Youngstown man's conviction reversed

WARREN -- The 11th District Court of Appeals reversed a Youngstown man's 2003 conviction on a misdemeanor charge of importuning, because he was convicted under a law that previously had been declared unconstitutional.
The case stems from Warren Municipal Court, in which Keith E. Phillips, Ardmore Drive, pleaded no contest and was found guilty of importuning. Importuning is an offense in which a person solicits a person of the same sex to engage in sexual activity with the offender, when the offender knows such solicitation is offensive to the other person.
In 2003, Phillips was sentenced to 180 days in jail and a $500 fine on the conviction. Later that year, he filed an appeal, stating that the trial court erred in finding him guilty and that the court erred in convicting him on a law that the Ohio Supreme Court previously had held to be unconstitutional.
In 2002, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that the importuning law was invalid under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Section 2, Article 1 of the Ohio Constitution.
"It is axiomatic then that in a criminal case, due process requires that the conduct underlying a finding of guilt actually be a crime; here it is not," the appeals court wrote in its opinion, which was written by Judge Cynthia Wescott Rice. Judge William M. O'Neill concurred, and Judge Diane V. Grendell concurred in judgment only.