Columbus Criminal Law Blog

In November of 2007, George Williams pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual contact with a minor, a fourth degree felony. Although Williams' offense occurred in May 2007, he was subjected to the enhanced sex offender registration and community notification requirements contained in Ohio's Senate Bill 10. Under S.B. 10, Ohio courts were to apply new standards for sex offenders sentenced after July 1, 2007, regardless of the date of the offense.

Williams appealed, challenging the retroactive application of the new sex offender reporting guidelines. After a series of legal battles, on July 13, 2011, the Ohio Supreme Court issued an opinion in Williams' case, which struck down portions of the law. The Williams' ruling will have implications for thousands of the state's sex offenders.

For years, many federal judges have lamented that criminal sentencing guidelines for defendants who were convicted of drug crimes involving cocaine are unfair. Some consider sentencing guidelines to be racist. Since the guidelines were instituted, defendants convicted of drug crimes involving powder cocaine offenses have been sentenced to much shorter prison terms than defendants convicted of drug offenses involving the same quantities of crack cocaine. Historically, black defendants have been more likely to be involved in offenses related to crack cocaine, while white defendants have been more likely to be involved in offenses related to powder cocaine.

New guidelines - issued by the United States Department of Education and made public by Vice President Joe Biden - set forth revised criteria for schools, colleges and universities to use in order to stem the tide of sexual violence on campuses across the country. The guidelines were created in part due to recent surveys which indicate that as many as one in five college-age females are victims of sexual violence in some form and that over 10 percent of high school-age girls report that they were pressured, coerced or under duress before they first had sex.