Appeals court reverses suspended jail sentence for Girard woman

Staff report

WARREN

The Warren-based 11th District Court of Appeals has reversed the sentence of suspended jail time a Girard woman received in Girard Municipal Court in 2015 for three misdemeanor property-maintenance violations.

The decision says the convictions and fines of Delores Karnofel are affirmed.

But because there was no recording “showing that [Karnofel] was orally advised of, or waived her right,” to have an attorney in the case, the 30 days of jail time imposed on each of three convictions are vacated, the ruling says. Vacated means to render void.

Judge Jeffrey Adler sentenced Karnofel to 30 days in jail on each conviction, to run concurrently, and all of the jail time was suspended, meaning she didn’t have to serve the jail time.

Karnofel pleaded no contest to the offenses June 19, 2015, just prior to being sentenced, according to online Girard Municipal Court records.

Karnofel was placed on one year’s probation, however, in August 2015. Typically while on probation, offenders are required to adhere to the terms of their probation or else face the possibility that they will be sent to jail to serve some portion or all of the suspended jail time.

An appeal like the one Karnofel filed places a stay on any punishment a convicted person faces until after the appeal is decided.

A dissenting opinion by appeals court Judge Diane Grendell says Karnofel’s history of representing herself in court cases in Trumbull County and Karnofel’s signature on a document indicating she had been advised of her right to have an attorney are sufficient to say that she was sufficiently advised of her rights.

But the majority of the judges said in the decision that Karnofel’s signature and her history of representing herself “are inconesequental.”

“The need for the discussion on the record is readily apparent,” the majority decision says. “Without a court’s on-the-record notification of the ramifications of waiver of the right to [an attorney], and the challenges inherent in self-representation, nothing shows that the waiver was knowing, intelligent, and voluntary.”