At 17, Patrick McGail was sentenced to 24 years to life for a murder he did not pull the trigger on.​

Jason Sowers, who actually shot and killed Nathan Wintrow during a 2013 robbery in Troy, Ohio, received 18 years to life, six years less than Patrick. Sowers took a plea deal. Patrick went to trial. That choice, more than the facts of who held the gun, is a major reason Patrick received the longer sentence.

Ohio’s complicity statute, Revised Code 2923.03, made this possible. It allows a person to be charged and sentenced for murder as if they pulled the trigger, even when a jury never finds that they caused the death. When a minor is tried as an adult, they face the same sentencing exposure as any adult codefendant, regardless of their age or who actually used the weapon.

In 2022, House Bill 665 was introduced to change this. The bill would have limited how minors can be sentenced under the complicity statute so that a young person could not automatically receive the same or greater punishment as the person who committed the killing. It never received a hearing and has not been brought back.

Patrick is now in his thirties at Ross Correctional Institution. While incarcerated he has earned a bachelor’s and master’s degree and is working toward a doctorate. He taught business, communications, and stock market courses to hundreds of fellow incarcerated students, helped found and later led a Toastmasters club, and spent a decade tutoring adult basic education, GED and college level coursework. He co-founded a program that connected more than 3,000 incarcerated people with their families, self-published seven books, and now trains and fosters dogs through a program at Ross.

Sign this petition to tell Ohio lawmakers that a child should never receive more prison time than the person who actually committed the crime, and that people like Patrick deserve a chance to have their sentences reviewed.