Case Title: State v. Bowshier

Citation: 2018-Ohio-2150

Docket Number: 2017-0936

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 2018-06-06T00:00:00Z

Document:
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as State 
v. Bowshier, Slip Opinion No. 2018-Ohio-2150.] 
 
 
 
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. 2018-OHIO-2150 
THE STATE OF OHIO, APPELLEE, v. BOWSHIER, APPELLANT. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it 
may be cited as State v. Bowshier, Slip Opinion No. 2018-Ohio-2150.] 
Appeal dismissed as having been improvidently accepted. 
(No. 2017-0936—Submitted April 11, 2018—Decided June 6, 2018.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Clark County, 
Nos. 15-CA-54 and 15-CA-73. 
_______________ 
{¶ 1} This cause is dismissed as having been improvidently accepted. 
O’CONNOR, C.J., and O’DONNELL, KENNEDY, DEWINE, and DEGENARO, 
JJ., concur. 
FISCHER, J., dissents, with an opinion joined by FRENCH, J. 
_________________ 
 
FISCHER, J., dissenting. 
{¶ 2} I respectfully disagree with the decision to dismiss this case as 
improvidently accepted. 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
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{¶ 3} The court accepted the following issue for review: a court of appeals 
must not dismiss a case pursuant to Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738, 87 S.Ct. 
1396, 18 L.Ed.2d 493 (1967), when the appellant presents case law in support of 
his or her position.  See 150 Ohio St.3d 1451, 2017-Ohio-8136, 83 N.E.3d 938.  No 
proposition of law was asserted or accepted regarding the Sixth Amendment rights 
of an incarcerated criminal defendant when the only issue remaining in the case 
relates to forfeiture of property.  However, appellee, the state of Ohio, argues that 
this Sixth Amendment issue is a necessary threshold question because Anders is 
applicable only when Sixth Amendment rights have attached.  The state adds that 
Sixth Amendment rights do not attach to forfeiture proceedings, and the appeal in 
this case is taken from a “post-sentence” forfeiture proceeding. 
{¶ 4} There could be good reasons to dismiss a case as improvidently 
accepted when no proposition of law was accepted on a threshold question.  I would 
find, however, that the state’s failure to present its Sixth Amendment argument to 
the lower courts constitutes a waiver of that argument.  Indeed, the state should be 
judicially estopped from arguing that the Sixth Amendment does not apply in this 
case; not only did the state fail to argue that appellant, Jeffrey Bowshier, had no 
right to counsel, but the state represented at oral argument that the state requested 
that counsel be appointed for Bowshier after he filed a pro se brief in the court of 
appeals.  For these reason, I believe the court should proceed to rule on the accepted 
proposition of law but should do so without deciding whether Sixth Amendment 
rights attach in this factual scenario. 
{¶ 5} This case is simple.  The state conceded at oral argument that 
Bowshier has assignments of error that are not “wholly frivolous” and that should 
have been raised by counsel on appeal.  Under these circumstances, and assuming 
but without deciding that Bowshier’s Sixth Amendment rights attached to the 
proceeding, the Second District Court of Appeals should have rejected defense 
counsel’s Anders brief and appointed new counsel to represent Bowshier. 
January Term, 2018 
 
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{¶ 6} Moreover, I would hold, seemingly uncontroversially, that a court of 
appeals should not dismiss a case pursuant to Anders when the appellant presents 
precedential case law in support of his or her argument.  I would also emphasize 
that this holding does not determine whether Sixth Amendment rights attach to 
forfeiture proceedings. 
{¶ 7} Finally, this is the second case that this court has recently dismissed 
as improvidently accepted that challenged the manner in which Ohio applies 
Anders.  See State v. Upkins, ___ Ohio St.3d ___, 2018-Ohio-1812, __ N.E.3d ___.  
As I stated in my dissent in Upkins, the Anders landscape in Ohio has been evolving 
and this court needs to determine whether Ohio’s appellate courts should continue 
to accept Anders briefs.  Id. at ¶ 24 (Fischer, J., dissenting).  At a minimum, this 
court must provide guidance to the lower courts as to how to apply Anders 
consistently and correctly. 
{¶ 8} For these reasons, I respectfully dissent. 
 
FRENCH, J., concurs in the foregoing opinion. 
_________________ 
D. Andrew Wilson, Clark County Prosecuting Attorney, and Andrew P. 
Pickering, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellee. 
Timothy Young, Ohio Public Defender, and Stephen P. Hardwick, Assistant 
Public Defender, for appellant. 
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