Ohio high court to consider sentencing in cocaine case

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A Wood County drug case is now heading to the Ohio Supreme Court.
The case of Rafael Gonzales, 56, currently incarcerated at the Madison Correctional Institution, London,
was accepted on July 8 to be heard by the court.
Gonzales was originally sentenced to 11 years in a 2013 case after a jury found him guilty of possession
of cocaine with a major drug offender specification.
The case stemmed from a drug purchase at a hotel along Interstate 280 in Wood County involving an
undercover drug operation.
In February of this year, the Ohio Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals sent the case back to Wood County for
re-sentencing after they ruled that "because the state failed to introduce evidence as to the
purity or weight of the cocaine in this case, we find that (Gonzales’) penalty enhancement… must be
reversed and vacated."
The State of Ohio subsequently filed a stay for the court’s decision with the Ohio Supreme Court, which
was denied this spring.
The Wood County court was later determined not to have jurisdiction in the resentencing, and the Ohio
Supreme Court subsequently accepted the matter.
According to online information from the Ohio Supreme Court, the matter at hand involves whether the
State of Ohio, "in prosecuting cocaine offenses involving mixed substances," must prove that
the weight of the cocaine meets the legal threshold for penalties, "excluding the weight of any
filler materials used in the mixture."

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