Login | March 15, 2025
Vehicular homicide sentence was not cruel and unusual punishment
TRACEY BLAIR
Legal News Reporter
Published: August 7, 2013
A man who argued the judgment in his aggravated vehicular homicide case was cruel and unusual punishment will not be re-sentenced, the 7th District Court of Appeals recently ruled.
Kevin Rolland pleaded guilty in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court to causing a fatal automobile accident that killed Vera Gabrick on May 11, 2011.
Rolland was sentenced to seven years in prison, a lifetime driver’s license suspension and three years of mandatory post-release control.
The indictment alleged that Rolland had been convicted of a prior traffic-related homicide in Mahoning County Juvenile Court that took the lives of two victims in 1996.
Rolland’s latest offense would have been a third-degree felony punishable by one to five years in prison, but was elevated to a second-degree felony, with a sentencing range of two to eight years.
On appeal, Rolland argued R.C. 2901.08 is unconstitutional when an offense committed as a juvenile is used to enhance a sentence imposed an adult.
In a 3-0 opinion, appellate Judge Mary DeGenaro disagreed, stating that cases in which cruel and unusual punishments have been found are limited to those involving sanctions that would be “considered shocking to any reasonable person.”
The panel found that Rolland’s sentence was within the statutory range and not greatly disproportionate to the offense.
DeGenaro wrote: “As noted by the trial court at sentencing, in addition to this being Rolland’s second aggravated vehicular homicide which resulted in a total of three deaths, between these two offenses were eight speeding convictions and a reckless operation conviction in 2000. The trial court also characterized the vehicle Rolland was driving as a `loaded gun’ given estimates of his rate of speed on the day of the collision ranging from 60-70 mph to 90-100 mph.”
The state argued Rolland could not appeal on those grounds because trial counsel did not raise the constitutional issues in trial court. Exercising their discretion to consider the merits in the interest of justice, the panel held that the statute was constitutional.
The panel also found Rolland waived his appellate review of his argument that R.C. 2901.08 was never intended to apply to charges as serious as aggravated vehicular homicide because he pleaded guilty.
7th District judges Gene Donofrio and Joseph J. Vukovich concurred.
The case is cited State v. Rolland, No. 12 MA 68.