Title: State ex rel. Walker v. State

State: ohio

Issuer: Ohio Supreme Court

Document:

[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as 
State ex rel. Walker v. State, Slip Opinion No. 2015-Ohio-1481.] 
 
 
 
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. 2015-OHIO-1481 
THE STATE EX REL. WALKER, APPELLANT, v. THE STATE OF OHIO, APPELLEE. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it 
may be cited as State ex rel. Walker v. State, Slip Opinion  
No. 2015-Ohio-1481.] 
Mandamus—Resentencing—Allied offenses—Retroactivity—Failure to establish a 
clear legal right to relief—Court of appeals’ dismissal of petition 
affirmed. 
(No. 2014-0336—Submitted January 13, 2015—Decided April 21, 2015.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Cuyahoga County, 
No. 100415, 2014-Ohio-216. 
________________ 
Per Curiam. 
{¶ 1} Appellant, Michael A. Walker, appeals the decision of the Eighth 
District Court of Appeals dismissing his petition for writ of mandamus.  Walker 
has also moved this court to stay the collection of court costs during this appeal.  
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
2
For the reasons set forth below, we affirm the judgment of the court of appeals 
and deny the motion to stay the collection of court costs. 
Facts 
A. 
Underlying criminal conviction 
{¶ 2} In 1983, a jury found Walker guilty of aggravated murder, 
aggravated burglary, and two counts each of aggravated robbery and felonious 
assault.  The trial court sentenced him to serve 64 to 105 years and/or life in 
prison.  Walker’s convictions and sentences were affirmed on direct appeal.  State 
v. Walker, 8th Dist. Cuyahoga No. 47616, 1984 WL 5599 (May 31, 1984). 
{¶ 3} On June 17, 1999, Walker filed a motion with the trial court seeking 
to have his sentence “corrected” under R.C. 2941.25(A) and the Double Jeopardy 
Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.  The trial court 
denied Walker’s motion on July 1, 1999.  Walker did not appeal. 
B. 
Mandamus proceedings 
{¶ 4} On September 17, 2013, Walker filed an original action in the court 
of appeals seeking a writ of mandamus compelling the state of Ohio to resentence 
him.  Walker argued that our decision in State v. Johnson, 128 Ohio St.3d 153, 
2010-Ohio-6314, 942 N.E.2d 1061, entitles him to a de novo resentencing hearing 
at which the trial court must address the issue of allied offenses.  Johnson 
changed the standard for evaluating allied offenses by overruling State v. Rance, 
85 Ohio St.3d 632, 710 N.E.2d 699 (1999), “to the extent that it calls for a 
comparison of statutory elements solely in the abstract under R.C. 2941.25.”  
Johnson at ¶ 44.  Under Johnson, courts must “consider the offenses at issue in 
light of the defendant’s conduct,” id. at ¶ 46, and a “court need not perform any 
hypothetical or abstract comparison of the offenses at issue in order to conclude 
that the offenses are subject to merger,” id. at ¶ 47.1  
                                                 
1 The Johnson test has since been clarified by our opinion in State v. Ruff, ____ Ohio St.3d ____, 
2015-Ohio-995, ___ N.E.3d ___; however, Ruff has no bearing on the resolution of this appeal. 
January Term, 2015 
 
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{¶ 5} The state filed a motion to dismiss the petition, arguing that Walker 
named the state of Ohio as a party in error, and therefore the petition was 
defective, and asserting that Johnson does not apply retroactively.  The state 
further argued that Walker’s allied-offense claim is not cognizable in a mandamus 
action because he had an adequate remedy in the ordinary course of law by way 
of direct appeal. 
{¶ 6} The court of appeals granted the motion to dismiss and held that 
Johnson applies only to cases pending on the date that that decision was 
announced, not to convictions that were final prior to that date.  2014-Ohio-216 at 
¶ 3, citing State v. Bork, 6th Dist. Lucas No. L-12-1221, 2013-Ohio-3947, State v. 
Collins, 2d Dist. Montgomery No. 25612, 2013-Ohio-3645, and State v. 
Thompkins, 10th Dist. Franklin No. 12AP-1080, 2013-Ohio-3599.  The court of 
appeals also held that “claims of sentencing errors, including allied offenses 
claims, are not cognizable in extraordinary writ actions.”  Id. at ¶ 4, citing Smith v. 
Voorhies, 119 Ohio St.3d 345, 2008-Ohio-4479, 894 N.E.2d 44, and State ex rel. 
Agosto v. Gallagher, 8th Dist. Cuyahoga No. 96670, 2011-Ohio-4514. 
{¶ 7} Walker timely appealed to this court. 
Legal analysis 
A. 
Mandamus 
{¶ 8} Walker argues, in two propositions of law, that he is entitled to a de 
novo resentencing hearing under Johnson and that his state and federal 
constitutional rights were violated when the trial court failed to determine whether 
any offenses were subject to merger at the time of his sentencing hearing. 
{¶ 9} A relator seeking a writ of mandamus must establish (1) a clear legal 
right to the requested relief, (2) a clear legal duty on the part of the respondent 
official or governmental unit to provide it, and (3) the lack of an adequate remedy 
in the ordinary course of the law.  State ex rel. O’Grady v. Griffing, 140 Ohio 
St.3d 290, 2014-Ohio-3687, 17 N.E.3d 574, ¶ 11, citing State ex rel. Waters v. 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
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Spaeth, 131 Ohio St.3d 55, 2012-Ohio-69, 960 N.E.2d 452, ¶ 6.  Further, a relator 
must prove that he or she is entitled to the writ by clear and convincing evidence.  
Id. 
{¶ 10} Walker is unable to establish a clear legal right to the relief he 
seeks in light of State v. Ketterer, 140 Ohio St.3d 400, 2014-Ohio-3973, 18 
N.E.3d 1199.  Ketterer held that Johnson does not apply retroactively to cases that 
were final prior to the date that decision was announced.  Id. at ¶ 15.  Walker was 
convicted in 1983 and his conviction was affirmed on direct appeal in 1984.  
Walker, 8th Dist. Cuyahoga No. 47616, 1984 WL 5599 (May 31, 1984).  By 
contrast, Johnson was announced on December 29, 2010.  128 Ohio St.3d 153, 
2010-Ohio-6314, 942 N.E.2d 1061.  Thus, Walker’s conviction became final long 
before our decision in Johnson was announced.  See Allen v. Hardy, 478 U.S. 255, 
257-258, 106 S.Ct. 2878, 92 L.Ed.2d 199 (1986), fn. 1 (a conviction is final when 
the judgment of conviction has been rendered, the availability of an appeal has 
been exhausted, and the time for a petition for certiorari has elapsed).  While the 
court of appeals in this case did not have the benefit of our decision in Ketterer, 
the court nonetheless correctly analyzed Walker’s claim by holding that Johnson 
is a new judicial ruling that may not be applied retroactively to a conviction that 
had already become final.  2014-Ohio-216 at ¶ 3, citing Ali v. State, 104 Ohio 
St.3d 328, 2004-Ohio-6592, 819 N.E.2d 687. 
{¶ 11} Walker’s second proposition of law invokes the double-jeopardy 
provision in the state and federal constitutions.  Yet his second proposition of law 
merely recasts his primary complaint under the first proposition of law:  that the 
trial court must hold a de novo resentencing hearing under Johnson.  Walker 
argues that a federal district court has ruled that Johnson applies retroactively.  
See Walters v. Sheets, S.D. Ohio No. 2:09-CV-446, 2011 WL 4543889 (Sept. 29, 
2011) (applying Johnson retroactively).  However, that opinion was overruled by 
the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals on the very basis for which Walker cites it.  
January Term, 2015 
 
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Walters v. Warden, 6th Cir. No. 12-3202, 2013 WL 1296249 (April 2, 2013) 
(Johnson does not apply retroactively). 
{¶ 12} Walker alternatively argues that the failure to include an allied-
offense determination in his 1983 judgment entry rendered his sentence void 
under State v. Underwood, 124 Ohio St.3d 365, 2010-Ohio-1, 922 N.E.2d 923.  
But Underwood did not address the issue Walker claims it did; in Underwood, we 
held that a criminal defendant has the right to appeal a sentence, despite the 
language in R.C. 2953.08(D)(1) precluding an appeal of a sentence that was 
jointly recommended by the parties, if the trial judge failed to merge allied 
offenses at sentencing.  Id. at ¶ 26.  Thus, Underwood is inapposite. 
{¶ 13} Because Johnson does not apply retroactively, Walker is unable to 
establish that he has a clear legal right to relief. 
{¶ 14} Additionally, Walker had an adequate remedy in the ordinary 
course of the law by way of direct appeal and postconviction relief, both of which 
he has repeatedly sought over the 30 years since his conviction.  And “[w]here a 
plain and adequate remedy at law has been unsuccessfully invoked, a writ of 
mandamus will not lie to relitigate the same issue.”  State ex rel. Sampson v. 
Parrott, 82 Ohio St.3d 92, 93, 694 N.E.2d 463 (1998). 
{¶ 15} Walker has not established by clear and convincing evidence that 
he has a clear right to relief.  Additionally, Walker has or had adequate remedies 
in the ordinary course of the law.  Thus, Walker has not satisfied the requirements 
for granting a writ of mandamus. 
B. 
Court costs 
{¶ 16} We deny Walker’s motion to stay the collection of court costs as 
moot. 
Conclusion 
{¶ 17} Based on the foregoing, we affirm the judgment of the court of 
appeals. 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
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Judgment affirmed. 
O’CONNOR, C.J., and PFEIFER, O’DONNELL, LANZINGER, KENNEDY, 
FRENCH, and O’NEILL, JJ., concur. 
_________________________ 
Michael A. Walker, pro se. 
Timothy J. McGinty, Cuyahoga County Prosecuting Attorney, and James 
E. Moss, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellee. 
_________________________