Case Title: State v. Ware

Citation: 2014-Ohio-5201

Docket Number: 2014-0425

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 2014-11-26T00:00:00Z

Document:
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as 
State v. Ware, Slip Opinion No. 2014-Ohio-5201.] 
 
 
 
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-5201 
THE STATE OF OHIO, APPELLANT, v. WARE, APPELLEE. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it 
may be cited as State v. Ware, Slip Opinion No. 2014-Ohio-5201.] 
Prisoner is not eligible for judicial release when is entire prison sentence is 
mandatory pursuant to statute. 
(No. 2014-0425—Submitted September 10, 2014—Decided November 26, 2014.) 
CERTIFIED by the Court of Appeals for Portage County, 
No. 2013-P-0011, 2013-Ohio-5833. 
______________________ 
FRENCH, J. 
{¶ 1} R.C. 2929.20, Ohio’s judicial-release statute, allows certain 
offenders to apply for early release from prison.  In this appeal, we conclude that 
appellee, Shawn Ware, was not eligible for judicial release, because his entire 
prison sentence was mandatory.  Although the trial court later expressed its intent 
to impose a different sentence that would have allowed Ware to apply for early 
release, the court did not impose that sentence, nor could it have done so under 
Ohio law. 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
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Background 
{¶ 2} In March 2010, Ware pleaded guilty to two counts of trafficking in 
crack cocaine in violation of R.C. 2925.03(A)(2).1  One count was a second-
degree felony, because it involved crack cocaine weighing between 10 and 25 
grams.  R.C. 2925.03(C)(4)(e).  The other count was a fourth-degree felony, 
because it occurred in the vicinity of a juvenile.  R.C. 2925.03(C)(4)(b).  In 
exchange for the guilty plea, appellant, the state of Ohio, dismissed the remaining 
five felony counts. 
{¶ 3} Ware’s second-degree felony carried a mandatory prison term—a 
fact Ware acknowledged when he pleaded guilty.  The law in effect at the time 
required the sentencing court to “impose as a mandatory prison term one of the 
prison terms prescribed for a felony of the second degree.”  R.C. 
2925.03(C)(4)(e).  The prison terms prescribed for a second-degree felony are 
“two, three, four, five, six, seven, or eight years.”  R.C. 2929.14(A)(2).  In his 
written guilty plea, Ware acknowledged that his second-degree felony carried a 
mandatory prison term, and that “the prison term the judge imposes will be the 
term served.” 
{¶ 4} At the April 2010 sentencing hearing, the trial court reminded 
Ware that his second-degree felony carried “mandatory time.”  It then imposed a 
four-year prison term for that offense, to run concurrently with an 18-month 
prison term for Ware’s fourth-degree felony, for a total prison term of four years.  
After announcing its sentence, however, the trial court concluded the hearing by 
telling Ware that, if he “change[d] [his] life around while in prison,” his attorney 
“may petition * * * for a judicial release when it’s appropriate.”  The trial court’s 
                                                          
 
1 The General Assembly has since amended R.C. 2925.03 to eliminate the distinction between 
crack and powder cocaine.  See 2011 Am.Sub.H.B. No. 86, effective September 30, 2011.  All 
references to R.C. 2925.03 in this opinion are to the version of the statute in effect when Ware 
committed the offenses: former R.C. 2925.03, 2008 Sub.H.B. No. 195, effective September 30, 
2008. 
 
January Term, 2014 
 
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sentencing entry incorporated Ware’s four-year prison term, but did not refer to 
the term as mandatory. 
{¶ 5} Beginning in November 2010, Ware began filing motions for 
judicial release.  After the trial court denied his first motion, Ware filed a second, 
arguing that he was eligible for release before the expiration of his four-year term 
because the original sentencing entry did not indicate that his four-year term was 
mandatory.  Relying on the trial court’s reference at the end of the sentencing 
hearing to judicial release, Ware argued that the trial court “impliedly intended 
the mandatory prison time for the offense to constitute two years.” 
{¶ 6} The trial court did not rule on the motion, but instead issued a nunc 
pro tunc entry, which referred to Ware’s four-year prison term as “mandatory.”  
Ware withdrew his pending motion. 
{¶ 7} On October 26, 2012, Ware filed a third motion for judicial 
release, arguing that the original sentencing entry imposed only a “minimum 
mandatory sentence of two (2) years.”  After a hearing in February 2013, at which 
the state objected to Ware’s early release, the trial court granted the motion and 
released Ware under intensive supervision for one year followed by general 
supervision for 48 months. 
{¶ 8} Two days after it entered the final judgment granting Ware’s 
release, the trial court held a “status hearing” to further explain its ruling.  The 
trial court stated that it had not intended to make all four years of Ware’s sentence 
mandatory: “My idea was if the mandatory minimum in a certain charge is two 
years and I gave you four, that you would be eligible after the two year period 
because that was the mandatory minimum.” 
{¶ 9} The state appealed the judgment granting Ware’s release and 
argued that Ware was ineligible for judicial release under R.C. 2929.20 because 
his entire four-year prison term was mandatory.  The court of appeals agreed that 
Ware’s “entire four-year sentence was mandatory,” but stated that the trial court 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
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had intended to impose a “hybrid” prison term that was mandatory for only two of 
the four years.  11th Dist. Portage No. 2013-P-0011, 2013-Ohio-5833, ¶ 24, 44, 
54.  Based on the trial court’s postjudgment statements at the 2013 status hearing, 
the court of appeals remanded the case with instructions for the trial court to issue 
a nunc pro tunc entry that “correctly states the nature of the sentence the court 
intended to impose for the second-degree trafficking offense: i.e., a total stated 
prison term of four years, only two of which are mandatory.”  Id. at ¶ 54. 
{¶ 10} The Eleventh District certified that its judgment was in conflict 
with the Third District’s judgment in State v. Thomas, 3d Dist. Allen No. 1-04-88, 
2005-Ohio-4616.  In Thomas, the Third District held that the mandatory prison 
term in R.C. 2925.11(C)(4)(3) is mandatory for the “full length” of the term.  Id. 
at ¶ 8.  We certified that there is a conflict over the following question: 
 
When the imposition of a mandatory prison term is 
statutorily-mandated for a specific felony offense, is the trial court 
permitted to impose a total prison term within the maximum 
allowed, only a portion of which is mandatory under the statute? 
 
138 Ohio St.3d 1491, 2014-Ohio-2021, 8 N.E.3d 962. 
Analysis 
{¶ 11} Ohio law provides that a prisoner cannot apply for judicial release 
until a period of time “after the expiration of all mandatory prison terms” in the 
stated prison sentence.  R.C. 2929.20(C)(1), (2), (3), and (4).  The question here is 
whether Ware could ever apply for judicial release.  He could not.  All four years 
of his prison sentence were mandatory, and the trial court could not change this 
result by later expressing its intent to impose a different “hybrid” sentence. 
{¶ 12} It bears repeating that judicial release is a privilege, not an 
entitlement.  “ ‘There is no constitutional or inherent right * * * to be 
January Term, 2014 
 
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conditionally released before the expiration of a valid sentence.’ ”  State ex rel. 
Hattie v. Goldhardt, 69 Ohio St.3d 123, 125, 630 N.E.2d 696 (1994), quoting 
Greenholtz v. Inmates of Nebraska Penal & Corr. Complex, 442 U.S. 1, 7, 99 
S.Ct. 2100, 60 L.Ed.2d 668 (1979).  Courts have no inherent power to suspend 
execution of a sentence, and they must strictly construe statutes allowing such 
relief.  State v. Smith, 42 Ohio St.3d 60, 61, 537 N.E.2d 198 (1989). 
{¶ 13} In this case, Ware’s second-degree felony was statutorily ineligible 
for judicial release from the very beginning.  When he pleaded guilty, the 
punishment was clear: “the court shall impose as a mandatory prison term one of 
the prison terms prescribed for a felony of the second degree.”  (Emphasis added.)  
R.C. 2925.03(C)(4)(e).  Under this statute, prison was mandatory—and judicial 
release therefore impossible—for the length of whichever “one of the prison 
terms” the trial court imposes for a second-degree felony, whether  the term is 
“two, three, four, five, six, seven, or eight years.”  R.C. 2925.03(C)(4)(e) and 
2929.14(A)(2).  More to the point is R.C. 2929.13(F)(5), which specifically 
prohibits judicial release for a second-degree-felony drug offense for which R.C. 
2925.03 “requires the imposition of a mandatory prison term.”  For such offenses, 
the court “shall impose a prison term” and “except as specifically provided [by 
statute] shall not reduce the term * * * pursuant to section 2929.20.”  R.C. 
2929.13(F)(5). 
{¶ 14} The trial court did not change this result at sentencing.  It imposed 
a four-year prison term, and that entire prison term was mandatory by operation of 
law.  See R.C. 2925.03(C)(4)(e) and 2929.13(F)(5).  Even if it wanted to grant 
judicial release in the future, R.C. 2929.13(F)(5) explicitly prohibited it from 
doing so.  See State v. Taylor, 113 Ohio St.3d 297, 2007-Ohio-1950, 865 N.E.2d 
37, ¶ 11 (noting that a mandatory prison term precludes the opportunity for 
judicial release). 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
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{¶ 15} The court of appeals agreed that Ware’s “entire four-year sentence 
was mandatory,” 2013-Ohio-5833, ¶ 24, and its analysis should have ended there.  
But rather than find Ware ineligible for judicial release, the court of appeals 
remanded for the trial court to issue a nunc pro tunc entry imposing the prison 
sentence that it had “intended,” that is, a “hybrid” sentence in which only two 
years would be mandatory.  Id. at ¶ 44, 54. 
{¶ 16} There are several problems with this analysis, starting with the 
court of appeals’ focus on the prison sentence the trial court “intended” instead of 
the one it actually imposed.  Only the latter is relevant in a judicial-release 
analysis.  The trial court never imposed or purported to impose a hybrid sentence 
at the sentencing hearing or in its sentencing entry, and it did not announce a 
subjective intent to do so until the 2013 status hearing—years after it sentenced 
Ware and days after it entered the final judgment underlying this appeal.  This 
hitherto unknown intent is inappropriate for a nunc pro tunc entry.  A nunc pro 
tunc entry reflects what a court “actually decided, not what the court might or 
should have decided or what the court intended to decide.”  State ex rel. Fogle v. 
Steiner, 74 Ohio St.3d 158, 164, 656 N.E.2d 1288 (1995). 
{¶ 17} Regardless, such a hybrid sentence would have been legally 
impossible.  No sentencing statute allows a court to divide a singular “mandatory 
prison term” into a hybrid of mandatory and discretionary sub-terms.  R.C. 
2925.03(C)(4)(e) unambiguously requires a unitary “prison term” that is 
“mandatory,” and R.C. 2929.13(F)(5) instructs that a court “shall not reduce” that 
term through judicial release.  To override these legislative commands would 
require judicial improvisation in a legal system in which “[c]rimes are statutory, 
as are the penalties therefor, and the only sentence which a trial court may impose 
is that provided for by statute.”  Colegrove v. Burns, 175 Ohio St. 437, 438, 195 
N.E.2d 811 (1964).  The trial court had “no power to substitute a different 
sentence for that provided for by statute.”  Id. 
January Term, 2014 
 
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{¶ 18} Ware argues that the state cannot challenge his release because it 
did not object to his sentence at the sentencing hearing.  There was nothing 
objectionable at sentencing from the state’s perspective, however.  The trial court 
imposed a four-year prison term that was mandatory by operation of law and did 
not allow for early release.  Although the trial court mistakenly referred to a 
possibility of judicial release at the end of the hearing, the misstatement was 
exactly that—a misstatement.  It did not implicitly change Ware’s sentence, or 
place his mandatory prison term into some default “hybrid” status.  If Ware 
believed that the misstatement revealed intent to impose a different sentence, it 
was his duty to raise the issue at sentencing or in a direct appeal. 
{¶ 19} It is also irrelevant that the original sentencing entry did not refer 
to the four-year term as “mandatory.”  The trial court used the term “mandatory” 
in its subsequent nunc pro tunc entry, and even if it had not, Ware’s prison term 
still would have been mandatory.  R.C. 2929.19(B)(7) says that “[t]he failure of 
the court to notify the offender that a prison term is a mandatory prison term * * * 
or to include [that fact] in the sentencing entry * * * does not affect the validity of 
the imposed sentence or sentences.”  Even still, the omission of the word 
“mandatory” does not imply the inclusion of a legally impossible hybrid sentence. 
{¶ 20} In the end, Ware did not qualify for judicial release under R.C. 
2929.20.  Although the court of appeals considers this result “inequitable,” 
because the trial court intended a different sentence than it imposed, 2013-Ohio-
5833, ¶ 33, we reiterate that notions of equity do not empower courts to reopen 
final judgments without statutory authorization.  State ex rel. Chalfin v. Glick, 172 
Ohio St. 249, 252, 175 N.E.2d 68 (1961).  “Clemency is a function of the 
Executive branch and the courts are without authority to free guilty defendants 
absent a specific legislative enactment.”  State v. Beasley, 14 Ohio St.3d 74, 76, 
471 N.E.2d 774 (1984). 
 
 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
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Conclusion 
{¶ 21} In summary, we answer the certified question in the negative and 
reverse the judgment of the court of appeals. 
Judgment reversed. 
O’CONNOR, C.J., and O’DONNELL, LANZINGER, KENNEDY, and O’NEILL, 
JJ., concur. 
PFEIFER, J. concurs in judgment only. 
______________________________ 
Victor V. Vigluicci, Portage County Prosecuting Attorney, and Pamela J. 
Holder, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellant. 
Kane & Kane and Terry G. P. Kane, for appellee. 
Sherri Bevan Walsh, Summit County Prosecuting Attorney, and Heaven 
DiMartino, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, urging reversal for amicus curiae, 
Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association. 
______________________________