Case Title: State ex rel. Mitchell v. Fredrick

Citation: 2024-Ohio-1861

Docket Number: 2023-0791

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 2024-05-16T00:00:00Z

Document:
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as State 
ex rel. Mitchell v. Fredrick, Slip Opinion No. 2024-Ohio-1861.] 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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. 2024-OHIO-1861 
THE STATE EX REL. MITCHELL, APPELLANT, v. FREDRICK, WARDEN, ET AL., 
APPELLEES. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it 
may be cited as State ex rel. Mitchell v. Fredrick, Slip Opinion No.  
2024-Ohio-1861.] 
Habeas corpus—Inmate had adequate remedy in ordinary course of law through 
direct appeal to challenge validity of sentence, and trial court did not lack 
jurisdiction over his criminal case—Court of appeals’ judgment dismissing 
petition affirmed. 
(No. 2023-0791—Submitted April 9, 2024—Decided May 16, 2024.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Marion County, 
No. 9-23-06. 
________________ 
 
Per Curiam. 
{¶ 1} Appellant, James E. Mitchell, is incarcerated at the Marion 
Correctional Institution, serving a 160-year prison sentence imposed for a 1994 
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conviction in Summit County, which is to be served consecutively to a 3- to 15-
year prison sentence imposed for a June 1994 conviction in Portage County.  
Mitchell appeals the Third District Court of Appeals’ judgment dismissing his 
petition for a writ of habeas corpus against appellees, Warden George A. Fredrick1 
and the Ohio Adult Parole Board.  The court of appeals held that Mitchell failed to 
allege a claim cognizable in habeas corpus and that he has or had an adequate 
remedy in the ordinary course of the law.  We affirm that judgment. 
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND 
{¶ 2} In June 1994, Mitchell entered a guilty plea to one count each of 
burglary and gross sexual imposition, and the Portage County Court of Common 
Pleas sentenced him to an aggregate prison term of 3 to 15 years.  Mitchell 
appealed, arguing that the trial court erred in denying his motion to withdraw his 
guilty plea, but the court of appeals affirmed the judgment.  State v. Mitchell, 11th 
Dist. Portage No. 94-P-0070, 1995 WL 411830, *3 (June 23, 1995).  In that appeal, 
Mitchell did not challenge the jurisdiction of the trial court to sentence him.  In 
November 1994, a Summit County jury found Mitchell guilty on two counts each 
of aggravated burglary and kidnapping and one count each of rape, felonious 
assault, and attempted rape.  The trial court sentenced Mitchell to an aggregate 
maximum term of 160 years in prison and ordered Mitchell to serve that sentence 
consecutively to the sentence imposed by the Portage County trial court. 
{¶ 3} In January 2023, Mitchell petitioned the Third District for a writ of 
habeas corpus, arguing that the Portage County trial court lacked jurisdiction when 
it sentenced him on his guilty plea to burglary and gross sexual imposition because 
“no judgment of conviction and sentence ha[d] been imposed” on him with regard 
to the indicted offenses of rape and aggravated burglary.  He maintains that that 
prison sentence is void and thus the sentences imposed by the Summit County trial 
 
1. The current warden of the Marion Correctional Institution, Fredrick, is automatically substituted 
as appellee for the former warden, Harold May, under S.Ct.Prac.R. 4.06(B). 
January Term, 2024 
 
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court are void.  The warden and board filed a motion to dismiss the petition, arguing 
that Mitchell’s maximum prison sentence of 160 years had not expired and that his 
claims were not cognizable in habeas corpus. 
{¶ 4} The court of appeals granted the motion to dismiss, concluding that 
Mitchell failed to raise a cognizable claim in habeas corpus and failed to show that 
his prison sentence had expired and because Mitchell had adequate remedies in the 
ordinary course of the law to raise his claims. 
ANALYSIS 
Applicable legal standards 
{¶ 5} We review de novo a decision granting a motion to dismiss under 
Civ.R. 12(B)(6).  State ex rel. Slaughter v. Foley, 166 Ohio St.3d 222, 2021-Ohio-
4049, 184 N.E.3d 87, ¶ 8.  Dismissal is appropriate if it appears beyond doubt, after 
taking all allegations in the petition as true and making reasonable inferences in 
Mitchell’s favor, that he can prove no set of facts entitling him to a writ of habeas 
corpus.  Orr v. Schweitzer, 165 Ohio St.3d 175, 2021-Ohio-1786, 176 N.E.3d 738, 
¶ 4. 
{¶ 6} To obtain a writ of habeas corpus, Mitchell “must show that he is 
being unlawfully restrained of his liberty, R.C. 2725.01, and that he is entitled to 
immediate release from prison or confinement, State ex rel. Cannon v. Mohr, 155 
Ohio St.3d 213, 2018-Ohio-4184, 120N.E.3d 776, ¶ 10.”  State ex rel. Davis v. 
Turner, 164 Ohio St.3d 395, 2021-Ohio-1771, 172 N.E.3d 1026, ¶ 8.  Habeas 
corpus will lie when the court that imposed the sentence of confinement patently 
and unambiguously lacked subject-matter jurisdiction.  Stever v. Wainwright, 160 
Ohio St.3d 139, 2020-Ohio-1452, 154 N.E.3d 55, ¶ 8.  But a writ of habeas corpus 
is precluded when a “petitioner has an adequate remedy in the ordinary course of 
law, unless a trial court’s judgment is void for lack of jurisdiction.”  Davis at ¶ 8. 
 
 
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Trial court’s subject-matter jurisdiction 
{¶ 7} Ohio’s common pleas courts have original jurisdiction over “all 
crimes and offenses, except in cases of minor offenses the exclusive jurisdiction of 
which is vested in courts inferior to the court of common pleas.”  R.C. 2931.03.  
This includes a common pleas court’s subject-matter jurisdiction over felony cases.  
See Smith v. Sheldon, 157 Ohio St.3d 1, 2019-Ohio-1677, 131 N.E.3d 1, ¶ 8 
(petitioner’s habeas corpus claims were not cognizable, because common pleas 
court had subject-matter jurisdiction over felony cases).  When a trial court has 
subject-matter and personal jurisdiction over the case and the defendant, 
respectively, any errors in sentencing are voidable—not void—and are not subject 
to collateral attack in an extraordinary writ action.  State ex rel. Harris v. Hamilton 
Cty. Clerk of Courts, 168 Ohio St.3d 99, 2022-Ohio-477, 196 N.E.3d 777, ¶ 8. 
{¶ 8} Mitchell claims in his petition that “[t]o date, as previously 
demonstrated, no judgment of conviction and sentence has been imposed on [him] 
due to the unresolved indicted counts in the Portage County case.”  According to 
Mitchell, because the Portage County trial court never entered a “final order” 
disposing of all charges, the prison sentences imposed by the Summit County trial 
court are also invalid because they were ordered to be served after and 
consecutively to the sentence imposed by the Portage County trial court.  In his 
petition, Mitchell also argues that the board lacked jurisdiction to “subject [him] to 
its discretionary releasing authority and to order continued incarceration * * * as 
there is no valid judgment of conviction and sentence imposed granting such 
authority to the [board] pursuant to R.C. 2967.13(A).” 
{¶ 9} Mitchell’s arguments are not cognizable in habeas corpus.  The 
Portage County trial court had subject-matter jurisdiction to accept Mitchell’s 
guilty plea to burglary and gross sexual imposition and to sentence him accordingly.  
Any defects in the trial court’s sentencing entry implicate the trial court’s exercise 
of jurisdiction over Mitchell’s criminal case, not the court’s subject-matter 
January Term, 2024 
 
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jurisdiction.  See Pollock v. Morris, 35 Ohio St.3d 117, 117-118, 518 N.E.2d 1205 
(1988) (validity of guilty plea is a nonjurisdictional matter that should be raised on 
appeal or in postconviction proceedings). 
Adequate remedies existed 
{¶ 10} In his fourth proposition of law, Mitchell attacks the court of 
appeals’ determination that he had adequate remedies sufficient to preclude relief 
in habeas corpus, but the contents of his petition reveal the plethora of adequate 
remedies that Mitchell had, which he pursued.  See, e.g., State v. Mitchell, 11th 
Dist. Portage No. 2018-P-0047, 2019-Ohio-844; State v. Mitchell, 11th Dist. 
Portage No. 2019-P-0105, 2020-Ohio-3417; see also State ex rel. Mitchell v. 
Pittman, 169 Ohio St.3d 357, 2022-Ohio-2542, 204 N.E.3d 534, ¶ 13.  Therefore, 
we hold that the court of appeals correctly dismissed Mitchell’s petition based on 
adequate-remedy grounds. 
Mitchell’s arguments on appeal 
{¶ 11} Mitchell’s remaining arguments on appeal also lack merit.  In his 
first proposition of law, Mitchell contends that the court of appeals 
mischaracterized his habeas claim.  He posits that the court’s reasoning was flawed 
as a result of its misunderstanding of his claim and that the dismissal was thus 
erroneous.  But that argument lacks merit because the court of appeals accurately 
identified the issue that Mitchell raised in his petition, i.e., his allegations that his 
charges for rape and aggravated burglary remain unresolved and that no final 
judgment was entered by the Portage County trial court.  State ex rel. Mitchell v. 
May, 3d Dist. Marion No. 9-23-06 (May 15, 2023). 
{¶ 12} In his second and third propositions of law, Mitchell generally 
argues that the court of appeals wrongly dismissed his petition on the grounds that 
he failed to raise a claim cognizable in habeas corpus and he had adequate remedies 
in the ordinary course of the law.  We have already discussed above why these 
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arguments fail.  Therefore, we hold that the court of appeals correctly dismissed 
Mitchell’s claim under Civ.R. 12(B)(6). 
CONCLUSION 
{¶ 13} The Third District Court of Appeals’ judgment dismissing 
Mitchell’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus is affirmed. 
Judgment affirmed. 
KENNEDY, C.J., and FISCHER, DEWINE, DONNELLY, STEWART, BRUNNER, 
and DETERS, JJ., concur. 
_________________ 
James E. Mitchell, pro se. 
Dave Yost, Attorney General, and Katherine E. Mullin, Assistant Attorney 
General, for appellees. 
_________________