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Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 2929.11

Purposes of felony sentencing

Applied in 128 court decisions — leading case State v. Jones (Slip Opinion) (2020)

Most recently applied in State v. Farwell (March 2026)

Effective: October 29, 2018; Latest Legislation: Senate Bill 66 - 132nd General Assembly

How often courts cite this section

201820202026210
citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

(A) A court that sentences an offender for a felony shall be guided by the overriding purposes of felony sentencing. The overriding purposes of felony sentencing are to protect the public from future crime by the offender and others, to punish the offender, and to promote the effective rehabilitation of the offender using the minimum sanctions that the court determines accomplish those purposes without imposing an unnecessary burden on state or local government resources. To achieve those purposes, the sentencing court shall consider the need for incapacitating the offender, deterring the offender and others from future crime, rehabilitating the offender, and making restitution to the victim of the offense, the public, or both.

(B) A sentence imposed for a felony shall be reasonably calculated to achieve the three overriding purposes of felony sentencing set forth in division (A) of this section, commensurate with and not demeaning to the seriousness of the offender's conduct and its impact upon the victim, and consistent with sentences imposed for similar crimes committed by similar offenders.

(C) A court that imposes a sentence upon an offender for a felony shall not base the sentence upon the race, ethnic background, gender, or religion of the offender.

Official source: Ohio Laws & Administrative Rules (Legislative Service Commission). Reproduced from public-domain Ohio statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.