FAILURE TO REPORT FELONY IS CRIME
Suspect says he told a friend, but no charges have been filed

Published: Sunday, August 22, 2004
NEWS 01B
By John Futty and Jodi Andes
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

A year before he was arrested and indicted in connection with the rapes of 37 women, Robert N. Patton Jr. confessed to a close friend.

Patton told The Dispatch about the confession in a recent jailhouse interview.

His friend didn't contact police, and Patton wasn't identified as the suspect until his DNA profile was entered into a state database in early June. He faces a 135-count indictment for crimes committed from 1987 through this year, many in the North Linden neighborhood.

Six of the rapes occurred in the year before Patton's arrest.

Failing to report a felony is a fourth-degree misdemeanor in Ohio, but Patton's friend didn't necessarily violate the law, according to legal experts.

Under the Ohio Revised Code, "No person, knowing that a felony has been or is being committed, shall knowingly fail to report such information to law-enforcement authorities.''

The key word in the statute is knowing, said Susan D. Rozelle, an assistant professor specializing in criminal law at Capital University Law School.

"A reasonable person would say, 'Gosh, to be on the safe side, if you have reason to believe that a felony was committed, you should report it.' But the law does not require that. To be guilty, you would have to know'' for sure that the crime had occurred.

Being told that someone committed a crime doesn't mean you know it to be true, she said.

"That would be the challenge for the prosecutor, to get inside a person's head.''

No one in Franklin County has been charged with failing to report a felony since 1997.

"It is very rarely used,'' Municipal Court Clerk Michael A. Pirik said.

Patton, 40, said he confessed to his friend while reading a Dispatch story last year about efforts to identify the Linden-area rapist.

He showed the story to the friend and said, "That's me.''

He said the friend reacted with disbelief.

When contacted by The Dispatch, the friend declined to comment.

Certain individuals are exempt from most of the requirements to report felonies under Ohio law.

In general, the law doesn't apply to those who learn about a felony in their role as a lawyer, a doctor, a licensed psychologist, a member of the clergy or a spouse.

But the law doesn't prohibit any of those individuals from reporting felonies and protects them from liability if they choose to contact law-enforcement officials.

Licensed psychologists, for instance, have a duty to protect the public, said Kathleen Mack, chairwoman of the ethics committee of the Ohio Psychological Association.

"You have to explain to clients that there are limits to confidentiality, primarily if they are a danger to themselves or others,'' said Mack, a psychologist in Cincinnati.

In the end, a police informant helped detectives track down Patton on June 7 outside an East Side grocery, after the DNA match was made.

Central Ohio Crime Stoppers have approved a $2,000 reward for that unidentified person, said Kevin Miles, president of the nonprofit group.

But Miles said a larger reward of $7,000, promoted on billboards in an attempt to apprehend the rapist, wasn't awarded because no one ever came forward with Patton's name.