In re R.B.

174 N.E.3d 480

IN RE: R.B.

NOS. C-170622

C-170623

Court of Appeals of Ohio, First District, Hamilton County.

Date of Judgment Entry on Appeal: June 25, 2021

Joseph T. Deters, Hamilton County Prosecuting Attorney, and Paula E. Adams, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for Plaintiff-Appellee State of Ohio.

Raymond T. Faller, Hamilton County Public Defender, and Jessica Moss, Assistant Public Defender, for Defendant-Appellant R.B.

OPINION.

Bergeron, Judge.

{¶1} In this remand of a juvenile case from the Ohio Supreme Court, we address four assignments of error that we previously deemed moot. Defendant-appellant R.B. challenges the trial court's decision to perpetuate his status as a Tier I juvenile-offender registrant on jurisdictional, procedural, and substantive grounds. After a thorough review of the record and extant authorities, we find R.B.’s arguments unavailing and affirm the judgments of the juvenile court.

I.

{¶2} These appeals are the product of a winding procedural posture that stretches back nearly a decade. In October 2011, R.B. (then 14 years old) admitted in juvenile court to committing sexual-related acts with his two four-year-old cousins, acts which if committed by an adult would have constituted two counts of gross sexual imposition (felonies of the fourth degree). Pursuant to two December 2, 2011 orders and the addendum to one of those orders, R.B. was committed to the Department of

[174 N.E.3d 570]

Youth Services ("DYS") until age 21. The court suspended R.B.’s commitment, placed him probation, and ordered him to complete a residential treatment program at Altercrest. Notably, the court suspended R.B.’s commitment on the express condition that he "obey all laws and orders of this Court."

{¶3} With R.B.’s disposition settled, the juvenile court proceeded to classification. At a hearing on January 13, 2012, the magistrate explained on the record that the parties had agreed that R.B. would be classified as a Tier I juvenile-offender registrant. The parties concurred with the magistrate's pronouncement—also on the record—and the magistrate issued a decision in each case that same day. Despite the apparent consensus on a Tier I classification, the body of both decisions erroneously reflected a Tier III sex-offender classification. The typographical error was remedied by a disclaimer at the end of each entry, "THIS IS A TIER I CLASSIFICATION—NOT TIER III," and both entries contain R.C. 2152.84 and 2152.85 modification or termination language. The court notified R.B. of his Tier I registration duties, and both R.B. and his mother signed the notice of registration duties. They lodged no objection to or appeal from the January 2012 decisions.

{¶4} Initially, R.B. made considerable progress through his disposition. He completed each of the treatment requirements ordered by the court, received favorable reviews from service providers, and was discharged from his placement at Altercrest in February 2013. Several months later—on July 29, 2013—the juvenile court rewarded R.B.’s progress by releasing him from "official probation" and placing him on nonreporting probation with monitored time. Nonetheless, the magistrate denied his 2014 application to seal his record, explaining R.B.’s obligation to register until 2022 unless reclassified.

{¶5} Unfortunately, R.B.’s successful compliance with the mandates of his disposition did not last. In November 2015, R.B. was indicted in the Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas for failing to register. He pleaded no contest and was convicted. On appeal from this conviction, R.B. challenged the juvenile court's January 13, 2012 order requiring him to register. State v. Buttery , 1st Dist. Hamilton No. C-160609, 2017-Ohio-9113, 2017 WL 6508864. He attacked the validity of the classification order for several reasons, including: "[1] the trial court signed the magistrate's decision, but did not enter its own judgment as required by Juv.R. 40(D)(4)(e) [,] * * * [2] the juvenile court judge's adoption of the magistrate's decisions was not date-stamped or file-stamped and was not filed with the clerk of courts," and "[3] the magistrate's April 28, 2015 entries improperly increased his classification from a Tier I offender to a Tier III offender." Id. at ¶ 6, 8. We disagreed, upholding the validity of the juvenile court's January 2012 classification order and explaining that the Tier III designation simply reflected a typographical error. Id. at ¶ 7, 8. We also rejected R.B.’s attack on his failure-to-register conviction as wrongfully premised on a juvenile adjudication, a holding that the Ohio Supreme Court subsequently affirmed. See State v. Buttery , 162 Ohio St.3d 10, 2020-Ohio-2998, 164 N.E.3d 294 (conviction for failing to register where the duty to register arose from a juvenile adjudication did not violate due process or the right to a jury trial).

{¶6} As R.B.’s failure-to-register conviction wound its way to up to Ohio's highest court, the state moved to set a completion-of-disposition hearing in this case. R.B. objected, asserting that the juvenile court lacked jurisdiction to conduct a completion-of-disposition

[174 N.E.3d 571]

hearing. Zeroing in on the timing requirements of R.C. 2152.84, R.B. insisted that it was too late for the juvenile court to hold the hearing, because it should have been held when he completed his court-ordered treatment; in the alternative, he argued that the hearing was premature, because he had not yet completed his disposition. The juvenile court overruled R.B.’s objection, satisfying itself that it had the requisite jurisdiction. The magistrate held the completion-of-disposition hearing and entered decisions continuing R.B.’s Tier I classification; R.B. filed objections.

{¶7} Finally, on July 20, 2017, R.B. turned 21 years of age. The juvenile court convened a hearing on R.B.’s objections on September 19, 2017, two months after his birthday. About a month after the hearing, the juvenile court denied R.B.’s objections and adopted the magistrate's decisions continuing R.B.’s Tier I classification. R.B. appealed, raising four assignments of error.

{¶8} On appeal, this court vacated R.B.’s tier classification and determined that he had no duty to register. We reasoned that the juvenile court lacked jurisdiction to enter an order continuing R.B.’s tier classification after he turned 21 and his disposition, by its own terms, concluded. In re R.B. , 1st Dist. Hamilton Nos. C-170622 and C-170623, 2019-Ohio-3298, 2019 WL 3854508, reversed and remanded, 162 Ohio St.3d 281, 2020-Ohio-5476, 165 N.E.3d 288. Because we vacated R.B.’s tier classification, we deemed his pending assignments of error moot and declined to address them.

{¶9} But the Supreme Court of Ohio reversed our decision, holding that the juvenile court did not relinquish jurisdiction to enter an order under R.C. 2152.84 continuing R.B.’s Tier I classification, that the statutory directive that the hearing be held upon the completion of disposition was not a jurisdictional command, and that the hearing could be held within a reasonable time after the juvenile completed his disposition. In re R.B. , 162 Ohio St.3d 281, 2020-Ohio-5476, 165 N.E.3d 288. It remanded the case to us for consideration of the four assignments of error we deemed moot, and we permitted the parties to file supplemental briefs. Id. at ¶ 49.

II.

{¶10} R.B.’s assignments of error implicate a variety of issues, ranging from broad constitutional challenges to abuse-of-discretion review of his continued classification. Each assignment of error operates within the complex statutory framework for juvenile dispositions and the prolonged, winding record of this case. In the interest of clarity for the parties, we provide a short summary before embarking on our full analysis.

{¶11} The record shows that when R.B.’s classification was originally imposed, all parties agreed that a Tier I classification was appropriate. The juvenile court entered its classification orders in a timely manner, roughly a month after R.B.’s disposition. R.B. did not object to the classification orders at the time. But R.B. did challenge his Tier I classification as void in a previous case; we ruled against him and he cannot revive those arguments now, even when he recasts them in a different light. As explained more fully below, we reiterate our previous holding that R.B.’s Tier I classification was valid.

{¶12} R.B. also raises several innovative arguments that attack the juvenile court's jurisdiction to hold his end-of-disposition hearing in 2017. But these arguments operate from the premise that R.B.’s disposition concluded (or should have concluded) when the juvenile court released him from "official probation" in 2013. We disagree.

[174 N.E.3d 572]

R.B.’s disposition was always set to conclude on his 21st birthday in 2017. Although his original dispositional orders did not include the phrase "monitored time," they effectively imposed monitored time by requiring R.B. to obey "all laws and orders of this Court." A juvenile court has wide latitude when fashioning a community-control disposition, and it properly placed R.B. on notice of the requirements of his disposition from the outset. The gap between the conclusion of R.B.’s treatment in 2013 and the end of his disposition in 2017 was an appropriate byproduct of the court's gradual loosening of R.B.’s community-control restrictions, not a violation of due process.

{¶13} Finally, R.B. contends that the juvenile court abused its discretion when it decided at his end-of-disposition hearing to continue his Tier I classification. We agree with R.B. that several of the statutory factors weigh in his favor: his offenses occurred in the context of an extremely troubled home life; he made admirable progress through the beginning stages of his disposition and lowered his risk to re-offend; and he did not commit any additional sex offense. But the state pointed to its own countervailing evidence, including R.B.’s...