Jefferson students sit as audience for appellate court hearing

JEFFERSON – A sentencing appeal heard Thursday, March 26, on behalf of a 26-year-old Madison man before the Ohio 11th District Court of Appeals had a different audience to the norm: students from Jefferson Area High School.
Courtroom in the Classroom, also known as the Off-Site Court Program, is designed to educate high school students throughout the state about Ohio’s judicial system.
Last Thursday, a three-judge panel from the Ohio 11th District Court of Appeals, which normally sits in Warren, heard an appeal from Maurice Del Shawn James Turner, 26, of Madison, who pleaded guilty in July 2025 to aggravated methamphetamine possession and breaking and enter, both 5th-degree felonies.
He was sentenced in August 2025 to two years of community control sanctions, including enrollment in the North East Ohio Community Alternative Program (NEOCAP), a minimum-security community-based corrections facility (CBCF) in Warren that serves as an alternative to prison for low-level offenders. Treatment at NEOCAP is typically for a term of four to six months.
Turner’s counsel argued that, as a first-time offender, NEOCAP is an excessively restrictive drug treatment program. NEOCAP is a 24-hour lockdown residential treatment facility that is limiting enough to enrollees’ freedom that time spent there counts toward jail time as part of a sentence.
Margaret Brunarski, director of the Ashtabula County Public Defender’s Office, argued to Judges John Eklund, Scott Lynch and Robert Patton that residential treatment is one of the most restrictive forms of community control sanctions, that Turner had no criminal record supporting such a strict sentence and that there is no record of whether other, less restrictive options were considered.
She said that while a trial court has broad discretion in sentencing, it is not unlimited and asked the judges to remand the case back to the Ashtabula County Court of Common Pleas to consider other treatment options.
Dane Hixon, appellate assistant prosecutor for the Ashtabula County Prosecutor’s Office, said the joint sentencing recommendation Turner agreed to included the possibility he could be sent to NEOCAP and, as a sentence permitted understate law, it is not subject to review by the appellate court.
He went on to argue that plea agreements are governed by contract law and since it is a legal contract, Turner can’t ask a court to vacate his sentence simply because he’s unhappy with its results.
He cited a hypothetical example of someone entering a plea agreement that includes 13-15 years of incarceration – the accused can’t balk at the agreement if they receive the full 15 years, according to Hixon.
In her rebuttal, Brunarski said she and her client aren’t arguing he doesn’t need treatment or that it’s not a viable option, just that NEOCAP is an excessively restrictive form of residential treatment.
Following oral arguments, students were allowed to ask questions of the judges, appellant and appellee counsel.
One student was unclear as to why Turner didn’t see NEOCAP as preferable to jail or prison.
Eklund explained that community control sanctions have a range of options, some more or less restrictive, such as house arrest as compared with an intensive outpatient drug treatment program.
Another student asked the counselors what their preparation process is for a trial or appeal.
Hixon explained that he first reads the appellant’s brief, then studies the relevant statutes and case law to try and find a relevant legal precedent before writing his own brief and getting his thoughts on paper.
Brunarski said she didn’t handle the case at trial, but Turner’s trial counsel is out on maternity leave and she had the opportunity to argue an appellate case for the first time in quite a while.
She said she goes over the state’s brief and puts together a binder of possible arguments to as many judge’s questions as she can anticipate, citing statutory and case law as appropriate.
In response to a question on how the three judges on a panel are chosen, Patton explained that, rarely, all five 11th District judges will sit for an en banc hearing for cases of exceptional importance, but otherwise the judges are drawn at random, then do their research, hear the counselors’ arguments and deliberate before making a ruling.
One student asked whether Turner understood what NEOCAP was when he entered the plea agreement and if he recognized that it would be preferable to incarceration.
Patton said the point of community control sanctions is to help the offender, not to restrict their freedom unnecessarily; but that sentences must be balanced against the need to protect public safety.
He advised the students to make a close reading of the Constitution.
“Your rights are not abstractions,” he said.
He went on to say that both defense and prosecution attorneys must know and abide by the rights of both victims and the accused.
One student asked why Turner didn’t object to his sentencing during his trial.
“We’re not given to know what he was thinking; our judicial responsibility forbids us to answer that question. If nothing, we follow the rules. That’s, by the way, sound advice for everyone,” Eklund said.
Hixon said that having the right means not having to explain why you’re invoking that right, citing a hypothetical example of a traffic stop in which the law enforcement officer asks why the driver declined to give consent for a search of his or her vehicle.
The final question was, “Have you had to argue a case you didn’t agree with?”
Brunarski said it is the public defender’s responsibility to protect the rights of the accused, whether you like them personally or not. Defense counsel gives legal advice. Some clients are amenable and others are not, she added.
Either way, public defenders don’t get to choose their clients, and those clients still have rights that need protecting, according to Brunarski.
“Trust me – there are a lot of crimes I’d prefer not to defend, but that’s not the point,” she said.
Hixon said he’s had plenty of times he didn’t agree with what the state had done in a case and that the ethics code for attorneys states that a prosecutor’s goal is to arrive at justice, not to secure a conviction.
“There are times I’ve had to concede the state was wrong and we need to go back and do it right,” he said.