COLUMBUS, Ohio — A new law in Ohio and in several other states across the country aims to protect the privacy of crime victims.

What You Need To Know

  • Marsy’s Law allows the identities of those victims to remain undisclosed

  • It went into effect in Ohio earlier this year

  • The law also protects the identities of police officers who are crime victims

Marsy’s Law allows the identities of those victims to remain undisclosed. 

But one controversial aspect of the law is when it involves police who are victims.

Marsy’s Law went into effect here in Ohio earlier this year. Among the guaranteed rights for crime victims is a right to privacy, keeping their personal info hidden and their names redacted from court documents.

It’s a right many support, but not all agree with when it comes to certain violent crime cases where police are among the victims, allowing their identities to be shielded.

In fact, last month, Columbus police specifically referenced the law as the reason for not identifying the officers involved in a shootout downtown.

“Why should police officers be treated differently anyway different than anyone else who was a victim of a crime?” said Adam Chaloupka, general counsel for The Ohio Patrolmen's Benevolent Association. “Police officers can file to remove their names from voter rules, and addresses, as well as their mortgages. This just seems like the next logical step to provide privacy to a law enforcement officers.”

It’s also privacy that’s even easier to now get compared to when Marsy’s Law was first enacted here in Ohio.

Initially, a crime victim would have to opt in to having this identity protection. But, last month, a change to the law makes that protection automatic.

Yet, Chaloupka said, the identities of police officers could still be made public.

“Nothing would stop us, or the individual officer from making their name public,” he said. “In theory, we still believe in innocent til proven guilty in this country, and say there was a question of whether or not something questionable happened in the use of force, this just gives one buffer to allow peace for an officer, and his family, and provide additional safety while the authorities, prosecutors, investigators are trying to sort out what happened.”

Aside from Ohio, nearly a dozen other states have adopted Marsy’s Law, including Florida, California and Kentucky.