Victim rights advocates enjoyed a victory in Ohio earlier this month when Gov. Mike DeWine signed Senate Bill 288, an omnibus criminal justice bill that included what they call a “Victims Matter Amendment.”

The amendment rolls back Senate Bill 256, Ohio’s new juvenile offender parole law, by increasing the time allowed between parole hearings for juvenile criminals.

SB 256 banned life without parole sentences for all juvenile criminals, except those who murder three or more people. Victims and victims’ families impacted by SB 256 said it revictimizes them, forcing them to endure painful and traumatic yet unnecessary parole hearings. A provision of SB 256 was that juvenile offenders could go before a parole board every five years after being denied release.

One of the teen murderers to benefit from this legislation is Jacob LaRosa of Niles, who was originally sentenced to life without parole.

LaRosa was convicted in the 2015 slaying of 94-year-old Marie Belcastro. At the time of Belcastro’s murder, LaRosa was 15. He was convicted of breaking into the woman’s Cherry Avenue home, attempting to rape her and then bludgeoning her to death with a heavy metal flashlight.

Belcastro’s grandson, Brian Kirk, a Florida resident, has been traveling around Ohio the last few years trying to get the legislation repealed.

“Knowing that LaRosa could never harm another innocent person gave my grandmother’s death meaning. SB 256 took that peace away,” Kirk had said during a tour of county courthouses, including Trumbull County in downtown Warren during the summer of 2021.

“Knowing we’d have to defend our safety every five years at parole hearings was a huge betrayal.”

Reached at his home last week, Kirk said the work of opposing the legislation has paid off with the signing of Senate Bill 288, an omnibus bill that also made other changes to Ohio’s criminal law.

Kirk said he is happy about a part of SB 288 that proponents call the “Victims Matter Amendment” being signed into law — which eliminates the mandatory five-year interval between parole hearings for juvenile offenders.

The new wrinkle in the law will require hearings be set in accordance to rules adopted by the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

Larosa, who is housed in Allen Correctional Institution near Lima, will have his first parole hearing in 2040, according to the prison website. If Larosa is denied parole at that hearing, the parole board now will decide when the next hearing will be, according to the amendment.

“Larosa’s original sentence was completely legal and was appropriate given the circumstances of his crimes. It should never have been undone,” Kirk wrote in a letter to DeWine. “This is a great first step for those adversely affected by Senate Bill 256.”

MORE WORK NEEDED

Victim rights supporters say that the Victims Matter Amendment alone does not address all the problems caused by SB 256 and that more work is needed. One of the parts of the law that remains states that teen offenders are not eligible for life without parole sentences.

Trumbull County Assistant Prosecutor Christopher Becker, who last year was in Columbus for a rally that opposed expanded rights for teen offenders, agrees that there is work remaining to fix the problems caused by SB 256.

“Senate Bill 256 was passed on the lies and misrepresentations of the friends and relatives of juvenile murderers,” Becker said. “The result was a cruel and atrocious measure that now requires victims’ families and their loved ones to relive the horror of these crimes 25 years later, rather than never, by having to prepare and face a future nameless, faceless and unknown parole board to keep these killers in prison.”

While Senate Bill 288 is a step in the right direction, it does not go far enough, Becker said. The Ohio Legislature and the governor need to go back to pre-SB 256 law, he said.

Becker takes exception to a portion of SB 256 that a juvenile in Ohio can only be given life without parole if that juvenile kills three or more people.

“This is not based upon any rational reason or empirical data but was rather a fiction created by certain politicians who didn’t want to face backlash in their own communities, such as Chardon, where school shooter T.J. Lane killed three people,” said Becker in calling out two legislators from the eastern Cleveland suburbs.

“Those politicians knew they could never explain to their electorate why they were eliminating life without parole for their own local murderer. The fallacy of Senate Bill 256 is that politicians have now given murderers under the age of 18 two free murders before facing life without parole.”

In addition, Becker said this legislation victimizes the families a second time and just as importantly, “usurps and removes the decision” from elected prosecutors and judges of whether a juvenile murderer serves a life without parole sentence. Also, it places the decision of when a juvenile murderer should be released into the hands a future parole board whose members are not elected and thus accountable to voters.

“Further, no one knows who will be on the parole board in 25 years and therefore who and what criteria will be used to determine these killers’ release,” Becker said.

Judges such as the former Trumbull County jurist W. Wyatt McKay, who sentenced Larosa to life without parole, are always in the best position to determine the appropriate sentence for murderers, Becker said, because they are held accountable by the electoral process.

Judges’ decisions also are subject to local court of appeals and the Ohio Supreme Court review, Becker said.

Former state Rep. Michael J. O’Brien, who helped sponsor SB 288, agreed that decisions about parole should go back to the hands of the judges.

Kirk, meanwhile, said he will continue his lobbying efforts on behalf of crime victims in Ohio.

“I look forward to working with the legislature and governor’s office so that victims in Ohio can enjoy the protections we were promised when our loved ones were initially sentenced,” Kirk said.

gvogrin@tribtoday.com