State v. Kernall

Citations

• 2019 Ohio 3070

Syllabus

COMMUNITY CONTROL – REVOCATION – SENTENCING: The trial court did not err in sentencing defendant to a 12-month term of imprisonment for violating his community-control sanction where the sentence was within the range authorized for the underlying fifth-degree felony of trafficking in cocaine and it did not exceed the term specified by the trial court at the original sentencing hearing. For purposes of R.C. 2929.15(B)(1)(c), a \technical violation\ of a community-control sanction is a violation of any requirement which merely facilitates community-control supervision. An offender's significant failure to comply with any substantive rehabilitative community-control requirement that was specifically-tailored to the offender's underlying conduct is a nontechnical community-control violation. It is also a nontechnical community-control violation if the offender engages in a pattern of conduct that demonstrates a failure to comply with the community-control sanction as a whole. The trial court did not err in refusing to apply the 90-day prison-term limitation under R.C. 2929.15(B)(1)(c)(i), because defendant's community-control violations—never attending substance-abuse treatment, failing to report to the probation department on two separate occasions, failing to show proof of employment verification, and getting five new misdemeanor capiases—amounted to nontechnical violations of his community control. The trial court did not commit plain error in considering additional violations of community control without prior written notice to defendant where defendant admitted to four other violations of community control.