Case Title: Reyes v. Tate

Citation: 2001-Ohio-289

Docket Number: 20001876

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 2001-02-28T00:00:00Z

Document:
[Cite as Reyes v. Tate, 91 Ohio St.3d 84, 2001-Ohio-289.] 
 
 
 
REYES, APPELLANT, v. TATE, WARDEN, APPELLEE. 
[Cite as Reyes v. Tate (2001), 91 Ohio St.3d 84.] 
Habeas corpus to compel relator’s release from prison – Dismissal of petition 
affirmed. 
(No. 00-1876 — Submitted January 31, 2001 — Decided February 28, 2001.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Belmont County, No. 00-BA-14. 
__________________ 
 
Per Curiam.  In March 1993, the Cuyahoga County Court of Common 
Pleas convicted appellant, Armando Reyes, of attempted robbery and sentenced 
him to prison.  Reyes’s sentence was suspended, and he was placed on two years’ 
probation.  Thereafter, Reyes violated the terms of his probation and was 
incarcerated.  Reyes was subsequently paroled, and his parole officer ordered him 
not to visit the residence of his ex-girlfriend without the officer’s written 
permission. 
 
On July 26, 1997, the record indicates that Reyes went to his ex-
girlfriend’s home, damaged her screen-door window by throwing a hammer 
through it, and then beat up her new boyfriend by hitting him repeatedly with a 
piece of wood.  Although the state entered a nolle prosequi on new charges of 
felonious assault and aggravated burglary arising from Reyes’s conduct, the Ohio 
Parole Board revoked his parole based on this conduct in July 1997.  In October 
1999, the board relied on Reyes’s July 1997 conduct in deciding not to parole him 
and to have him continue his incarceration until the expiration of his maximum 
sentence. 
 
In March 2000, Reyes filed a petition in the Court of Appeals for Belmont 
County for a writ of habeas corpus to compel appellee, Reyes’s prison warden, to 
release him from prison.  Reyes claimed that the state’s dismissal of the 1997 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
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criminal charges removed all factual support for them and that the Parole Board’s 
continued reliance on this alleged conduct violated his constitutional due process 
rights.  Appellee filed a motion to dismiss.  In September 2000, the court of 
appeals granted appellee’s motion and dismissed the petition. 
 
In his appeal as of right, Reyes essentially asserts that the court of appeals 
erred in dismissing his habeas corpus petition.  Reyes’s assertion lacks merit. 
 
“Parole may be revoked even though criminal charges based on the same 
facts are dismissed, the defendant is acquitted, or the conviction is overturned, 
unless all factual support for the revocation is removed.”  Moore v. Leonard 
(1999), 85 Ohio St.3d 189, 190, 707 N.E.2d 867, 868.  The state’s dismissal of the 
felonious assault and aggravated burglary charges against Reyes did not remove 
all factual support for the revocation.  The attachments to Reyes’s petition 
establish that the Parole Board had substantial evidence before it, including the 
testimony of police officers, to support its findings that Reyes committed the 
charged parole violations, i.e., that he criminally damaged property, assaulted his 
ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend, and failed to obey an order of his parole officer.  
See State ex rel. Parker v. Tate (1999), 86 Ohio St.3d 625, 626, 716 N.E.2d 210, 
211. 
 
In addition, as long as an unreasonable delay has not occurred, the remedy 
for noncompliance with parole-revocation due process requirements is generally a 
new hearing, not outright release from prison.  State ex rel. Johnson v. Ohio Adult 
Parole Auth. (2000), 90 Ohio St.3d 208, 209, 736 N.E.2d 469, 471. 
 
Finally, Reyes has no constitutional or inherent right to be conditionally 
released from prison before the expiration of his sentence.  State ex rel. Recker v. 
Leonard (2000), 88 Ohio St.3d 223, 224, 724 N.E.2d 805, 806. 
 
Therefore, the court of appeals properly dismissed the petition.  
Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the court of appeals. 
Judgment affirmed. 
January Term, 2001 
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MOYER, C.J., DOUGLAS, RESNICK, F.E. SWEENEY, PFEIFER, COOK and 
LUNDBERG STRATTON, JJ., concur. 
__________________ 
 
Armando Reyes, pro se. 
 
Betty D. Montgomery, Attorney General, and Diane Mallory, Assistant 
Attorney General, for appellee. 
__________________