Time for the Weekly Roundup… 3rd District upholds grant of custody of three children, one an 11-year-old girl, to the father; probably the biggest factor was the mother’s moving in with a man who’d been classified as a sexual predator. Duh… The 8th district determines that lack of smoke detector on first floor, in violation of city ordinances, precludes summary judgment… Going to prison doesn’t get you off the hook for child support, says the 3rd District… the 5th District upholds use of RC 1703.191, which allows you to obtain service on an unlicensed foreign corporation by serving the secretary of state… 

Interesting result in this case from the 9th District.  Defendant appealed his more-than-minimum and consecutive sentences; although Foster was decided a week before the brief was filed, defendant only argued statutory, not constitutional grounds. The court noted that defendant’s “one-sentence reference to Foster at the end of his brief fails to articulate any sort of constitutional argument and this Court is not inclined to make his argument for him,” and affirms the sentence. This seems to run counter to Foster’s holding that all sentences are void, as I discussed here, but is probably the right result…. 

After defendant made a Rule 29 motion in a receiving stolen property case arguing that the state hadn’t introduced any evidence that he knew the property was stolen, the trial court lets the state reopen its case to provide that evidence, and the 9th District says that’s within the court’s discretion… 3rd District says that Foster didn’t change procedural requirements for post-conviction relief petitions, and upholds dismissal of a petition filed outside the 180-day limit… 12th District affirms a burglary conviction, finding that opening a closed door is sufficient to constitute “force” and that intent to commit theft offense can be formed after entry…

And on the legislative front, the dwindling population of Ohio can take comfort in the passage of RC 5.073, which provides, as we lawyers say, in toto: