State v. Champion

In State v. Champion, 106 Ohio St.3d 120, 2005 Ohio 4098, 832 N.E.2d 718, the defendant was sentenced in May, 1978, to an indefinite sentence of from two to five years for Gross Sexual Imposition. That sentence was ordered to be served concurrently with two other sentences for offenses that were not sexually oriented. The defendant was paroled in 1989. Thereafter, he was convicted of another crime, not identified as having been sexually oriented, and went to prison. He was released again, but committed another crime not identified as sexually oriented, was imprisoned for that crime, and later released. Because the prison term for the defendant's original, sexually oriented offense was ordered to be served concurrently, the Supreme Court of Ohio reasoned that: "The language in the statute says released 'from the prison term,' not released from any prison term, as the state would have it. The GSI prison sentence had been completed, at the very latest, in 1983 (assuming the maximum sentence of five years). Champion could not, therefore, have been released from prison on or after July 1, 1997, on his GSI conviction. "The state specifically acknowledged during the motion-to-dismiss hearing that Champion 'was returned to prison on a different type of imprisonment, not on the GSI.' There appears to be no evidence that he was released from prison on a sexually oriented offense after July 1, 1997." Id., at 122, PP 9-10.