Ohio Supreme Court upholds sex offender registration laws, rejecting cruel and unusual punishment argument

COLUMBUS, Ohio — State laws requiring that certain sex offenders register with local authorities and verify their address every six months for 25 years do not constitute cruel and unusual punishment, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

The case involved a 21-year-old defendant, Travis Blankenship, who pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual conduct with a minor between 13 and 16 years old, a fourth-degree felony. He challenged the constitutionality of the sentence requirement that he register with the local sheriff and report every six months for the next 25 years.

But in a 5-2 decision, the court disagreed.

“The General Assembly has seen fit to impose registration sanctions in cases involving sex offenses to protect the public. Indeed, such sanctions now are the norm,” Justice Judith Ann Lanzinger wrote in the majority opinion. “They cannot be said to be shocking to the sense of justice of the community.”

The case, from Clark County, stemmed from a relationship Blankenship had with a 15-year-old girl. The two met on a social media website and disclosed their ages to each other. Their relationship included sex that was described as consensual.

Under Ohio law, though, the girl would have had to be at least 16 for that consent to be valid. And because the defendant was more than four years older than the girl, he was charged with a Tier II level sex offense.

Blankenship was sentenced to five years of community control with conditions, including a six-month jail sentence, which was suspended after he served 12 days. He was designated a Tier II sex offender/child-victim offender and required to register with the sheriff.

He challenged the sex-offender-registration and address-verification requirements as cruel and unusual punishment under the U.S. and Ohio constitutions. He appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court after an appellate court upheld his sentence.

In her ruling, Lanzinger considered Blankenship’s culpability in the crime: He, an adult, knew the age of the girl and twice engaged in sex with her. He also contacted her in violation of  a court order before he was sentenced.

The girl’s consent was not a factor, she wrote.

“[W]e cannot say that the state has no interest in protecting minors who may otherwise ‘consent’ to sexual activity,” she wrote. “A child under 16 is simply not legally capable of consent to sexual conduct with an adult.”

And the registration requirements do not rise to a level so extreme that they are “grossly disproportionate to the crime or shocking to a reasonable person” needed to constitute cruel and unusual punishment, she wrote.

Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor and Justice Judith L. French joined Lanzinger in the ruling. Justice Terrence O’Donnell, joined by Justice Sharon L. Kennedy concurred.

Justices Paul E. Pfeifer and William M. O’Neill both dissented.

Pfeifer argued that the sentence didn’t fit the crime. He noted that an offender released after 12 days in jail faces the same reporting requirement as someone sentenced to 18 years in prison.

O’Neill objected to what he referred to as the “one size fits all” approach that does not allow a sentencing judge any discretion.

“When sex offenders present a real threat to the public, the law indeed deters further crime, punishes the offender, and provides information the public can use to protect itself from offenders of the worst sort,” he wrote. “However, this is not one of those cases. And yet this trial court was required to impose the penalty as prescribed.”

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