COLUMBUS — The Ohio Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down a 1996 Cincinnati law intended to keep drug offenders out of Over-the-Rhine.

        The court ruled 6-1 that the city's drug-exclusion zone ordinance violates a person's basic right to travel Ohio's public roads, sidewalks and highways. Though the court agreed Cincinnati has a compelling interest to keep neighborhoods and parks drug-free, it said city officials went too far.

        “The ordinance also attacks conduct that is completely innocent,” wrote Chief Justice Thomas J. Moyer.

        “A person subject to the exclusion ordinance may not enter a drug-exclusion zone to speak with counsel, to visit family, to attend church, to receive emergency medical care, to go to a grocery store, or just to stand on a street corner and look at a blue sky,” he wrote.

        City Council passed the drug exclusion law in 1996 as another tool to reduce the flow of illegal narcotics in neighborhoods such as Over-the-Rhine.

        The law allowed city police officers to arrest anyone recently convicted of a list of drug offenses as a trespasser if caught within a drug exclusion zone.

        Councilman Phil Heimlich, author of the ordinance, wants the city to appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

        “This law was the best tool our police officers had to combat the drug traffic in Over-the-Rhine,” Mr. Heimlich said.

        The Ohio Supreme Court ruled in the case of George Burnett, a neighborhood resident who was convicted in February 1988 on a misdemeanor charge of possessing drug paraphernalia.

        Excluded from Over-the-Rhine for a year, Mr. Burnett was arrested in the zone five months later and convicted of criminal trespass.

        The court's decision echoes oral arguments from Bruce F. Thompson, a Hamilton County public defender who took on Mr. Burnett's case. Mr. Thompson urged the high court to throw out the law as a violation of First Amendment rights.

        Six justices decided the law violated a person's right to travel within the state, saying it is a natural extension of the right to freely travel between states.

        The court also ruled the law violates the Ohio Constitution because it exceeds punishments for drug offenses set by the General Assembly.

        The drug exclusion zone has not been enforced since last year, when the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio declared it unconstitutional in a separate case.

        The sole dissenter on the Ohio Supreme Court, Justice Deborah Cook, disagreed the U.S. Constitution provides a right to travel, but agreed that the law violated the state constitution.

Bioterror gets personal
DNA expert joins UC genetics program
New ideas shape high schools
Trophy or not, Galaxy nominees all winners
Golden Galaxy 2001 Winners
Council delays vote on housing
County unit hires director
Fuller touts inexperience
Mediator offers Mason proposal
Meeting studies college diversity
Muslim stamp tangled in politics
Tristate A.M. Report
Whites take turn in forum
HOWARD: Some Good News
PULFER: Gum, garlic?
College chasing after diversity
Goshen schools fight repeal bid
Hamilton police getting new weapon
Miami talks a slice of past
Three of 4 candidates for levy
Troupe heads to big parade
Caseworker killed on home visit
Drug-zone law fails court test
Ohio House votes to pay withheld child support
Boone Co. firms turn in letters
Company faulted in sludge spill
Doctor's plea: common sense
Firefighters join to hold benefit
Kentucky News Briefs
Ky. researchers share $3.8M in grants
'Megan's Law' attacked as excessive
Skate park gaining support