Lane Denied Court-Appointed Counsel to Pursue Appeal

May 29, 2014 by

The 11th District Court of Appeals has denied a request to appoint Michael A. Partlow to represent convicted Chardon High School shooter T.J. Lane in proceedings before the Supreme Court of Ohio.

Lane had asked the appellate court to allow Partlow to continue as his counsel and appear on his behalf before the state’s highest court. He argued he already has been found to be indigent and is incarcerated in a state penitentiary in Lebanon, Ohio.

In March 2013, Geauga County Common Pleas Court Judge David Fuhry sentenced Lane to life in prison without parole for the aggravated murders of then 16-year-old Daniel Parmertor, 17-year-old Russell King Jr. and 16-year-old Demetrius Hewlin. The sentences will run consecutively.

In sentencing Lane, Fuhry noted he had exhibited a lack of compassion and no remorse during the proceedings. The judge described the Feb. 27, 2012, shooting in the school cafeteria as a “merciless rampage.”

Partlow, an appellate attorney from Kent, had represented Lane before the court of appeals in March seeking to overturn his sentence.

At that time, Partlow told appellate judges Cynthia Westcott Rice, Thomas Wright and Timothy Cannon that Fuhry failed to state he considered Lane’s age — 17 at the time of the shooting — as a mitigating factor before sentencing him to three consecutive life sentences without parole.

Partlow cited a recent Ohio Supreme Court ruling that trial judges must specifically discuss a youth’s age as a mitigating factor in court when sentencing a teenager to life in prison without parole.

That case, which was decided about one year after Lane was sentenced, involved a teenager named Eric Long, who was sentenced to life in prison without parole for shootings in Cincinnati. The state’s highest court said a Hamilton County judge failed to take into consideration Long’s age, 17, at the time of the shooting.

“Consequently, the case at bar is one of the first cases to actually attempt to interpret the Supreme Court’s ruling in State v. Long,” Partlow said in his motion for appointment. “With respect, (Lane) should be permitted to proceed on this issue since, even this court which did not agree that any violation existed, recognized that the trial court did not explicity consider (Lane’s) youth as a mitigating factor.”

Partlow also appealed Ohio’s mandatory bindover of youths charged with serious crimes. Months after the Chardon shooting, Geauga County Juvenile Court Judge Tim Grendell found probable cause that Lane fired the shots in the cafeteria, was competent and ordered him tried as an adult.

Partlow said Grendell and all other state juvenile judges lacked the discretion to rule independently. He said the state’s mandatory bindover is unconstitutional and violated Lane’s rights.

The issue concerning the constitutionality of Ohio’s mandatory bindover proceedings “is squarely before the Ohio Supreme Court at the present time,” Partlow said in his motion.

“It would be extremely unfair for (Lane) to not be permitted to proceed to the Ohio Supreme Court concerning this issue,” he argued.

But Rice, who wrote the court’s opinion denying Lane’s appeal, refused the request.

Citing Ohio Supreme Court Rule of Practice 7.01(D)(2), Rice said in all appeals from an appellate court, the court of appeals retains jurisdiction to appoint counsel to represent indigent parties before the supreme court in two circumstances: when a defendant is defending an appellate court decision or when the supreme court has ordered that counsel be appointed in a particular case.

None of those circumstances exist in Lane’s appeal to the Ohio Supreme Court, she found.

“Additionally, . . . (Lane) is not entitled to appointed counsel in an appeal to the Supreme Court of Ohio on a discretionary appeal when counsel already has been afforded . . . on his first appeal as of right with this court,” Rice said in the court’s two-page judgement entry, filed May 22 in the Geauga County Court of Common Pleas.