v. Burns reaffirmed based on
stare decisis—Under Burns, defendant was properly charged with and
convicted of tampering with evidence in adult court, because that charge
was rooted in the acts for which defendant was bound over from juvenile
court—Court of appeals’ judgment reversed and cause remanded for
consideration of remaining assignments of error.
(No. 2022-1053—Submitted September 26, 2023—Decided April 18, 2024.)
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Hamilton County,
No. C-210384, 2022-Ohio-2022.
__________________
FISCHER, J.
{¶ 1} We accepted this discretionary appeal brought by appellant, the state
of Ohio, to determine whether appellee, Timothy Williams, who was a juvenile
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO
when he committed the offense at issue, could be indicted for and convicted of that
offense in adult court when a charge for the offense was never considered by the
juvenile court. We reaffirm our holding in State v. Burns, 170 Ohio St.3d 57, 2022-
Ohio-4606, 208 N.E.3d 801, ¶ 11-13, and hold that a defendant who was a juvenile
when he committed an offense may be charged for and convicted of that offense in
adult court even though a charge for the offense was not brought in juvenile court
and considered in a bindover proceeding, if the charge is rooted in the same acts
that were the subject of the juvenile complaint. Consequently, we reverse the
judgment of the First District Court of Appeals and remand the matter to that court
for it to resolve any remaining assignments of error.
I. BACKGROUND
{¶ 2} Timothy Williams, then 16 years old, rang the doorbell of the home
of Everett and Leslie Lawson, pretending to have been injured in a car accident.
Everett saw Williams through a window and called 9-1-1. Leslie heard Williams’s
cries for help. Worried about the injured young man, Leslie opened the front door.
Williams then shot Leslie twice, killing her instantly.
{¶ 3} Williams was charged in the Hamilton County juvenile court as a
delinquent child for conduct that if committed by an adult would constitute murder
in violation of R.C. 2903.02(A) and (B) and felonious assault in violation of
R.C. 2903.11. The charges included firearm specifications under R.C. 2941.141
and 2941.145. The state did not charge Williams in the juvenile-court complaint
for conduct that if committed by an adult would constitute tampering with evidence
in violation of R.C. 2921.12(A)(1).
{¶ 4} At Williams’s hearing on the mandatory bindover of his case to adult
court, the state presented testimony of three witnesses to establish probable cause
that Williams had committed the charged offenses. The first witness to testify,
Grace Jacobs, testified that while she was at Autumn Haugabrook’s home in the
early-morning hours on the day of the murder, Williams and his codefendant,
2
January Term, 2024
Kerwin Heard, borrowed her vehicle so they could visit someone on the other side
of town. When Williams and Heard returned the vehicle a few hours later, Grace
saw that they had a gun. Later that morning, after seeing breaking news that a
woman had been murdered, Grace asked Williams and Heard about the murder.
Williams told her not to worry, because he “would take the charge.”
{¶ 5} Forest Park Police Department Detective Jeff Carnine testified that
Everett had told him that a young male wearing a red hoodie had shot Leslie. Police
found three spent 9 mm shell casings near the front door where Leslie had been
shot. During their investigation, police discovered that around the time of the
offenses, Grace’s vehicle was spotted by a city license-plate reader about a minute
after Williams’s cellphone connected with a cellphone tower in the same vicinity,
suggesting that Williams’s cellphone was in Grace’s vehicle when the call was
made and corroborating Grace’s testimony that Williams and Heard borrowed her
vehicle shortly before the offenses occurred. Detective Carnine interviewed
Williams, who claimed without provocation that he lost his red hoodie on the night
of the murder.
{¶ 6} Vincent Thompson testified that Williams sold him a “dirty” 9 mm
gun two days after the murder. Thompson met Williams at Autumn’s home to
purchase the gun. Thompson also testified that Williams told him that the “gun
was hot” because “[Williams had] put in some work with the gun” with Heard.
{¶ 7} The juvenile court found probable cause to believe that Williams
committed all the offenses and specifications charged in the juvenile complaint and
transferred the case to the Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas (or, “the adult
court”). A grand jury then indicted Williams for murder and felonious assault and
the accompanying firearm specifications regarding the same acts that had been
charged in the juvenile-court complaint. But the grand jury also indicted Williams
for tampering with evidence in violation of R.C. 2921.12(A)(1), for Williams’s
knowingly altering, destroying, concealing, or removing the firearm used in the
3
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO
murder with the purpose to impair its value or availability as evidence in an
investigation or official proceeding. Williams’s defense counsel did not object to
the tampering-with-evidence charge.
{¶ 8} Williams eventually pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in
violation of R.C. 2903.04(A), with a three-year firearm specification, and to
tampering with evidence. He was sentenced to an aggregate 17-year prison term.
At his plea hearing, Williams agreed with the state’s assertion that he had shot and
killed Leslie and sold the murder weapon soon thereafter.
{¶ 9} Williams appealed his tampering-with-evidence conviction to the
First District, arguing that his statutory and constitutional rights were violated when
he was indicted for and convicted of tampering with evidence, because that charge
had not been transferred from the juvenile court to the adult court. See 2022-Ohio-
2022, ¶ 7. While that appeal was pending, this court released its decision in State
v. Smith, 167 Ohio St.3d 423, 2022-Ohio-274, 194 N.E.3d 297. In Smith, we held
that “a juvenile court may transfer a case or a matter to adult court, but the adult
court’s jurisdiction is limited to the acts charged for which probable cause was
found.” Id. at ¶ 29.
{¶ 10} The First District, relying on our decision in Smith, held that the adult
court had lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over the tampering-with-evidence
charge because the juvenile court had not found probable cause on that charge.
2022-Ohio-2022 at ¶ 16-17. The appellate court thus vacated Williams’s
tampering-with-evidence conviction. Id. at ¶ 19.
{¶ 11} The state appealed to this court, and we accepted the following
proposition of law for review:
The holding in Smith is limited to circumstances where a
juvenile court explicitly found there was no probable cause for a
charge filed therein.
4
January Term, 2024
See 168 Ohio St.3d 1447, 2022-Ohio-3909, 197 N.E.3d 587. We sua sponte held
the matter for our decision in Burns, 170 Ohio St.3d 57, 2022-Ohio-4606, 208
N.E.3d 801. 168 Ohio St.3d 1447, 2022-Ohio-3909, 197 N.E.3d 587. After we
decided Burns, we ordered briefing. 168 Ohio St.3d 1488, 2022-Ohio-4704, 200
N.E.3d 275. The case is now ripe for decision.
II. LAW AND ANALYSIS
A. The mandatory-bindover process
{¶ 12} In Ohio, the juvenile courts have exclusive jurisdiction over cases
involving juveniles alleged to have committed acts that would constitute criminal
offenses if committed by an adult. See R.C. 2151.23 and 2152.03. However, a
juvenile court relinquishes jurisdiction to the adult court through a mandatory- or
discretionary- bindover proceeding when certain requirements are met. See R.C.
2152.12. For a case involving a defendant who was 16 years old when he allegedly
committed murder, the juvenile court is required to “transfer the case” to the adult
court if the juvenile court finds that there is probable cause to believe that the
juvenile “committed the act charged.” R.C. 2152.12(A)(1)(a)(i).
{¶ 13} In Smith, 167 Ohio St.3d 423, 2022-Ohio-274, 194 N.E.3d 297, this
court was tasked with determining whether the entirety of “the case” in which an
act charged was found by the juvenile court to be supported by probable cause or
only “the act charged” for which the court found probable cause transfers from the
juvenile court to the adult court. Id. at ¶ 24-25. This court explained that the adult
court has jurisdiction “over only the specific act or acts transferred, i.e., those acts
supported by probable cause,” id. at ¶ 32, and recognized that R.C. 2151.23(H)
“does not authorize jurisdiction over whatever charges the adult court
independently determines should arise from the underlying course of criminal
conduct that was the basis for the complaint in the juvenile court,” Smith at ¶ 34.
This court further explained that R.C. 2151.23(H) “gives adult courts flexibility in
5
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO
resolving cases by allowing them to accept a plea to or convict the defendant of an
offense that is either a lesser degree of, a lesser included offense of, or an offense
different from the offense charged that was rooted in the offense that was the basis
of the transfer.” (Emphasis added.) Smith at ¶ 35. And this court rejected the
state’s argument that the entire “case,” including charges for which the juvenile
court found no probable cause, is transferred to adult court upon the juvenile court’s
finding of probable cause on any count. Id. at ¶ 38-39. This court explained that
under the state’s reading of the statutory scheme, juveniles would not be afforded
the protections of the bindover process. Id. at ¶ 38. Therefore, this court held that
an adult court lacks jurisdiction over acts for which the juvenile court found no
probable cause. Id. at ¶ 44.
{¶ 14} Soon after Smith was decided, this court was “asked to decide
whether the state must prove in juvenile court that there is probable cause to believe
that a juvenile committed every act charged before the juvenile may be indicted for
those acts in adult court,” Burns, 170 Ohio St.3d 57, 2022-Ohio-4606, 208 N.E.3d
801, at ¶ 1. This court affirmed its holding in Smith that an adult court has no
jurisdiction over a charge for which the juvenile court found there was no probable
cause. Burns at ¶ 10. However, this court clarified in Burns that a juvenile may be
convicted in adult court of charges that were not presented to the juvenile court but
were returned by the grand jury if the charges were “rooted in the acts that were the
subject of the juvenile complaint but were not specifically named in the individual
acts transferred.” Id. at ¶ 13. This court supported that conclusion with the text of
R.C. 2151.23(H), which provides that after the juvenile court has bound a case over
to adult court, the adult court “has jurisdiction subsequent to the transfer to hear
and determine the case in the same manner as if the case originally had been
commenced in that court,” Burns at ¶ 12.
6
January Term, 2024
B. Stare decisis demands that we follow Burns
{¶ 15} In this case, the state argues that Ohio’s adult courts have jurisdiction
over charges first brought in adult court that are “rooted in” acts for which the
juvenile court found probable cause. The state argues that Williams’s tampering-
with-evidence charge is firmly “rooted in” the murder of Leslie and not a different
course of conduct or event that was not properly bound over by the juvenile court.
The state encourages this court to simply apply Burns, arguing that Williams offers
no persuasive reason to disregard Burns.
{¶ 16} Williams argues that Burns was wrongly decided and that we should
overrule it and strictly apply Smith, 167 Ohio St.3d 423, 2022-Ohio-274, 194
N.E.3d 297. According to Williams, under Smith, only charges for which the
juvenile court made an explicit finding of probable cause may be bound over to
adult court. Williams maintains that Burns is not grounded in statutory law or
caselaw.
{¶ 17} We reaffirm our decision in Burns, based on the principles of stare
decisis. “Stare decisis is a cornerstone of our legal system.” Webster v.
Reproductive Health Servs., 492 U.S. 490, 518, 109 S.Ct. 3040, 106 L.Ed.2d 410(1989). It “compels a court to recognize and follow an established legal decision
in subsequent cases in which the same question of law is at issue.” State v.
Henderson, 161 Ohio St.3d 285, 2020-Ohio-4784, 162 N.E.3d 776, ¶ 28. While
stare decisis can be applied with varying force, we have described precedent that
“involves statutory interpretation * * * as more sacrosanct than the common-law
precedents.” Rocky River v. State Emp. Relations Bd., 43 Ohio St.3d 1, 6, 539
N.E.2d 103 (1989). Precedent that involves statutory interpretation “is owed greater
stare decisis effect than other sources of law, because the legislature can always
amend a statute in light of a court’s construction.” State v. Wilson, 170 Ohio St.3d
12, 2022-Ohio-3202, 208 N.E.3d 761, ¶ 51 (DeWine, J., dissenting); see also New
Riegel Local School Dist. Bd. of Edn. v. Buehrer Group Architecture & Eng., Inc.,
7
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO
157 Ohio St.3d 164, 2019-Ohio-2851, 133 N.E.3d 482, ¶ 19 (stare decisis applies to
statutory interpretation because the legislature can amend a statute if it disagrees with
the court’s interpretation); State v. Bodyke, 126 Ohio St.3d 266, 2010-Ohio-2424,
933 N.E.2d 753, ¶ 33 (lead opinion), quoting Arbino v. Johnson & Johnson, 116
Ohio St.3d 468, 2007-Ohio-6948, 880 N.E.2d 420, ¶ 23 (“ ‘stare decisis applies to
rulings rendered in regard to specific statutes’ ”). Because Burns used statutory
interpretation to conclude that under R.C. 2151.23(H), a juvenile may be convicted
in adult court on charges that were not presented to the juvenile court but were
returned by the grand jury if the charges were “rooted in the acts that were the
subject of the juvenile complaint but were not specifically named in the individual
acts transferred,” 170 Ohio St.3d 57, 2022-Ohio-4606, 208 N.E.3d 801, at ¶ 13, we
are bound to follow that case.
{¶ 18} Additionally, Williams has not presented a compelling reason why
we should overrule Burns. R.C. 2151.23(H) specifically allows adult courts to
consider charges that were not bound over from juvenile court. The statute grants
the adult court to which the case is transferred jurisdiction “to hear and determine
the case in the same manner as if the case originally had been commenced in that
court, * * * including, but not limited to,” jurisdiction to accept a guilty or no-
contest plea or a verdict and to enter a judgment of conviction against the defendant
for the “offense that was the basis of the transfer of the case for criminal
prosecution, whether the conviction is for the same degree or a lesser degree of the
offense charged, for the commission of a lesser-included offense, or for the
commission of another offense that is different from the offense charged.”
(Emphasis added.) Id. An adult court is plainly not restricted to considering only
the offenses for which the juvenile court found probable cause.
{¶ 19} While the “rooted in the acts that were the subject of the juvenile
complaint” limitation from Burns is not found in the language of R.C. 2151.23(H),
that limitation is supported by the bindover scheme as a whole. A person who was
8
January Term, 2024
a juvenile when he committed a felony offense may be bound over to adult court
for acts for which the juvenile court found probable cause, but that bindover does
not establish that the juvenile may then be bound over for all future felony charges.
See State v. D.W., 133 Ohio St.3d 434, 2012-Ohio-4544, 978 N.E.2d 894, ¶ 44-45.
While a grand jury may return an indictment on any charges supported by the facts
submitted to it, the grand jury is implicitly precluded from returning additional
charges arising from a different course of conduct or an event that has not been
properly bound over by the juvenile court. See Burns at ¶ 13; see also State v.
Weaver, 6th Dist. Lucas No. L-18-1078, 2019-Ohio-2477, ¶ 14. Only charges that
are rooted in events that were considered and bound over by the juvenile court are
subject to being heard and determined by the adult court. Thus, we conclude that
even though our “rooted in” language in Burns does not track the language of R.C.
2151.23(H), that alone does not provide sufficient cause for us to overrule Burns.
{¶ 20} Moreover, since this court decided Burns, the General Assembly has
amended the statutes providing for discretionary and mandatory bindovers to adult
court. See 2022 Am.Sub.S.B. No. 288 (“S.B. 288”), effective April 4, 2023. Those
amendments do not affect the bindover in this case, which predated the amendments
under S.B. 288, but they support the conclusion that we need not overrule Burns.
Any further conclusions we make regarding pre-April 4, 2023 bindover
proceedings will apply to a shrinking number of cases and could create unnecessary
competing approaches to considering pre- and post-April 4, 2023 bindovers. The
General Assembly effectively codified our decision in Smith, 167 Ohio St.3d 423,
2022-Ohio-274, 194 N.E.3d 297, and it did not amend the language in
R.C. 2151.23(H) that supports our decision in Burns.
{¶ 21} For these reasons, stare decisis demands that we apply Burns in this
case.
9
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO
C. The tampering-with-evidence charge is rooted in acts that the juvenile
court bound over to the adult court
{¶ 22} In this case, we must determine whether the tampering-with-
evidence charge is rooted in the acts that resulted in the juvenile court’s finding of
probable cause for the offenses of murder and felonious assault and the firearm
specifications. We find that it is.
{¶ 23} “[A] case transferred from a juvenile court may result in new
indicted charges in the adult court when the new charges are rooted in the acts that
were the subject of the juvenile complaint but were not specifically named in the
individual acts transferred.” Burns, 170 Ohio St.3d 57, 2022-Ohio-4606, 208
N.E.3d 801, at ¶ 13. This includes new indicted charges that arise from a course of
conduct or an event that has been properly bound over by the juvenile court. Id. In
Burns, we determined that certain indicted charges that were not in the juvenile-
court complaint were rooted in the acts that were bound over by the juvenile court
because the indicted charges were based on conduct that was in the juvenile
complaint. Id.{¶ 24} The juvenile complaint against Williams focuses on the murder and
felonious-assault charges, alleging that Williams shot Leslie with a 9 mm handgun.
The complaint does not mention a tampering-with-evidence charge or Williams’s
sale of a gun two days after the murder. However, the evidence presented at the
probable-cause hearing supports a finding that the murder and the tampering-with-
evidence acts were connected, because it showed that the tampering-with-evidence
charge stemmed from Williams’s actions to avoid prosecution by getting rid of the
murder weapon.
{¶ 25} Williams shot Leslie with a 9 mm gun on April 2, 2020, killing her.
Two days later, Williams and Thompson discussed Williams’s selling to Thompson
a “dirty” 9 mm gun. After Williams sold the gun to Thompson, Williams asked
Thompson what he had done with the gun, because the “gun was hot.” Williams
10
January Term, 2024
later explained to Thompson that he had “put in some work with the gun” with
Heard and hoped that Thompson did not have it anymore. This evidence
demonstrates that the tampering-with-evidence charge arose from the murder that
was the basis of the juvenile complaint, because it shows that Williams sold the 9
mm gun that was used to commit the murder.
III. CONCLUSION
{¶ 26} Applying Burns, 170 Ohio St.3d 57, 2022-Ohio-4606, 208 N.E.3d
801, we hold that Williams was properly charged with and convicted of tampering
with evidence in adult court, because the charge was rooted in the acts for which
he was bound over from juvenile court. We reverse the judgment of the First
District Court of Appeals and remand the case to that court for it to address any
remaining assignments of error.
Judgment reversed
and cause remanded.
DONNELLY, STEWART, and BRUNNER, JJ., concur.
KENNEDY, C.J., concurs in judgment only, with an opinion joined by
DEWINE and WELBAUM, JJ.
JEFFREY M. WELBAUM, J., of the Second District Court of Appeals, sitting
for DETERS, J.
_________________
KENNEDY, C.J., concurring in judgment only.
{¶ 27} “[S]tare decisis isn’t supposed to be the art of methodically ignoring
what everyone knows to be true.” Ramos v. Louisiana, 590 U.S. __, __, 140 S.Ct.
1390, 1405, 206 L.Ed.2d 583 (2020). And although stare decisis is most
compelling when precedent involves statutory construction, Rocky River v. State
Emp. Relations Bd., 43 Ohio St.3d 1, 6, 539 N.E.2d 103 (1989), it has never been
an “ ‘inexorable command,’ ” id., quoting Washington v. W.C. Dawson & Co., 264
U.S. 219, 238, 44 S.Ct. 302, 68 L.Ed. 646 (1924) (Brandeis, J., dissenting). Instead,
11
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO
“stare decisis is a principle of policy and not a mechanical formula of adherence to
the latest decision, however recent and questionable.” Helvering v. Hallock, 309
U.S. 106, 119, 60 S.Ct. 444, 84 L.Ed. 604 (1940).
{¶ 28} When a court, under the guise of statutory construction, changes the
meaning of what the legislature enacted, the court goes beyond the judicial power
“to say what the law is,” Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137, 177, 2 L.Ed. 60 (1803),
and encroaches on the legislative power to write what the law is and amend the law.
And when a court adheres to an act of statutory misinterpretation by applying stare
decisis, the court “perpetuates a usurpation of the legislative power,” Gamble v.
United States, 587 U.S. 678, 718, 139 S.Ct. 1960, 204 L.Ed.2d 322 (2019)
(Thomas, J., concurring). If a court palpably misinterprets a statute, then stare
decisis does not stand in the way of correcting that error; rather, it is the duty of the
court to overturn bad precedent when necessary to give effect to the written law
that the legislature enacted.
{¶ 29} When it comes to our decisions in State v. Smith, 167 Ohio St.3d
423, 2022-Ohio-274, 194 N.E.3d 297, and State v. Burns, 170 Ohio St.3d 57, 2022-
Ohio-4606, 208 N.E.3d 801, we know what the law is and what it is not.
{¶ 30} Former R.C. 2151.23(H), 2019 Am.Sub.H.B. No. 166, which was in
effect when the offenses in this case occurred, provided that there was no limitation
on the jurisdiction of an adult court over a juvenile’s case following transfer of the
case from the juvenile court to the adult court for prosecution of the juvenile as an
adult: “The court to which the case is transferred for criminal prosecution * * * has
jurisdiction subsequent to the transfer to hear and determine the case in the same
manner as if the case originally had been commenced in that court.” (Emphasis
added.) That jurisdiction “includ[ed], but [was] not limited to, jurisdiction to * * *
enter a judgment of conviction * * *, whether the conviction is for the same degree
or a lesser degree of the offense charged, for the commission of a lesser-included
12
January Term, 2024
offense, or for the commission of another offense that is different from the offense
charged.” (Emphasis added.) Id.{¶ 31} Yet in Smith, this court held that the adult court to which the case is
transferred lacks jurisdiction over charges for which the juvenile court found no
probable cause to believe that the juvenile committed them. Smith at ¶ 44. And in
Burns, this court said that the adult court does have jurisdiction over charges that
were not alleged in the juvenile complaint, but only if those charges are “rooted in
the acts that were the subject of the juvenile complaint.” Burns at ¶ 13.
{¶ 32} Neither of the jurisdictional limitations from Smith and Burns can
reasonably be drawn from the plain language of the bindover statutes. And because
Smith and Burns so palpably depart from—and in fact distort—the unambiguous
statutory text, stare decisis is not an obstacle to correcting the erroneous conclusions
in those cases. I would overrule Smith and Burns today.
{¶ 33} Although the majority leaves Smith and Burns standing, it
nonetheless reaches the right result. Once the juvenile court transferred appellee
Timothy Williams’s case to the adult court, Williams could be indicted for and
convicted of the offense of tampering with evidence even though the acts
constituting that offense were not alleged in the juvenile complaint.
{¶ 34} I therefore concur in this court’s judgment reversing the judgment of
the First District Court of Appeals and remanding this matter to that court for it to
review any assignments of error that it did not address in the first instance.
I. Jurisdiction of Juvenile and Adult Courts Over Cases Involving Juveniles
{¶ 35} “Subject-matter jurisdiction refers to the constitutional or statutory
power of a court to adjudicate a particular class or type of case.” State v. Harper,
160 Ohio St.3d 480, 2020-Ohio-2913, 159 N.E.3d 248, ¶ 23. “ ‘A court’s subject-
matter jurisdiction is determined without regard to the rights of the individual
parties involved in a particular case.’ ” Id., quoting Bank of Am., N.A. v. Kuchta,
141 Ohio St.3d 75, 2014-Ohio-4275, 21 N.E.3d 1040, ¶ 19. “Rather, the focus is
13
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO
on whether the forum itself is competent to hear the controversy.” Id. “ ‘Once a
tribunal has jurisdiction over both the subject matter of an action and the parties to
it, “* * * the right to hear and determine is perfect; and the decision of every
question thereafter arising is but the exercise of the jurisdiction thus conferred
* * *.” ’ ” (Ellipses added in Pizza.) Pratts v. Hurley, 102 Ohio St.3d 81, 2004-
Ohio-1980, 806 N.E.2d 992, ¶ 12, quoting State ex rel. Pizza v. Rayford, 62 Ohio
St.3d 382, 384, 582 N.E.2d 992 (1992), quoting Sheldon’s Lessee v. Newton, 3 Ohio
St. 494, 499 (1854).
{¶ 36} Article IV, Section 4(B) of the Ohio Constitution provides that “[t]he
courts of common pleas and divisions thereof shall have such original jurisdiction
over all justiciable matters * * * as may be provided by law.” We have recognized
that the General Assembly has “exclusive authority * * * to allocate certain subject
matters to the exclusive original jurisdiction of specified divisions of the courts of
common pleas.” State v. Aalim, 150 Ohio St.3d 489, 2017-Ohio-2956, 83 N.E.3d
883, ¶ 2.
{¶ 37} The General Assembly exercised that authority when it vested in the
juvenile courts “exclusive original jurisdiction,” R.C. 2151.23(A)(1), over cases in
which a minor is alleged to be delinquent for committing an act that would be a
criminal offense if committed by an adult, see In re M.P., 124 Ohio St.3d 445,
2010-Ohio-599, 923 N.E.2d 584, ¶ 11. However, the legislature created “ ‘a narrow
exception to the general rule that juvenile courts have exclusive subject matter
jurisdiction over any case involving a child.’ ” Aalim at ¶ 2, quoting State v. Wilson,
73 Ohio St.3d 40, 43, 652 N.E.2d 196 (1995). If a child is 14 years old or older
when he or she is charged with an alleged act that would be a criminal offense if
committed by an adult, the case may, and sometimes must, be transferred to adult
court for prosecution. See R.C. 2151.23(H), 2152.10, and 2152.12.
{¶ 38} Effective April 4, 2023, the General Assembly amended the statutes
providing for discretionary and mandatory bindovers to adult court. See 2022
14
January Term, 2024
Am.Sub.S.B. No. 288. Those amendments do not impact the bindover in this case,
which predated the amendments enacted by S.B. 288.
{¶ 39} At the time Williams committed his offenses in this case and at the
time of the bindover, the version of R.C. 2152.12(A)(1)(a)(i) in effect provided:
After a complaint has been filed alleging that a child is a
delinquent child for committing an act that would be aggravated
murder, murder, attempted aggravated murder, or attempted murder
if committed by an adult, the juvenile court at a hearing shall transfer
the case if * * * [t]he child was sixteen or seventeen years of age at
the time of the act charged and there is probable cause to believe
that the child committed the act charged.
(Emphasis added.) Former R.C. 2152.12(A)(1)(a), 2016 Sub.H.B. No. 158.
{¶ 40} Former R.C. 2151.23(H), 2019 Am.Sub.H.B. No. 166, stated that
except as provided in R.C. 2152.121, after a case was transferred from juvenile
court to adult court for criminal prosecution, the juvenile court lacked subject-
matter jurisdiction to hear or determine the case. Instead, “[t]he court to which the
case [was] transferred for criminal prosecution * * * ha[d] jurisdiction subsequent
to the transfer to hear and determine the case in the same manner as if the case
originally had been commenced in that court.” Former R.C. 2151.23(H), 2019
Am.Sub.H.B. No. 166. Former R.C. 2151.23(H) specified that the adult court had
subject-matter jurisdiction to accept a plea or a verdict and to enter a judgment of
conviction “for the commission of the offense that was the basis of the transfer of
the case for criminal prosecution, whether the conviction is for the same degree or
a lesser degree of the offense charged, for the commission of a lesser-included
offense, or for the commission of another offense that is different from the offense
charged.”
15
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO
{¶ 41} So once a juvenile’s case was transferred to adult court, the adult
court was the proper forum for that case and had subject-matter jurisdiction over
the case, including charges that were not alleged in the juvenile-court complaint.
Any error in the adult court’s adjudication of the case after the transfer involved an
error in the exercise of jurisdiction in the particular case, not a defect in the court’s
subject-matter jurisdiction.
II. Smith and Burns
{¶ 42} We addressed the bindover statutes recently in Smith, 167 Ohio St.3d
423, 2022-Ohio-274, 194 N.E.3d 297, and Burns, 170 Ohio St.3d 57, 2022-Ohio-
4606, 208 N.E.3d 801. In Smith, this court stated that “a juvenile court may transfer
a case or a matter to adult court, but the adult court’s jurisdiction is limited to the
acts charged for which probable cause was found.” Smith at ¶ 29. We held that
“[i]n the absence of a juvenile court’s finding probable cause * * *, no adult court
has jurisdiction over acts that were charged in but not bound over by the juvenile
court.” Id. at ¶ 44.
{¶ 43} But in Burns, this court backtracked from its holding in Smith and
clarified that “an adult court is not necessarily limited to considering only the
specific acts bound over from the juvenile court.” Burns at ¶ 12. Rather, “a case
transferred from a juvenile court may result in new indicted charges in the adult
court when the new charges are rooted in the acts that were the subject of the
juvenile complaint but were not specifically named in the individual acts
transferred.” Id. at ¶ 13. This court concluded in Burns that the absence of
probable-cause findings by the juvenile court did not preclude the adult court from
exercising jurisdiction over charges that are based on conduct that was alleged in
the juvenile-court complaint, id.; however, this court held that the adult court cannot
exercise jurisdiction over charges if they were included in the juvenile complaint
but were found by the juvenile court not to be supported by probable cause, id. at
¶ 9-10.
16
January Term, 2024
{¶ 44} The problem is that this court departed from the plain language of
the then-applicable bindover statutes when it held in Smith and reiterated in Burns
that a juvenile court’s finding that a charge is not supported by probable cause is a
jurisdictional bar to prosecution in adult court. See Smith at ¶ 44; Burns at ¶ 8. And
this court in Burns added words to former R.C. 2151.23(H) in holding that “new
indicted charges in the adult court” are permitted only “when the new charges are
rooted in the acts that were the subject of the juvenile complaint.” (Emphasis
added.) Burns at ¶ 13.
{¶ 45} I recognize that “the doctrine of stare decisis dictates adherence to
prior judicial decisions,” Harper, 160 Ohio St.3d 480, 2020-Ohio-2913, 159
N.E.3d 248, at ¶ 38. And it has been said that stare decisis is most compelling
when, as here, the precedent involves statutory construction; courts often justify
their “extraordinary reluctance to overturn statute-based precedents” by citing the
legislature’s prerogative “to correct erroneous interpretations of legislative intent,”
Rocky River, 43 Ohio St.3d at 6, 539 N.E.2d 103.
{¶ 46} Yet, stare decisis is ultimately a judicial policy that “is an exception
to textualism (as it is to any theory of interpretation) born not of logic but of
necessity.” Scalia & Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 414
(2012). Its “function ‘is to make us say that what is false under proper analysis
must nonetheless be held to be true, all in the interest of stability.’ ” Id. at 413,
quoting Scalia, A Matter of Interpretation: Federal Courts and the Law 139 (1997).
And it “reflects a judgment ‘that “in most matters it is more important that the
applicable rule of law be settled than that it be settled right.” ’ ” Knick v. Scott,
Pennsylvania, 588 U.S. 180, 202, 139 S.Ct. 2162, 204 L.Ed.2d 558 (2019), quoting
Agostini v. Felton, 521 U.S. 203, 235, 117 S.Ct. 1997, 138 L.Ed.2d 391 (1997),
quoting Burnet v. Coronado Oil & Gas Co., 285 U.S. 393, 406, 52 S.Ct. 443, 76
L.Ed. 815 (1932) (Brandeis, J., dissenting).
17
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO
{¶ 47} The precondition for application of this judicial policy born not of
logic but of necessity, then, is that the precedent misinterpreted the statutory text
and got the law wrong—“stare decisis has consequence only to the extent it sustains
incorrect decisions; correct judgments have no need for that principle to prop them
up,” Kimble v. Marvel Entertainment, L.L.C., 576 U.S. 446, 455, 135 S.Ct. 2401,
192 L.Ed.2d 463 (2015). But “[the judicial power] is the power ‘to say what the
law is,’ not the power to change it.” James B. Beam Distilling Co. v. Georgia, 501
U.S. 529, 549, 111 S.Ct. 2439, 2451, 115 L.Ed.2d 481 (1991) (Scalia, J., concurring
in the judgment), quoting Marbury, 5 U.S. at 177, 2 L.Ed. 60. That is, a court lacks
the power to rewrite a statute through statutory misinterpretation.
{¶ 48} For this reason, even when precedent involves statutory
construction, application of stare decisis is not an “ ‘inexorable command,’ ” Rocky
River, 43 Ohio St.3d at 6, 539 N.E.2d 103, quoting W.C. Dawson & Co., 264 U.S.
at 238, 44 S.Ct. 302, 68 L.Ed. 646 (Brandeis, J., dissenting). A clearly erroneous
interpretation of a statute should not remain the law simply because it was earlier
in time. Instead, “[a] demonstrably incorrect judicial decision * * * is tantamount
to making law, and adhering to it * * * perpetuates a usurpation of the legislative
power.” (Emphasis sic.) Gamble, 587 U.S. at 718, 139 S.Ct. 1960, 204 L.Ed.2d
322 (Thomas, J., concurring). In such a case, the court should correct the error.
{¶ 49} In seeking to uphold the judicial policies that counsel in favor of
retaining a case as precedent notwithstanding the fact that the case was wrongly
decided, this court established the test in Westfield Ins. Co. v. Galatis, 100 Ohio
St.3d 216, 2003-Ohio-5849, 797 N.E.2d 1256. That test provides that a prior
decision of this court “may be overruled where (1) the decision was wrongly
decided at that time, or changes in circumstances no longer justify continued
adherence to the decision, (2) the decision defies practical workability, and
(3) abandoning the precedent would not create an undue hardship for those who
have relied upon it.” Id. at ¶ 48.
18
January Term, 2024
{¶ 50} I am not convinced that the Galatis test properly balances the
competing priorities—textual versus pragmatic—that come into play when
deciding to retain precedent. And applying that test might cause this court to uphold
a decision that clearly usurped the legislature’s authority to write the law, simply
because this court’s misconstruction of a statute is “workab[le],” id.
{¶ 51} But it is not necessary to map out the precise contours of stare decisis
now. This is a criminal case, and this court has overruled criminal-law precedent
in the past without being controlled by the Galatis test. See State v. Henderson,
161 Ohio St.3d 285, 2020-Ohio-4784, 162 N.E.3d 776, ¶ 30; id. at ¶ 85 (Kennedy,
J., concurring in judgment only) (citing cases). As I have explained:
The protection of individual liberty, which is at stake in a
criminal proceeding, should never depend on a party’s ability to
prove that the three prongs of the Galatis test have been met. We
should not uphold a wrongly decided case simply because a criminal
defendant is unable to establish that an erroneous holding has
become unworkable and no one (or some undefined number of
people) has relied on it. Our precedent in criminal cases can chill
the behavior of law-abiding Ohioans while sometimes literally
rising to a matter of life or death. If a decision in a criminal case is
wrong, it should be overruled without resort to a binding test.
Id. at ¶ 86 (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment only). Therefore, to overrule Smith
and Burns, it is enough to show that they were wrongly decided.
{¶ 52} Smith’s holding that an adult court lacks jurisdiction over charges
for which the juvenile court found no probable cause misstated the law. Former
R.C. 2152.12(A)(1)(a), 2016 Sub.H.B. No. 158 made clear that the “case” was
transferred from the juvenile court to the adult court—not just the charges for which
19
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO
the juvenile court found probable cause. Similarly, former R.C. 2152.12(I), 2016
Sub.H.B. No. 158, provided that a “transfer abates the jurisdiction of the juvenile
court with respect to the delinquent acts alleged in the complaint, and, upon the
transfer, all further proceedings pertaining to the act charged shall be discontinued
in the juvenile court, and the case then shall be within the jurisdiction of the court
to which it is transferred as described in [R.C. 2151.23(H)].” (Emphasis added.)
Former R.C. 2151.23(H), 2019 Am.Sub.H.B. No. 166, stated that “[t]he court to
which the case is transferred for criminal prosecution pursuant to [R.C. 2152.12]
has jurisdiction subsequent to the transfer to hear and determine the case in the
same manner as if the case originally had been commenced in that court.”
(Emphasis added.) It is the case that was the focus of the bindover statutes.
{¶ 53} “Case” means a “civil or criminal proceeding, action, suit, or
controversy.” Black’s Law Dictionary 266 (11th Ed.2019). “The word ‘action’ has
typically been understood to refer to the entire legal proceeding, regardless of how
many claims or charges are included in the proceeding. This understanding is
consistent with common parlance. When we say that someone pursued a legal
action, we are talking about the entire proceeding, not some discrete part of the
proceeding.” (Citations omitted.) State v. Craig, 159 Ohio St.3d 398, 2020-Ohio-
455, 151 N.E.3d 574, ¶ 13. Similarly, in common parlance, a criminal “case”
means all the charges that arose from a series of related events. In this context, the
“case” in former R.C. 2151.23, 2019 Am.Sub.H.B. No. 166, included all the acts
that were charged in the juvenile complaint, and the “case” even included acts for
which the juvenile court made a finding of no probable cause.
{¶ 54} Contrary to this court’s contention in Smith, 167 Ohio St.3d 423,
2022-Ohio-274, 194 N.E.3d 297, at ¶ 44, former R.C. 2152.12(I), 2016 Sub.H.B.
No. 158, does not say that the jurisdiction of the juvenile court abates only as to the
acts charged for which the juvenile court finds probable cause. Instead, that statute
provided that upon transfer to the adult court, the jurisdiction of the juvenile court
20
January Term, 2024
abated regarding all the delinquent acts alleged in the complaint. And former R.C.
2151.23(H), 2019 Am.Sub.H.B. No. 166, clarified that after a juvenile’s case was
bound over to adult court, the juvenile could be charged with and convicted of any
offense—even one that was different from the offenses charged in the juvenile
complaint. The adult court’s jurisdiction “includ[ed], but [was] not limited to,
jurisdiction to * * * enter a judgment of conviction * * *, whether the conviction is
for the same degree or a lesser degree of the offense charged, for the commission
of a lesser-included offense, or for the commission of another offense that is
different from the offense charged.” (Emphasis added.) Id.{¶ 55} Smith’s holding, which was reaffirmed in Burns, 170 Ohio St.3d 57,
2022-Ohio-4606, 208 N.E.3d 801, at ¶ 10, that an adult court cannot exercise
jurisdiction over charges that have been bound over from juvenile court for which
the juvenile court made a finding of no probable cause is simply wrong, and because
it is wrong, it should be overruled.
{¶ 56} The language in Burns stating that “a case transferred from a juvenile
court may result in new indicted charges in the adult court when the new charges
are rooted in the acts that were the subject of the juvenile complaint but were not
specifically named in the individual acts transferred,” id. at ¶ 13, rewrites the law.
Although this court in Burns purported to rely on former R.C. 2151.23(H), that
provision does not contain any language limiting new indicted charges to those that
are “rooted in” the acts alleged in the juvenile complaint.
{¶ 57} Rather, former R.C. 2151.23(H) provided that when a juvenile’s
case was transferred to adult court for prosecution, the adult court had subject-
matter jurisdiction to hear and determine the case and to convict the juvenile “for
the commission of the offense that was the basis of the transfer of the case” or “for
the commission of another offense that is different from the offense charged.”
Under the plain words of the statute, then, the adult court could enter a conviction
for an offense that was different from the offense that was the basis of the transfer
21
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO
to adult court, including an offense that was not rooted in the acts that were the
subject of the juvenile complaint. Burns’s “rooted in” standard is inconsistent with
the language of former—and current—R.C. 2151.23(H), and it should be overruled
as well.
{¶ 58} But even if it were not enough that the criminal-law precedent
established in Smith and Burns is wrong, the traditional considerations for deciding
whether to abandon precedent weigh heavily in favor of overruling those cases.
These considerations include the age of the precedent, the precedent’s workability,
whether those who have relied on the precedent have any justifiable reliance
interests, see Ramos, __ U.S. at __, 140 S.Ct. at 1414, 206 L.Ed.2d 583(Kavanaugh, J., concurring in part), whether the precedent has been generally
accepted by society, and whether the precedent puts judges in the position of
making policy judgment calls better suited for other officials, Scalia & Garner,
Reading Law at 412. These considerations weigh in favor of overruling Smith and
Burns.
{¶ 59} Smith and Burns are recent decisions that have not had time to
receive general acceptance by society, and “[t]he freshness of error not only
deprives it of the respect to which long-established practice is entitled, but also
counsels that the opportunity of correction be seized at once, before state and
federal laws and practices have been adjusted to embody it,” South Carolina v.
Gathers, 490 U.S. 805, 824, 109 S.Ct. 2207, 104 L.Ed.2d 876 (1989) (Scalia, J.,
dissenting). Overruling Smith and Burns now and simply following the plain
language of the bindover statutes would provide a more workable, bright-line rule
that would not require judgment calls regarding whether an adult-court charge is
sufficiently rooted in the acts alleged in the juvenile complaint so as to give the
adult court jurisdiction. And because this court’s holdings in Smith and Burns can
amount to jurisdictional bars, if prosecutors and adult-court judges determine
incorrectly that charges may be prosecuted in adult court, the consequence is that
22
January Term, 2024
all the time and resources put into any adult-court proceedings on those charges are
wasted. Lastly, overruling Smith and Burns would not affect any reliance interests.
No juvenile would base his or her decision to commit offenses on the possibility
that a juvenile-court judge would find no probable cause regarding the offenses or
that a prosecutor would allege in the juvenile complaint some but not all of the
offenses for which the state would seek to prosecute the juvenile as an adult.
{¶ 60} Consequently, I would overrule Smith and Burns.
III. Applying the Correct Law to the Facts of This Case
{¶ 61} Applying former R.C. 2151.23(H) here demonstrates that the First
District erred in determining that the adult court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction
to convict Williams of tampering with evidence. The state had filed a juvenile
complaint alleging that Williams was a delinquent child for committing acts that
would be murder and felonious assault if committed by an adult, and the juvenile
court found probable cause to believe that he had committed those acts. After the
juvenile court transferred Williams’s case to adult court and the grand jury indicted
him for murder, felonious assault, and tampering with evidence, the adult court had
jurisdiction to convict him of each of those offenses. It is of no import that the
juvenile complaint did not allege that Williams was a delinquent child for
committing acts that would be tampering with evidence if committed by an adult,
because former R.C. 2151.23(H) permitted the adult court to convict him of
offenses different from those that were specifically charged in the juvenile
complaint.
{¶ 62} Consequently, the court of appeals erred in holding that the adult
court lacked jurisdiction to convict Williams of tampering with evidence.
IV. Conclusion
{¶ 63} Under the bindover statutes in effect prior to the amendments in
2022 Am.Sub.S.B. No. 288, when a juvenile’s case was transferred from juvenile
court for prosecution in adult court, the adult court had subject-matter jurisdiction
23
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO
to convict the juvenile of the offense that was the basis of the transfer of the case
or of another offense that was different from the offense that was charged in the
juvenile complaint. So, although the juvenile complaint in this case did not charge
Williams with acts that would be tampering with evidence if committed by an adult,
the adult court had jurisdiction to convict him of that offense.
{¶ 64} For these reasons, I concur in this court’s judgment reversing the
judgment of the First District Court of Appeals and remanding this matter to that
court for it to review any assignments of error that it did not consider in the first
instance.
DEWINE and WELBAUM, JJ., concur in the foregoing opinion.
_________________
Dave Yost, Attorney General, Michael J. Hendershot, Chief Deputy
Solicitor General, and Mathura J. Sridharan, Deputy Solicitor General; and Melissa
A. Powers, Hamilton County Prosecuting Attorney, and Judith Anton Lapp,
Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellant.
Elizabeth R. Miller, Ohio Public Defender, and Lauren Hammersmith and
Victoria Ferry, Assistant Public Defenders, for appellee.
Michael C. O’Malley, Cuyahoga County Prosecuting Attorney, and Daniel
T. Van and Gregory Ochocki, Assistant Prosecuting Attorneys, urging reversal for
amicus curiae, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office.
_________________
24