Marais Jacon-Duffy

Written by OJPC volunteer Lily Meyer Ohio Senator Nickie Antonio, a Democrat representing the Cleveland suburb of Lakewood, has introduced legislation that would ban the state’s death penalty every General Assembly since she was elected in 2011. This year, though, something changed. In a press conference held via Zoom in February, a beaming Sen. Antonio […]

Da’Wyna initially came to OJPC looking for help with sealing her record. She talks about how her younger self didn’t have a lot of knowledge regarding the law. If she was stopped by police, she didn’t know much about the criminal justice system and so when she was pulled over that lack of knowledge had […]

By Caroline Miller, a summer legal intern at OJPC. I was thinking about going to law school after I earned my bachelor’s degree in marketing, but I decided to take a year off while I mulled it over and saved up for school. I took a job in food service management in Louisville, planning to […]

The Ohio Justice & Policy Center will release a series of reports to examine why it is time to end the death penalty in Ohio, and how we can repeal it this legislative session. These forthcoming death penalty reports are timely for several reasons: First, the public opinion polling has dramatically shifted and we want […]

COLUMBUS, OH—State Senators Stephen Huffman (R-Tipp City) and Nickie J. Antonio (D-Lakewood) announced a bipartisan death penalty repeal bill Thursday morning during a virtual press conference. The Senators were joined by several colleagues from both the House and Senate including Senator Kristina Roegner (R-Hudson), Senator Niraj Antani (R-Miami Township), Senator Sandra Williams (D-Cleveland), Representative Adam […]

How Lisa Montgomery Entered the Cycle of Violence By: Verjine Adanalian, OJPC staff attorney It is understandably uncomfortable to learn that sex trafficking can (and does) occur in our very own backyards. What is especially difficult to accept is how much sex trafficking involves children—and that victimization can take many forms. Child sex trafficking victims […]

Take action on priority criminal-legal reform legislation The 2020 lame duck legislative session is underway in Ohio, and legislators need to hear from you! Phone calls, emails, even tweets are effective and essential ways to advocate for change — and it’s so easy to do! Several high-priority bills are on the verge of becoming law […]

I spent the summer of 2019 as an OJPC intern after my first year of law school. OJPC had been on my radar even before law school began. I was drawn to their commitment to not only address one-on-one client issues, but also to make large-scale systemic policy changes to prevent future client issues from […]

What does it mean to seal a record? How is that different from expungement? Sealing a record means that it should no longer be available through publicly available records or background checks, though it may still be available to some employers, such as many schools or health-care providers, through government-issued BCI/FBI background checks. Expungement, on […]

On June 30, the Senate passed SB3 by a 25-4 vote. This is a bill that primarily focuses on drug resentencing, but it also expands record sealing in ways that will help many OJPC clients who face barriers to employment, housing, and education due to their criminal records. The bill is one of two major […]