Case Title: State ex rel. DeWine v. Burge

Citation: 2011-Ohio-235

Docket Number: 

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 2011-01-27T00:00:00Z

Document:
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as 
State ex rel. DeWine v. Burge, Slip Opinion No. 2011-Ohio-235.] 
 
 
 
 
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. 2011-OHIO-235 
THE STATE EX REL. DEWINE, ATTY. GEN., ET AL., APPELLANTS, v. 
BURGE, JUDGE, APPELLEE. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it 
may be cited as State ex rel. DeWine v. Burge,  
Slip Opinion No. 2011-Ohio-235.] 
Common pleas court judge lacked jurisdiction to remedy a Crim.R. 32(C) defect 
by granting a judgment of acquittal — Court of appeals’ judgment 
denying writ of prohibition reversed — Writ of prohibition issued to 
compel judge to vacate the judgment of acquittal and to issue a corrected 
sentencing entry. 
(No. 2010-1216 — Submitted January 4, 2011 — Decided January 27, 2011.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Lorain County, Nos. 09CA009723 and 
09CA009724, 2010-Ohio-3009. 
__________________ 
 
Per Curiam. 
{¶ 1} This is an appeal from a judgment of the court of appeals 
dismissing a claim for a writ of prohibition to compel a common pleas court judge 
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to vacate a judgment of acquittal in a criminal case and to issue a corrected 
sentencing entry pursuant to applicable precedent and return the defendant to 
prison.  Because the judge patently and unambiguously lacked jurisdiction to 
remedy a Crim.R. 32(C) defect by granting a judgment of acquittal, we reverse 
the judgment of the court of appeals and grant the writ. 
Facts 
Criminal Proceedings 
{¶ 2} In 1994, a jury convicted Nancy Smith and Joseph Allen of 
numerous sex offenses involving children enrolled in the Lorain Head Start 
Program.  In the Lorain County Court of Common Pleas’s sentencing entries for 
Smith and Allen, the court noted that they had appeared in court for sentencing 
“after having been found guilty” of the various offenses.  The sentencing entries 
did not specify the manner of the convictions–that Smith and Allen had been 
found guilty by a jury.  Smith and Allen were both sentenced to lengthy prison 
terms.  On appeal, the Court of Appeals for Lorain County affirmed the 
convictions and sentences.  See State v. Smith (Jan. 24, 1996), Lorain App. No. 
95CA006070, 1996 WL 27908; and State v. Allen (Feb. 7, 1996), Lorain App. No. 
94CA005944, 1996 WL 48550. 
{¶ 3} In 2008, Smith filed a motion for reconsideration of her sentence.  
In 2009, Allen filed a motion for resentencing.  The defendants claimed that their 
August 1994 sentencing entries did not comply with Crim.R. 32(C) and thus did 
not constitute final, appealable orders.  Appellee, Lorain County Court of 
Common Pleas Judge James M. Burge, who succeeded the judge who had 
sentenced the defendants to prison, granted the motions and vacated the 
convictions and sentences.  Judge Burge ruled that the court’s jurisdiction 
included “the preparation of a corrected sentencing entry or, in the court’s 
discretion, a resentencing.”  On June 24, 2009, Judge Burge entered judgments of 
acquittal pursuant to Crim.R. 29(C) for both Smith and Allen, discharged them, 
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and ordered the Lorain County Sheriff’s Department to remove them from the 
sex-offender registration and notification system. 
Prohibition Cases 
{¶ 4} In December 2009, appellants, Richard Cordray, who was the Ohio 
Attorney General at the time,1 and Lorain County Prosecuting Attorney Dennis 
Will, filed complaints in the Court of Appeals for Lorain County for writs of 
prohibition to compel Judge Burge to vacate his orders acquitting the defendants 
and to order their return to prison.  Judge Burge filed motions for judgment on the 
pleadings and for leave to file answers instanter. 
{¶ 5} The court of appeals dismissed the prohibition claim concerning 
Smith’s acquittal for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted.  
State ex rel. Cordray v. Burge, Lorain App. Nos. 09CA009723 and 09CA009724, 
2010-Ohio-3009, ¶ 29, 36.  The court of appeals determined that Judge Burge did 
not patently and unambiguously lack jurisdiction to reconsider the court’s earlier 
denial of Smith’s timely Crim.R. 29(C) motion for acquittal.  Id.  The court of 
appeals did, however, issue a writ of prohibition vacating Judge Burge’s acquittal 
of Allen because, unlike Smith, Allen had not filed a timely motion for acquittal 
pursuant to Crim.R. 29(C).  Id. at ¶ 30, 34, 36. 
{¶ 6} This cause is now before the court upon the appeal as of right by 
the attorney general and the prosecuting attorney regarding the court of appeals’ 
refusal to issue a writ in relation to Smith. 
Legal Analysis 
Prohibition 
{¶ 7} To be entitled to the requested writ of prohibition vacating Smith’s 
acquittal, the appellants were required to show that Judge Burge patently and 
                                                 
1  Effective January 10, 2011, Michael DeWine replaced Richard Cordray as Ohio Attorney 
General.  The issue is also pending in State v. Lester, case Nos. 2010-1007 and 2010-1372. 
 
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unambiguously lacked jurisdiction to enter the judgment of acquittal.  State ex rel. 
Mayer v. Henson, 97 Ohio St.3d 276, 2002-Ohio-6323, 779 N.E.2d 223, ¶ 12. 
Crim.R. 32(C) 
{¶ 8} Crim.R. 32(C) provides that a “judgment of conviction shall set 
forth the plea, the verdict, or findings upon which each conviction is based, and 
the sentence.”  In State v. Baker, 119 Ohio St.3d 197, 2008-Ohio-3330, 893 
N.E.2d 163, syllabus, we explained this requirement by holding that a “judgment 
of conviction is a final appealable order under R.C. 2505.02 when it sets forth (1) 
the guilty plea, the jury verdict, or the finding of the court upon which the 
conviction is based; (2) the sentence; (3) the signature of the judge; and (4) entry 
on the journal by the clerk of court.” 
{¶ 9} Appellants initially assert that Judge Burge patently and 
unambiguously lacked jurisdiction to vacate Smith’s convictions and sentence 
because the original sentencing entry complied with Crim.R. 32(C). 
{¶ 10} For the following reasons, appellants’ assertion lacks merit. 
{¶ 11} First, according to the court of appeals opinion, the state agreed 
that the Smith’s sentencing entry did not constitute a final, appealable order.  See 
State v. Smith, Lorain App. Nos. 09CA009634 and 09CA009635, 2010-Ohio-
3007, ¶ 3 (“the parties briefed the question and the State conceded that the 1994 
judgment of conviction was not final”).  A “ ‘party is not permitted to take 
advantage of an error that he himself invited or induced the court to make.’ ”  
Webber v. Kelly, 120 Ohio St.3d 440, 2008-Ohio-6695, 900 N.E.2d 175, ¶ 7, 
quoting Davis v. Wolfe (2001), 92 Ohio St.3d 549, 552, 751 N.E.2d 1051. 
{¶ 12} Second, appellants themselves, in their complaint for extraordinary 
relief in prohibition, requested that Judge Burge “issue a corrected sentence 
pursuant to State v. Baker, 119 Ohio St.3d 197, 2008-Ohio-3330 [893 N.E.2d 
163].”  Again, appellants thus invited any error by the court of appeals in holding 
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that Smith’s sentencing entry did not comply with Crim.R. 32(C) and Baker.  
Webber at ¶ 7. 
{¶ 13} Finally, Smith’s sentencing entry did not comply with Crim.R. 
32(C).  In Baker, 119 Ohio St.3d 197, 2008-Ohio-3330, 893 N.E.2d 163, at ¶ 14, 
we found that under Crim.R. 32(C), “a trial court is required to sign and 
journalize a document memorializing the sentence and the manner of the 
conviction:  a guilty plea, a no contest plea upon which the court has made a 
finding of guilt, a finding of guilt based upon a bench trial, or a guilty verdict 
resulting from a jury trial.”  (Emphasis added.)  Smith’s sentencing entry recited 
only that she had been found guilty of the various offenses and did not disclose 
that she had been found guilty by a jury. 
{¶ 14} Contrary to appellants’ assertion, our holding in State ex rel. Barr 
v. Sutula, 126 Ohio St.3d 193, 2010-Ohio-3213, 931 N.E.2d 1078, does not 
require a different result.  In that case, we held that a sentencing entry in a 
criminal case in which the defendant had been found guilty by the court after a 
bench trial complied with Crim.R. 32(C) because it contained language that the 
defendant had been found guilty by the court.  By contrast, here, the sentencing 
entry did not disclose that Smith had been found guilty by a jury.  Barr did not 
overrule Baker. 
{¶ 15} Therefore, appellants’ first contention lacks merit. 
Remedy for Correcting a Sentencing Entry that 
Does Not Comply with Crim.R. 32(C) 
{¶ 16} Appellants next claim that Judge Burge’s jurisdiction to correct the 
Crim.R. 32(C) deficiency in Smith’s sentencing entry was limited to issuing a 
nunc pro tunc entry correcting it. 
{¶ 17} Pursuant to Crim.R. 36, “[c]lerical mistakes in judgments, orders, 
or other parts of the record, and errors in the record arising from oversight or 
omission, may be corrected by the court at any time.”  “[C]ourts possess inherent 
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authority to correct clerical errors in judgment entries so that the record speaks the 
truth.”  State ex rel. Cruzado v. Zaleski, 111 Ohio St.3d 353, 2006-Ohio-5795, 
856 N.E.2d 263, ¶ 19.  “[N]unc pro tunc entries ‘are limited in proper use to 
reflecting what the court actually decided, not what the court might or should 
have decided.’ ”  Mayer, 97 Ohio St.3d 276, 2002-Ohio-6323, 779 N.E.2d 223, ¶ 
14, quoting State ex rel. Fogle v. Steiner (1995), 74 Ohio St.3d 158, 164, 656 
N.E.2d 1288.  A nunc pro tunc entry is often used to correct a sentencing entry 
that, because of a mere oversight or omission, does not comply with Crim.R. 
32(C).  See, e.g., State v. Havugiyaremye, Lucas App. No. L-08-1201, 2010-
Ohio-4204, ¶ 1, fn. 1; State v. Evans, Medina App. No. 09CA0102-M, 2010-
Ohio-2514, ¶ 2. 
{¶ 18} Consistent with the treatment of Crim.R. 32(C) errors as clerical 
mistakes that can be remedied by a nunc pro tunc entry, we have expressly held 
that “the remedy for a failure to comply with Crim.R. 32(C) is a revised 
sentencing entry rather than a new hearing.”  State ex rel. Alicea v. Krichbaum, 
126 Ohio St.3d 194, 2010-Ohio-3234, 931 N.E.2d 1079, ¶ 2; see also State ex rel. 
Culgan v. Medina Cty. Court of Common Pleas, 119 Ohio St.3d 535, 2008-Ohio-
4609, 895 N.E.2d 805, ¶ 10-11 (a defendant is entitled to a sentencing entry that 
complies with Crim.R. 32(C)); Dunn v. Smith, 119 Ohio St.3d 364, 2008-Ohio-
4565, 894 N.E.2d 312, ¶ 10 (when a trial court fails to comply with Crim.R. 
32(C), “the appropriate remedy is correcting the journal entry”). 
{¶ 19} This result is logical.  The trial court and the parties all proceeded 
under the presumption that the sentencing entry for Smith constituted a final, 
appealable order.  Any failure to comply with Crim.R. 32(C) was a mere 
oversight that vested the trial court with specific, limited jurisdiction to issue a 
new sentencing entry to reflect what the court had previously ruled and not to 
issue a new sentencing order reflecting what, in a successive judge’s opinion, the 
court should have ruled.  These circumstances are thus distinguishable from 
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egregious defects, such as an entry that is not journalized, that permit a court to 
vacate its previous orders.  Cf. State ex rel. White v. Junkin (1997), 80 Ohio St.3d 
335, 337-338, 686 N.E.2d 267.  Moreover, the technical failure to comply with 
Crim.R. 32(C) by not including the manner of conviction in Smith’s sentence is 
not a violation of a statutorily mandated term, so it does not render the judgment a 
nullity.  Cf. State v. Bezak, 114 Ohio St.3d 94, 2007-Ohio-3250, 868 N.E.2d 961, 
¶ 10-12, quoting Romito v. Maxwell (1967), 10 Ohio St.2d 266, 267-268, 39 
O.O.2d 414, 227 N.E.2d 223; see also State v. Fischer, __ Ohio St.3d __, 2010-
Ohio-6238, __ N.E.2d __, ¶ 39 (“fact that the sentence was illegal does not 
deprive the appellate court of jurisdiction to consider and correct the error”). 
{¶ 20} Contrary to Judge Burge’s assertion, McAllister v. Smith, 120 Ohio 
St.3d 278, 2008-Ohio-3881, 892 N.E.2d 914, ¶ 9, and Mitchell v. Smith, 120 Ohio 
St.3d 278, 2008-Ohio-6108, 898 N.E.2d 47, ¶ 1, do not warrant a different result.  
In those cases, we observed that the appropriate remedy for a violation of Crim.R. 
32(C) is “resentencing.”  But we did not suggest that this term encompassed 
anything more than issuing a corrected sentencing entry that complies with 
Crim.R. 32(C).  And by granting judgments of acquittal that the previous trial 
court judge had not, Judge Burge did far more than simply “resentence” Smith 
and Allen. 
{¶ 21} Based on the foregoing, Judge Burge patently and unambiguously 
lacked jurisdiction to vacate Smith’s convictions and sentence when his authority 
was limited to issuing a corrected sentencing entry that complies with Crim.R. 
32(C). 
Judge Burge’s Claim 
{¶ 22} Judge Burge, in his appellate brief, asserts that the court of appeals 
erred in granting a writ of prohibition vacating his acquittal of Allen.  The judge, 
however, did not appeal from this judgment, and his argument is thus not properly 
before us. 
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Conclusion 
{¶ 23} The court of appeals erred in dismissing appellants’ prohibition 
claim against Judge Burge concerning Smith’s criminal case.  We reverse the 
judgment of the court of appeals and grant the writ of prohibition to compel Judge 
Burge to vacate his acquittal of Smith and to issue a corrected sentencing entry 
that complies with Crim.R. 32(C). 
Judgment reversed 
and writ granted. 
 
O’CONNOR, C.J., and LUNDBERG STRATTON, O’DONNELL, CUPP, and 
MCGEE BROWN, JJ., concur. 
 
PFEIFER, J., concurs in judgment only. 
 
LANZINGER, J., concurs separately. 
__________________ 
Lanzinger, J., concurring. 
{¶ 24} I concur in the court’s opinion, but write separately to note that our 
decision today leaves open the question whether new appellate rights arise from a 
new sentencing entry issued in order to comply with Crim.R. 32(C).2  We have 
held that a sentencing entry that violates Crim.R. 32(C) renders that entry 
nonappealable.  State ex rel. Culgan v. Medina Cty. Court of Common Pleas, 119 
Ohio St.3d 535, 2008-Ohio-4609, 895 N.E.2d 805, ¶ 9.  In light of the facts of the 
present case, we eventually will need to determine what effect an appellate 
decision has when the appellate court’s jurisdiction was premised upon a 
sentencing entry that violated Crim.R. 32(C) and was thus nonappealable. 
__________________ 
 
Michael DeWine, Attorney General, Benjamin C. Mizer, Solicitor 
General, David M. Lieberman, Deputy Solicitor, and M. Scott Criss, Assistant 
                                                 
2 The state has raised this issue in its second proposition of law in State v. Allen, case No. 2010-
1342, and State v. Smith, case No. 2010-1345. 
January Term, 2011 
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Attorney General; and Dennis P. Will, Lorain County Prosecuting Attorney, and 
Billie Jo Belcher, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellants. 
 
James M. Burge, pro se. 
 
Sherri Bevan Walsh, Summit County Prosecuting Attorney, and Richard 
S. Kasay, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, urging reversal for amicus curiae Ohio 
Prosecuting Attorneys Association. 
 
Timothy Young, Ohio Public Defender, and E. Kelly Mihocik, Assistant 
Public Defender, urging affirmance for amicus curiae Ohio Public Defender. 
_____________________