Legal Research

"Court Holds Indictment Lacking Culpable Mental State Is Not Defective When It Tracks Language of Statute"

From the site: "2009-0079 and 2009-0311.  State v. Horner, Slip Opinion No. 2010-Ohio-3830...
Opinion: http://www.supremecourt.ohio.gov/rod/docs/pdf/0/2010/2010-Ohio-3830.pdf

...In a decision announced today, the Supreme Court of Ohio overruled its 2008 decision in State v. Colon and ruled that:
            1) An indictment that charges an offense by tracking the language of the criminal statute is not defective for failure to identify a culpable mental state when the statute itself fails to specify a mental state. 
            2) When the General Assembly includes a culpable mental state in one discrete clause, subsection, or division of a statute, but not in another discrete clause, subsection, or division of the same statute, courts must apply the analysis prescribed  in the Supreme Court's decisions in State v. Wac (1981) and State v. Maxwell (2002) to determine the necessary mental state where none is specified.
           3) By failing to enter a timely objection to a defect in an indictment, a defendant waives all but plain error on appeal."

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Source: The Supreme Court of Ohio, 27 August 2010

Full post as published by Stark County Law Library Blawg on August 30, 2010 (boomark / email).