Case Title: State v. LaMar

Citation: 2004-Ohio-3976

Docket Number: 

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 2004-08-11T00:00:00Z

Document:
[Cite as State v. LaMar, 102 Ohio St.3d 467, 2004-Ohio-3976.] 
 
 
THE STATE OF OHIO, APPELLEE, V. LAMAR, APPELLANT. 
[Cite as State v. LaMar, 102 Ohio St.3d 467, 2004-Ohio-3976.] 
App.R. 26(B) — Application for reopening appeal denied, when. 
(No. 2004-0504 — Submitted July 20, 2004 — Decided August 11, 2004.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Lawrence County, No. 95CA31. 
____________________ 
 
Per Curiam. 
{¶1} 
Appellant, Keith LaMar, challenges the denial of his application to 
reopen his direct appeal under App.R. 26(B). 
{¶2} 
LaMar was tried and convicted in 1995 in Lawrence County for 
murdering five of his fellow inmates during the 1993 Lucasville prison riot.  
LaMar was sentenced to death for four of the five murders.  The court of appeals 
affirmed his convictions and the death sentences in 1998.  State v. LaMar (Aug. 
13, 1998), Lawrence App. No. 95CA31, 1998 WL 514548.  We then affirmed the 
appellate court’s judgment.  State v. LaMar, 95 Ohio St.3d 181, 2002-Ohio-2128, 
767 N.E.2d 166. 
{¶3} 
On November 19, 2003, LaMar filed an application to reopen his 
appeal in the court of appeals under App.R. 26(B), alleging that he did not receive 
the effective assistance of appellate counsel in the court of appeals.  That court 
denied the application in February 2004, citing LaMar’s failure to comply with 
the 90-day filing deadline in App.R. 26(B).  The court of appeals also found that 
LaMar had not shown “good cause” for his failure to file his application within 
the time limit set by the rule. 
{¶4} 
LaMar has now filed a timely appeal. 
{¶5} 
We affirm the judgment of the court of appeals.  LaMar did not 
comply with App.R. 26(B), which states that “[a]n application for reopening shall 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
2 
be filed in the court of appeals where the appeal was decided within ninety days 
from journalization of the appellate judgment unless the applicant shows good 
cause for filing at a later time.”  LaMar waited five years before filing his 
application. 
{¶6} 
He argues that he had good cause for missing the 90-day deadline 
set by the rule.  The attorneys who represented him in the initial appeal before the 
court of appeals continued to represent him in this court for many months after the 
court of appeals ruled against him in November 1998, and those attorneys could 
not be expected to challenge their own effectiveness at any time, he argues, let 
alone within 90 days of the appellate court’s ruling.  And LaMar himself did not 
have the legal experience or financial resources to file the application for 
reopening on his own, his current attorney says. 
{¶7} 
We now reject those arguments, just as did the court of appeals 
earlier this year.  The rule and its 90-day deadline were firmly established and 
regularly followed in Ohio’s courts by the time LaMar’s appeal as of right was 
decided by the court of appeals in August 1998, and the same remains true today.  
Ohio and other states “may erect reasonable procedural requirements for 
triggering the right to an adjudication,” Logan v. Zimmerman Brush Co. (1982), 
455 U.S. 422, 437, 102 S.Ct. 1148, 71 L.Ed.2d 265, and that is what Ohio has 
done by creating a 90-day deadline for the filing of applications to reopen.  LaMar 
could have retained new attorneys after the court of appeals issued its decision, or 
he could have filed the application on his own.  What he could not do was ignore 
the rule’s filing deadline. 
{¶8} 
To be sure, as LaMar contends, “counsel cannot be expected to 
argue their own ineffectiveness.”  State v. Davis (1999), 86 Ohio St.3d 212, 214, 
714 N.E.2d 384.  Other attorneys — or LaMar himself — could have pursued the 
application, however.  Nothing prevented them or him from doing so, and in fact 
other attorneys did pursue postconviction relief on LaMar’s behalf under R.C. 
January Term, 2004 
3 
2953.21 in 1997 and 1998.  Those attorneys could have filed a timely application 
under App.R. 26(B) for LaMar in 1998.  In any event, ample opportunities existed 
well before November 2003 for LaMar himself or his attorneys to file an 
application for reopening.  As we have said, “[g]ood cause can excuse the lack of 
a filing only while it exists, not for an indefinite period.”  State v. Fox (1998), 83 
Ohio St.3d 514, 516, 700 N.E.2d 1253.  The excuse that LaMar and his attorneys 
were occupied with other appeals or that they simply neglected to pay attention to 
the rule is not “good cause” for missing the filing deadline. 
{¶9} 
And LaMar himself cannot rely on his own alleged lack of legal 
training to excuse his failure to comply with the deadline.  “Lack of effort or 
imagination, and ignorance of the law * * * do not automatically establish good 
cause for failure to seek timely relief” under App.R. 26(B).  State v. Reddick 
(1995), 72 Ohio St.3d 88, 91, 647 N.E.2d 784.  The 90-day requirement in the 
rule is “applicable to all appellants,” State v. Winstead (1996), 74 Ohio St.3d 277, 
278, 658 N.E.2d 722, and LaMar offers no sound reason why he — unlike so 
many other Ohio criminal defendants — could not comply with that fundamental 
aspect of the rule. 
Judgment affirmed. 
 
MOYER, C.J., RESNICK, F.E. SWEENEY, LUNDBERG STRATTON, O’CONNOR 
and O’DONNELL, JJ., concur. 
 
PFEIFER, J., concurs in judgment only. 
__________________ 
 
Mark E. Piepmeier, Special Prosecuting Attorney, and William E. Breyer, 
Assistant Special Prosecuting Attorney, for appellee. 
 
Kathleen McGarry, for appellant. 
__________________