Athens City Law Director Pat Lang, who is responsible for directing the prosecution of misdemeanor cases within the city and parts of Athens County, has a powerful job.
That power ends at the authority to issue a subpoena.
But a bill in the state’s House Judiciary Committee, if enacted, would stretch his and other municipal law directors’ authority a little further.
House Bill 383, sponsored by Rep. Cheryl Grossman, R-Grove City, would extend the power to issue an investigative subpoena — a power currently reserved for county prosecutors, judges and magistrates — to city and village law directors. Language in the bill would reword Ohio law to extend the use of subpoenas to “criminal offenses” instead of just felonies.
“Subpoena power allows you to get information,” Lang said. “It might be useful in that regard.”
However, the prospect of city law directors issuing subpoenas for cases outside of their jurisdiction has raised eyebrows within the state’s law community.
John Murphy, executive director for the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association, said he would like to see the bill revised to limit city law directors to only issuing subpoenas for misdemeanors, leaving felonious cases to the county prosecutors who are most familiar with them.
“The bill is open-ended right now. It empowers city law directors to issue a subpoena for any criminal event,” Murphy said. “We don’t think they should have the power to issue outside of their jurisdiction. We’re opposed to the bill in its current form, but after revision we see no problem with it.”
Athens County Prosecutor Keller Blackburn also said he hopes the bill is tweaked for the benefit of both the county’s and the city’s law departments.
Without these revisions, he said, city law directors could be left investigating cases that have little to do with their department.
“If we could give the (subpoena power) to local prosecutors so that they could conduct their investigations, that would be perfect,” Blackburn said. “But felony cases are under control of the county prosecutor’s office, and it’s unclear whether city prosecutors would be able to investigate felony charges.”
It’s not that the city investigating felony charges would create confusion, Blackburn said, but that these cases aren’t handled by the city for a reason.
“I’m entrusted by the public to my job and the city law director and his staff are directed by the city of Athens to do theirs,” Blackburn said. “What we don’t want are people who aren’t used to this power investigating cases outside their jurisdiction.”
Lang said that city law officials are hoping for the power to issue subpoenas, as it would make their investigations a little easier to conduct. However, he doesn’t anticipate his department getting the chance to issue a subpoena often if the bill passes.
“A lot of being a law director is gathering information,” Lang said. “I wouldn’t foresee using this often, but I can definitely think of a handful of times where this would have been useful.”
The bill is still in committee and will need a majority approval from committee members before being brought to the House and Senate floors for a vote.
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