Case Title: State ex rel. Williams v. Hunter

Citation: 2014-Ohio-1022

Docket Number: 2013-1269

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 2014-03-20T00:00:00Z

Document:
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as 
State ex rel. Williams v. Hunter, Slip Opinion No. 2014-Ohio-1022.] 
 
 
 
 
NOTICE 
This slip opinion is subject to formal revision before it is published in 
an advance sheet of the Ohio Official Reports.  Readers are requested 
to promptly notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of Ohio, 
65 South Front Street, Columbus, Ohio 43215, of any typographical or 
other formal errors in the opinion, in order that corrections may be 
made before the opinion is published. 
 
SLIP OPINION NO. 2014-OHIO-1022 
THE STATE EX REL. WILLIAMS, APPELLANT, v. HUNTER, JUDGE, APPELLEE. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets,  
it may be cited as State ex rel. Williams v. Hunter,  
Slip Opinion No. 2014-Ohio-1022.] 
Procedendo—Sentencing entries alleged not to be final, appealable orders—
Failure to raise issue of finality in previous appeals precludes relief in 
procedendo—Judgment denying writ affirmed. 
(No. 2013-1269—Submitted January 7, 2014—Decided March 20, 2014.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Summit County, No. 26882. 
____________________ 
 
Per Curiam. 
{¶ 1} We affirm the judgment of the court of appeals dismissing 
appellant Cameron D. Williams’s petition for a writ of procedendo to compel 
appellee, Judge Judy Hunter of the Summit County Court of Common Pleas, to 
resentence him and issue a final, appealable sentencing order in Williams’s 
criminal case. 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
2 
 
{¶ 2} Williams made or could have made these same claims in previous 
appeals, and they are therefore res judicata. 
Facts 
{¶ 3} A jury convicted Williams in March 2008 of a number of offenses, 
including two counts of aggravated murder with capital specifications.  Judge 
Hunter merged the aggravated-murder convictions and another conviction for 
murder.  For these and other counts, the total sentence imposed was life 
imprisonment with parole eligibility after 69 years.  The Ninth District Court of 
Appeals reversed a conviction for violating a protection order but otherwise 
affirmed. State v. Williams, 9th Dist. Summit No. 24169, 2009-Ohio-3162.  While 
that appeal was pending, Judge Hunter denied a petition for postconviction relief. 
{¶ 4} Williams then filed a number of motions, including one for a new 
trial and one to dismiss an aggravated-burglary count, both of which were denied.  
He did not appeal the order denying the motion for a new trial, and his appeal of 
the order denying the motion to dismiss was dismissed when he failed to file a 
brief.  He also filed a motion for resentencing, arguing that he had been 
improperly sentenced on allied offenses of similar import.  That motion was 
denied.  The court of appeals affirmed the denial on the basis that the motion was 
in fact an impermissible successive postconviction petition.  State v. Williams, 9th 
Dist. Summit No. 25879, 2011-Ohio-6141. 
{¶ 5} In August and December 2011, Williams filed additional motions 
for resentencing and for a final, appealable order, which were denied as barred by 
res judicata and by the prohibition against successive petitions for postconviction 
relief.  The court of appeals affirmed.  State v. Williams, 9th Dist. Summit No. 
26353, 2012-Ohio-4140. 
{¶ 6} Next, Williams filed the action that is now before this court: a 
petition in the court of appeals for a writ of procedendo to order Judge Hunter to 
conduct a new sentencing hearing and issue a final, appealable order.  He argued 
January Term, 2014 
3 
 
that the entry of March 21, 2008, which set forth the jury’s sentencing 
recommendations on the capital counts after the mitigation phase of the trial, was 
not final because it did not dispose of all counts.  He also argued that the entry of 
March 25, 2008, which set forth the verdicts and sentence, was not final because 
it failed to include the findings of the mitigation phase of the trial. 
{¶ 7} Judge Hunter moved to dismiss on the basis of res judicata and 
mootness.  The court of appeals granted the motion to dismiss, and this appeal 
followed. 
Legal Analysis 
{¶ 8} To be entitled to a writ of procedendo, Williams must show a clear 
legal right to require the court to proceed, a clear legal duty on the part of the 
court to proceed, and the lack of an adequate remedy in the ordinary course of the 
law.  State ex rel. Brown v. Luebbers, 137 Ohio St.3d 542, 2013-Ohio-5062, 1 
N.E.3d 395, ¶ 10.  A writ of procedendo is proper when a court has refused to 
enter judgment or has unnecessarily delayed proceeding to judgment.  State ex rel. 
Crandall, Pheils & Wisniewski v. DeCessna, 73 Ohio St.3d 180, 184, 652 N.E.2d 
742 (1995).  Here, Williams claims that Judge Hunter has failed to move forward 
with a new sentencing hearing and to issue “a final appealable order that Williams 
can appeal.” 
{¶ 9} Williams cannot prevail because he has raised these finality issues 
before and had an adequate remedy by way of appeal in previous cases.  He could 
have, but did not, raise the issue in his direct appeal.  He raised the finality issue 
again in his 2011 motions for resentencing and for a final, appealable order.  In 
short, Williams is not entitled to a writ because he has not demonstrated any of 
the three prerequisites: a clear right to the requested relief, a clear duty on Judge 
Hunter’s part to provide it, and the lack of an adequate remedy at law. 
{¶ 10} We affirm. 
Judgment affirmed. 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
4 
 
O’CONNOR, C.J., and PFEIFER, O’DONNELL, LANZINGER, KENNEDY, 
FRENCH, and O’NEILL, JJ., concur. 
____________________ 
 
Cameron D. Williams, pro se. 
 
Sherri Bevan Walsh, Summit County Prosecuting Attorney, and Richard 
S. Kasay, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellee. 
_________________________