Steve Palmer [00:00:00]:

All right, lawyer talk off the record. On the air today, we are addressing a question. I got, and I didn't get this in the socials, and I could lie to you and say I got it on my way. I didn't. It came out upstairs in my law practice. I had a question come up from a client, or a potential client, rather, and he wanted to know, can. Can my. Can a prison sentence, I think probably for a loved one, I think he was calling, be extended.

Steve Palmer [00:00:23]:

In other words, the client, the person's already gone to prison for a certain period of time, and this individual wanted to know if that prison sentence could be extended or lengthened more time than what the judge initially ordered. And it's a good question. The problem with this one is it's going to have different application, probably different jurisdictions or states. But we'll talk about Ohio for a second. And this is something called Reagan Toks. Who the heck is Reagan Toks? And what's the history of this? First, before we even get there, let me tell you this. I hate laws that are named after people. They're almost always bad.

Steve Palmer [00:00:57]:

But I understand Reagan look. But there's always a reason behind it, too. And I'm not making light of Reagan Tokes because there's some serious history here where somebody was released from prison.

Troy Henricksen [00:01:11]:

It was an inmate who was, I think, in there for either assault or rape. And he was about to get out, and the corrections institution was like, hey, he's a big trouble here.

Steve Palmer [00:01:22]:

Lots has been a terrible inmate.

Troy Henricksen [00:01:24]:

And then the family of the victim initially was like, hey, like, this guy is going to be a problem.

Steve Palmer [00:01:28]:

Not. Not Reagan Toast, but the victim of the original crime.

Troy Henricksen [00:01:30]:

Yeah, the victim of the original crime is like, hey, this guy's gonna be a danger if he goes back out. There was like multiple, like, different people and different requests saying, hey, this guy's in problem. The issue is, like, what are they gonna do? Just immediately extend them. So the guy gets out of prison. And then in 2017, I think Reagan Tokes is leaving a bar on campus, Ohio State, or in the short north, somewhere around there, this guy, this guy that was warned about, grabs her, kidnaps her, rapes her, kills her and dumps her body and grips.

Steve Palmer [00:01:59]:

Horrific crime.

Troy Henricksen [00:02:00]:

Like, absolute. The worst thing possible.

Steve Palmer [00:02:01]:

Exactly what the parole or the prison people were saying was going to happen happened. Yeah, it was like the unicorn case.

Troy Henricksen [00:02:07]:

Yeah.

Steve Palmer [00:02:08]:

So we've got this no good, rotten SOB prisoner. He's done nothing to rehabilitate. To rehabilitate himself. In fact, quite the opposite. The guy's been nothing but trouble in here. He's constant violations, infractions. We don't have any way to keep him in, but shame on you for letting us release him. And then what happens? Exactly what they predicted.

Steve Palmer [00:02:30]:

And they got to use those fateful words. I hate to say I told you so. And Reagan Tokes lost her life. So I make jokes of laws named after people, but this was horrific. I remember when this happened. It was absolutely awful.

Troy Henricksen [00:02:42]:

I would say this is debatably the best named law. I do say that if I had to give all the named laws to one, I always said, this one. I understand.

Steve Palmer [00:02:50]:

So what happens? The Ohio General assembly convenes and says, we gotta do something about this. And what do they do?

Troy Henricksen [00:02:56]:

They make the Reagan Tokes Act.

Steve Palmer [00:02:58]:

The Reagan Tokes act, which basically now, under Ohio law, gives. When you get sentenced not for all crimes, but for typical or crimes of violence, felony crimes of violence, and I'm oversimplifying it because it's boring to get into the weeds. But for felony crimes of violence, you're not gonna get just like a eight year sentence. It's going to be something like eight to 11 year sentence, meaning after eight years, the presumption is the individual's let out of prison. But the Ohio Adult Parole Authority, or the prison people, we'll call it, it's really. The parole authority reviews it, reviews the inmate's record and can make recommendations and decide to keep the inmate longer.

Troy Henricksen [00:03:43]:

All right.

Steve Palmer [00:03:44]:

It always sounds good in theory.

Troy Henricksen [00:03:45]:

Yeah. It's an indefinite sentence. And it's not forever either. And at least for Reagan Tokes, it's the maximum. They can hold you still on the extension is half of what your initial sentence was. So if you get sentenced to eight years, like you're saying they can hold you for another four.

Steve Palmer [00:03:59]:

Another four.

Troy Henricksen [00:03:59]:

Right. Okay. So it's not forever. It's never like an endless little thing.

Steve Palmer [00:04:03]:

But at some point and look, it sounds good and had this have happened, Reagan Tooks would be alive.

Troy Henricksen [00:04:10]:

Yes, absolutely.

Steve Palmer [00:04:12]:

That's it. Right. But it comes with its own headaches and problems. And I'll sort of. Let's turn back the clock. When I started practicing law, we had indeterminate sentencing. We're going back to 1995. In 1995, if you.

Steve Palmer [00:04:26]:

On a felony of the first degree in Ohio, we only had four levels. 1, 2, 3, and 4. On a felony of first degree, maximum punishment was 5 to 25. We had indeterminate sentencing. We had two to eights. It was hard to learn. And the judge would have to pick it and you would have a tail. So if you got a flat sentence, like when we were negotiating cases or pleading cases, we would be begging.

Steve Palmer [00:04:55]:

Not begging, but negotiating for flat time. Give them a flat 5 and forget the 2 to 8 or the whatever it is. So we would go up to get a flat number out of the judge instead of getting the indeterminate sentencing. Because people are going to see the parole board and getting flopped, meaning they don't get out. And you could say that the parole board's going to look at it fairly, but they exist for a reason. It's like they were doing their jobs. They were flopping people and not letting people out. So indeterminate sentencing was the powers that be, the political winds that were blowing at that time wanted truth in sentencing.

Steve Palmer [00:05:32]:

Therefore, about 96, maybe it was 97, I can't remember Senate Bill 4, SB4 came out and they said, no, we now have this. We rejiggered the entire system in Ohio. We have flat rate sentencing. Now, back then on A felony of one max ends was 10, felony 2, 8 felony 3, 5 felony 4, 18 months felony 5, 1 year. If you got five years, you got five years. That was it. But then Reagan Toks comes along 20 years later or 30 years later, and they say 20 years later, roughly. And we say, well, we don't like that.

Steve Palmer [00:06:04]:

We're going to go back to indeterminate sentencing in some way. So look, it all depends on where the winds are blowing.

Troy Henricksen [00:06:09]:

Yeah. And when I was looking at this, it kicked around the idea of a due process issue on Reagan Toks. And we were talking about like a little before we got on the camera here was the judge is supposed to determine your sentence. And I get it, they're creating this little eight years *, maybe 12. But now the discretion is up to the parole authority, the prison people, it's up to them. Now, if you get extended and this has been gone through the courts as due process violation, and the Ohio Supreme Court ended up keeping it, and the case was State v. Hacker, 2023. And what is your opinion on this due process? I'm not saying, like the Ohio Supreme Court got it wrong.

Steve Palmer [00:06:48]:

I don't know what you think it is. What do I want it to be and what is it? I. I do not think academically there's a due process violation. I think the judge still imposes the sentence and delegates the actual term to the parole authority. And so you had Congress passed the law, judge follows the law and then delegates it back to the Executive branch, I guess, the apa, the Adult Parole Authority to determine it. I don't know. Maybe there's a due process problem. I did not think that Reagan Tokes was going to be overturned by the courts.

Steve Palmer [00:07:29]:

I just didn't see that comment. Yeah, for the reason I said. I mean, now if the judge's sentence, if you didn't have the statutory background, the judge sentenced somebody to 10 years, and the Adult Parole Authority says. Or the General assembly passes a law that says the APA can decide if that's going to stick or not. I think that's a different problem because it's not within the range that the court pronounced. Is that basically what the Supreme Court said?

Troy Henricksen [00:07:58]:

Yeah.

Steve Palmer [00:07:58]:

All right, so. And I haven't read that. I read the blurb of the case, but that's how I would decide it if it's within the sentencing discretion. Now, if the parole authority tried to do something beyond that, then I think we do have a separation of powers problem.

Troy Henricksen [00:08:12]:

They still have to make. The pro board still has findings to meet and all that. And I think that's where you're going to see inmates starting to appeal. This is, I'm thinking, the worst case scenario where this guy, he has a Reagan Tokes attached to his sentence. He actually does, like, a good job in prison. And I imagine the parole board, like, is just like, no, we're going to have, like, free range with these Reagan.

Steve Palmer [00:08:30]:

Tokes prisoners, and we're going to keep them. Right? Yeah.

Troy Henricksen [00:08:33]:

And that's where the appeals are going to start. Coming in is like, okay.

Steve Palmer [00:08:35]:

The law bakes into this a presumption that unless there's something crazy, unless these things are met, I'm not going to enumerate them, but unless factors are met, you're presumed to get the minimum of the number. We recently did a parole hearing, and you saw how that works. I mean, it's like Wild west type hearing.

Troy Henricksen [00:08:55]:

Yeah. Kangaroo court kind of deal.

Steve Palmer [00:08:56]:

I'm not going to call the APA Kangaroo court.

Troy Henricksen [00:08:58]:

But you did.

Steve Palmer [00:09:00]:

I'm sorry. He didn't mean it. But look, it's. It has its own problems because I go back to where I started here. When you name laws after somebody, it's typically addressing the exception, not the general rule. And that may be okay in certain cases. It may be Reagan talks, it's okay, whatever. But typically, you are creating rules for everybody based on one exception or one sort of isolated incident, and that's a problem.

Steve Palmer [00:09:33]:

You know, that can be a problem. But politically, it sounds good, and sometimes it is good. But yeah, so. All right, look. You heard it here. Tell us what you think. By the way. Truth in sentencing.

Steve Palmer [00:09:47]:

Know your number, whatever it is, that's it. Or should there be discretion based on how somebody does in prison? I don't know. You tell us. Lawyer talk, off the record on here until now.