The Motion

Jason sent a motion to the Sixth District Court of Appeals in March asking them to reconsider their ruling.

In the motion, Jason pointed out that the Sixth District Court of Appeals had errored when it vacated the money laundering charges because it had not also vacated the engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity charge (RICO) for lack of predicate offenses. Let us explain…

This can get a little technical but try to follow. To be guilty of engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity as a felony of the first degree as charged in this case, the State must prove the following among other things:

ORC 2923.31 (E) “Pattern of corrupt activity” means two or more incidents of corrupt activity, whether or not there has been a prior conviction, that are related to the affairs of the same enterprise, are not isolated, and are not so closely related to each other and connected in time and place that they constitute a single event.

The prosecution argued in Jason’s case that the theft of money and the money laundering charges were the two predicate offenses. The money laundering charges were vacated so that left only the theft, one single charge. Therefore, the charge of engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity must also clearly be vacated and it was not.

There are other important aspects of the appeal, but I’m not going to discuss them here. You can read the motion here for yourself.

The Response

The Court’s response was this:

Okay, so maybe maybe not exactly. Here is what they responded:

Something Important

Many of you who have not experienced the criminal justice system may think that when you appeal to the court, they listen to what you have to say and then decide whether or not your argument has merit. You would be wrong. You generally only get one shot. If the court makes a mistake in its ruling you can appeal that, but most of those cases do not get accepted. If you learn something new about the law after your attorney failed to do the best job possible and you yourself do not have a law degree, too bad. The merits of your argument don’t matter, the court will not listen to them because they already ruled. You’re guilty even if you are innocent.