Curses! Sentenced Again?

Profanity has been in the law as well as the news lately.

As the Ohio Supreme Court noted

Being a trial-court judge is not an easy job.

After sentence was imposed

Just as the court finished announcing Bryant’s sentence, the following exchanged occurred:

BRYANT: Fuck your courtroom, you racist ass bitch. Fuck your courtroom, man. You racist as fuck. You racist as fuck. Twenty-two fucking years. Racist ass bitch. (CONTINUED OUTBURST BY DEFENDANT, SWEARING, YELLING, MUCH UNINTELLIGIBLE).
COURT: Remember when—
BRYANT: You ain’t shit.
COURT: Remember when I said that you had some remorse?
BRYANT: You ain’t shit. You never gave me probation.
COURT: Wait a minute.
BRYANT: You never gave me a chance.

COURT: When I said that you had a certain amount of remorse, I was mistaken. (DEFENDANT CONTINUES YELLING). The Court determines—
BRYANT: Fuck you.
COURT: The Court determines that maximum imprisonment is needed, so it’s eleven years on Count 1 and eleven years on Count 3.
BRYANT: Fuck that courtroom. You racist bitch. You ain’t shit. (MALE VOICE SAYING “MANSON” REPEATEDLY). Let me out the courtroom, man. (MORE SHOUTING AND SWEARING)

From the web page summary by Dan Trevas

A Lake County trial court could not increase a prison sentence based on the defendant’s profanity-laced tirade against the judge, the Supreme Court of Ohio ruled today.

In a 4-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that Manson Bryant’s courtroom outburst upon learning of his 22-year prison sentence might have warranted a contempt of court finding

Writing for the Court majority, Justice Melody Stewart stated that “Bryant’s in-the-moment reaction to his sentence had no logical bearing on whether he had remorse.” Ohio’s criminal sentencing statutes do not authorize a trial court to impose or increase a defendant’s sentence “merely because the defendant had an outburst or expressed himself in a profane and offensive way,” she wrote.

Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor and Justices Michael P. Donnelly and Jennifer Brunner joined Justice Stewart’s opinion.

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Sharon L. Kennedy wrote the ability to increase a defendant’s sentence because of an in-court outburst depends on the nature of the outburst. She stated that after the outburst, the trial judge changed his mind about whether Bryant had genuine remorse, a sentencing finding made pursuant to R.C. 2929.12, and removed the leniency the judge intended to grant earlier. And pursuant to the Supreme Court’s 2020 State v. Jones decision, neither this court nor the court of appeals has the authority to review Bryant’s increased sentence. 

Justices Patrick F. Fischer and R. Patrick DeWine joined Justice Kennedy’s opinion.

The full opinion is linked here. (Mike Frisch)