State v. Smith

The state of Ohio asserts that the trial court erred in suspending appellee’s sentence and placing him on probation, conditioned upon service of the mandated six months in the Ohio State Reformatory. In the state’s view there is no legislative grant of authority em*61powering the trial court to fashion a suspended sentence of this nature. We agree.

There is no doubt that historically our trial courts have exercised a wide latitude of discretion in suspending prison sentences and authorizing probation. There exists some very early authority that the power to suspend sentences was inherent with the…