Background
Tamara Dallas entered negotiated guilty pleas to having weapons while under disability, domestic violence, and aggravated assault in Montgomery County Common Pleas Court. The trial court imposed an aggregate 54-month prison sentence.
At sentencing, Dallas asked the court to waive fines and costs because she was indigent. After reviewing the presentence investigation report, the court found that she could pay court costs and ordered them as part of the sentence. Dallas appealed only that ruling.
The Court’s Holding
The Second District affirmed. Ohio law requires trial courts to impose prosecution costs on convicted defendants, including indigent defendants, although courts retain discretion to waive, suspend, or modify payment of those costs.
The court held that the trial court did not abuse its discretion by declining to waive Dallas’s costs. Appointment of counsel based on indigency does not itself bar the assessment of court costs, and the court was not required to consider indigency or ability to pay. In any event, its reliance on the PSI—including Dallas’s education, employment history, and health information—made its finding that she could pay costs neither arbitrary nor unreasonable.
Key Takeaways
- Ohio courts must assess prosecution costs against convicted defendants, whether indigent or not.
- A court may waive costs, but waiver is discretionary rather than mandatory.
- Appointment of counsel does not by itself preclude an order requiring payment of court costs.
Why It Matters
The decision underscores the distinction between indigency for appointed-counsel purposes and a request to waive criminal court costs. On appeal, a defendant challenging the denial of a cost waiver must show that the trial court acted unreasonably, arbitrarily, or unconscionably.