November (28th-29th)
Thanksgiving Weekend
2022

The Year of The Crossroads.

It started out with researching Misdemeanor Laws [Violations] of Ohio.
Then narrowed to municipal laws of Southeast Ohio; then to Guernsey County specifically.
(And Ohio has 88 Counties- each jurisdiction has their own appointed Magistrate or Judge)

There are classesto the degree of severity for misdemeanor offenses; M1 being the most severe of Misdemeanor Crimes/violations. Following that is M2, M3, M4 & M5 decreasing severity.

*Higher than M1 or a combination of multiple misdemeanors found guilty for one case may put you in Felony territory, from my understanding. I believe that may be handled by a different division in the court system.

So the Guernsey County Clerk for the Common Pleas Court is the General Division:
Within the General Division there are two Sub-Divisions: Legal and Title.
The Legal Division maintains all legal records filed in
the Guernsey County Common Pleas Court. This Court reviews all:

Civil, Criminal, and Domestic Relations,
as well as the Fifth District Court of Appeals.

Within the Civil Division of the Court they handle processes post judgment matters such as

Within the Guernsey County Common Pleas Court handles Civil Rules,
Garnishments, Debtor Exams, Executions, Foreign Judgments,
Judgment Liens for judgements granted from Guernsey County Common Pleas Court
and judgments granted from other courts,
along with State Tax Liens filed by the Ohio Department of Taxation.

This in Common Pleas court handling Civil Rules; this section is where the system seems to have a complex but higihly-functioning system implemented to consider alternatives to incarceration (or in addition to jail, maybe reduce sentence severity or time).

there recently was restructuring within code classifications – really recently-
Misdemeanor classifications are broken down and further refined with .
BUT
Also, I’ll note there seems to be a delineation between misdemeanor classifications
within their degree of penalties. This is the differentiation of non-violent vs. violent defendants.
Violent as opposed to non-violent misdemeanor sentencing seems to branch off cases and their rulings-
Basically if you are not going to harm others, the court system may be able to provide alternatives to simply doing jail time. There seems to be a combination of incarceration with alternative rehabilitation methods, a time period under house arrest, court mandating in-patient mental health & addiction recovery. These are all tailored to become options/decisions by the Judge (and I’m assuming with the prosecution).

Plans for court-mandated sentencing alternatives “community control sanctions” in lieu of (or in addition to) jail time. The offense(s) will also affect ruling on the duration of Probation duration after sentencing served. Violent offenders seem to do more jail time overall. Each degree of misdemeanor offense have a maximum sentencing allowed for its’classification.

The judge may choose to enhance charges if the misdemeanor is committed aagainst a
vulnerable or protected victim, for example. or if the offender pleas guilty to a specific Revised Code included in the indictment [i.e. 2941.1423 of the Revised Code] that was included in indictment
counted, the court shall sentence the offender to mandatory jail term (as provided in the division
(G) of section 2929.24 of the revised code).

On the other hand, the sentencing may be reduced, suspended or given alternative conditions for the suspension (of serving jail time). Alternatives may include receiving treatment for a
length of time determined in an in-patient rehabilitation center, community service, random drug tests,
curfews, reporting to probation, electronic tracking of house-arrest.
Or maybe a combination of some of these in order to allow the the defendant to work, receive treatment, care for a family member, etc. These alternatives are court mandated condition to the defendants’ release. This means if you don’t adhere to the ruling then you are in violation of it.

All Parties/attorneys of record must follow the Ohio Revised Code, Ohio Civil Rules and the Local Rules.
The Revised Code directly affects classification of Misdemeanor offenses in their degrees I broke down earlier.

I noticed an incredibly organized, transparent analysis of a thorough breakdown of the classification of charges, the cou, multi- Cambridge Municipal Court Annual Report for 2021 broke down counties, departments, courts, case types, ev. The comparison of the past 3 years were quantified in a simple to read and concise tables to track the progress of their new electronic system implemented this past year (2021) to streamline efficiency thoughout the entire process.
A lot of hard work was done to organize, track, quantify and assemble this report- it was comprehensibe to someone like myself with zero history or knowledge of the legal system on a criminal level.

Understandably non-violent offenders may get additional chances to avoid a criminal conviction by participating in a pretrial diversion. The offender must agree to probram conditons (such as counseling, drug testing, supervision and payment of fees). Upon successful completion of the program, the prosecutor recommends a dismissal of the charges. Violent offenders are more likely to serve time incarcerated and have heavier time frames required for probation. But that also makes sense- a conviction should match the severity of the case and circumstances.

SO
I have Pretrial December 12th. Find out my fate, so to speak. Of course I’m nervous but it helps to find a fully comprehensible quantification of cases charged, how many were given opportunities to serve back to the community in lieu of jail time. It’s all there in black and white. It could be around 9 months in jail of they decide to serve the maximum. I haven’t ever been arrested in my ripe 36 years let alone restrained and roughed up (i earned it, I didn’t want the cuffs, triggered some old situations I never wanted to revisit. Not to mention the tightening of my cuffs as i screamed i was in pain- allegeldy bloody- mureder screaming that he was hurting me. Guess fight or flight kicked in bc I need surgery on the carpal tunnel and I just rather do the old corticol steroid traps. But way to get someone freaking out in agony. i earned it, I know i did. The black eye, the face plant on the ground, the bruises on my wrists knees and the concussion from getting clocked in the noggin accidentally by a radio.

There is a ton more to this story but I’ll say this. The first 5 days in jail, not knowing when I could talk to anyone, not even understanding why they had reasonable suspicion to arrest me in the first place. When they grabbed me to tell me we’re going to the Sheriff’s department I freaked out. How can they just arrest me? Obviously they didn’t do it on a whip. Well there was a lot more to the story that we had been working hard to fill the gaps on. One stupid decision piled on top of another impulsive, awkward panicky reflex. Everything hinged on this job and getting a car loan and wheels of my own. I love working in ophthalmology as a tech. i was happy working in Columbus. And I loved helping out being step mom for the boys. But I had too much on my plate and mishandled my meltdown of stress.

If I learned anything in jail its appreciate your down time to allow calmness, quiet and figure out how to rectify you’re build tin defense mechanism to FIGHT OFF this time not Freeze in panic. Actions have consequences and it seems they have a tight ship running here. Hoping for the best, preparing for the worst.

Fill in more later. Same with the last post- needs fine tuning.

https://cambridgeoh.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Cambridge-Municipal-Court-2021-Annual-Report.pdf