A legal showdown is brewing over how far Ohio’s new reproductive-rights amendment really goes, with a Trumbull County judge asking the state’s highest court to step in and everyone from the attorney general to civil-rights lawyers telling him he is out of line.
Trumbull County Judge David Engler has petitioned the Ohio Supreme Court to declare that the state’s 2023 reproductive-rights amendment cannot be interpreted to strip juvenile courts of their long-standing authority to hear judicial-bypass petitions from minors seeking abortions. State officials and reproductive-rights groups have already moved to shut him down, filing papers that say his challenge comes too late and that he has no legal standing to bring it at all.
Engler filed his petition in April, arguing that the amendment “is being applied to eliminate parental-consent requirements for minors and to render judicial-bypass proceedings unnecessary or unavailable.” He attached an affidavit saying that Trumbull County averaged about two bypass requests per year in the five years before he took the bench and has seen none since, according to Mahoning Matters. He is asking the high court to confirm that juvenile courts retain jurisdiction over bypass hearings and to declare the amendment unenforceable to the extent it interferes with that authority. Engler has cast the filing as an effort to correct what he calls “unintended consequences” of the amendment’s enforcement.
The Ohio Attorney General’s Office responded on May 11 with a motion to dismiss, calling Engler’s challenge “untimely” and arguing that he “has not alleged an injury that is fairly traceable” to the officials he sued, according to Ohio Capital Journal. The filing also underscores that a voter-approved constitutional amendment controls over any conflicting statute. Assistant Attorney General Julie Pfeiffer cataloged what she said were multiple legal defects in Engler’s petition, including that the Supreme Court lacks jurisdiction to grant the sweeping declaration he seeks and that his supporting affidavit may not comply with the court’s practice rules. The state is urging the justices to dismiss the case outright rather than weigh in on the substance.
The ACLU of Ohio and the Reproductive Rights Law Initiative at Case Western Reserve University have asked to file a friend-of-the-court brief that sides against Engler, arguing that he lacks standing and that his limited, county-level numbers do not show any statewide failure to enforce parental-consent laws, according to the Tribune Chronicle. Margaret (Maggie) Scotece, a staff attorney with the Reproductive Rights Law Initiative, wrote that Engler’s allegations are “manifestly insufficient to support an inference” that parental-consent requirements are being ignored across Ohio. Advocates on both sides say the petition could become an early test of how the new amendment collides or coexists with older statutes and juvenile-court practices.
Legal Questions And The Road Ahead
Two big legal questions hang over the case. First, can a voter-approved constitutional right be read to override or narrow statutory duties assigned to juvenile courts by the legislature? Second, can Engler show a concrete, specific injury that is traceable to state officials, the kind of harm he would need in order to bring an original action in the Ohio Supreme Court?
Ohio’s parental-consent statute dates back to 1998 and has already sparked litigation over the years. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals addressed major challenges to Ohio’s parental-involvement rules in the mid-2000s, as summarized by Justia. The state’s dismissal motion also points to a constitutional timing rule for challenges to amendments, saying such cases generally must be filed at least 64 days before the election, a deadline the attorney general argues Engler has blown. The Ohio Secretary of State details the Supreme Court’s exclusive, original jurisdiction over such disputes and the 64-day requirement on its website at the Ohio Secretary of State.
The Ohio Supreme Court has not yet said whether it will take up Engler’s petition or set a briefing schedule. If the justices agree to hear the case, they could spell out how the 2023 reproductive-rights amendment fits with long-standing parental-consent rules, a ruling that would carry statewide consequences, according to Mahoning Matters.
