Title: State ex rel. Bandy v. Gilson

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. Bandy v. Gilson, Slip Opinion No. 2020-Ohio-5222.] 
 
 
 
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. 2020-OHIO-5222 
THE STATE EX REL. BANDY, APPELLANT, v. GILSON ET AL., APPELLEES. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it 
may be cited as State ex rel. Bandy v. Gilson, Slip Opinion No.  
2020-Ohio-5222.] 
Mandamus—Public-records requests—Appellant not entitled to writ to compel 
production of coroner’s records—When a particular document has not been 
clearly requested, a writ of mandamus will not issue to compel production 
of that document—Court of appeals’ dismissal of petition affirmed. 
(No. 2020-0458—Submitted August 18, 2020—Decided November 12, 2020.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Cuyahoga County, No. 109330, 
2020-Ohio-1031. 
________________ 
 
Per Curiam. 
{¶ 1} Appellant, Willie Bandy, appeals the judgment of the Eighth District 
Court of Appeals dismissing his petition for a writ of mandamus.  Also pending is 
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Bandy’s motion for leave to amend his reply brief.  We deny the motion and affirm 
the judgment of the court of appeals. 
Background 
{¶ 2} Bandy is an inmate at the Grafton Correctional Institution, where he 
is serving a sentence of 15 years to life for the murder of Ray Emerson.  In 
December 2001, Cuyahoga County Deputy Coroner Dawn McCollum performed 
an autopsy on the body of Ray, who had been stabbed, strangled, and beaten.  On 
July 13, 2012, Bandy received a copy of the complete Ray autopsy report from the 
Office of the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner. 
{¶ 3} On September 18, 2014, Bandy wrote to the medical examiner’s 
office to acknowledge receipt of the report and to request photographs of Ray’s 
injuries: 
 
* * * I’m requesting * * * Emerson Ray’s photographs if any.  The 
photographs needed [are of] the injuries pertaining to Ray’s causes 
of death, and a full photograph of Ray at the coroner’s office the day 
Ray’s body was brought in.  The photographs at the scene that 
[were] taken by the coroner’s office will be helpful[.] 
* * *  
The requester in this case needs only the photographs of 
Ray’s injuries and at the coroner’s office showing those injuries 
listed in the autopsy report[.] 
 
The medical examiner’s office responded on September 22 but did not provide the 
photographs. 
{¶ 4} On December 27, 2019, Bandy filed a petition in the Eighth District 
of Court of Appeals against Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner Thomas P. 
Gilson, Deputy Coroner McCollum, and Forensic Scientist Amy Riley 
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(collectively, “the office”).  He requested a writ of mandamus to compel the office 
to provide (1) photographs of Ray’s stab wounds, (2) X-rays of the stab wounds, 
(3) Ray’s death certificate, and (4) a signed autopsy report. 
{¶ 5} The court of appeals granted the office’s motion to dismiss.  The court 
held that R.C. 313.10, the coroner’s statute, expressly excludes photographs from 
the definition of “public record.”  2020-Ohio-1031, ¶ 10.  The court further 
concluded that the office had not failed to fulfill any legal duty, because the other 
items sought in Bandy’s petition were not mentioned in his letter to the office.  Id. 
at ¶ 11. 
{¶ 6} Bandy appealed.  The parties filed merit briefs, and Bandy timely filed 
a reply brief.  On August 6, 2020, Bandy filed a motion for leave to amend his reply 
brief. 
Legal analysis 
The timeliness of the office’s merit brief 
{¶ 7} As a preliminary matter, Bandy contends in his first-filed reply brief 
that the office’s merit brief was filed out of time and must be disregarded.  
S.Ct.Prac.R. 16.03(A)(2) requires an appellee to file its merit brief within 30 days 
of the filing of the appellant’s merit brief.  Bandy filed his merit brief on June 24, 
2020.  Counting June 24 as day No. 1, Bandy calculates that the office’s brief was 
due no later than July 23.  The office filed its merit brief on July 24—one day out 
of time, according to Bandy.  Accordingly, he claims to be entitled to judgment per 
S.Ct.Prac.R. 16.07(B), which provides that if an appellee fails to file a merit brief 
within the time allowed, this court “may accept the appellant’s statement of facts 
and issues as correct and reverse the judgment [on appeal] if the appellant’s brief 
reasonably appears to sustain reversal.” 
{¶ 8} Bandy’s argument is meritless.  S.Ct.Prac.R. 3.03(A)(1) clarifies that 
when “computing any period of time prescribed or allowed by these rules * * *, the 
day of the act from which the designated period of time begins to run shall not be 
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included.”  So, counting June 25 as day No. 1, as the rule requires, day No. 30 fell 
on July 24.  Therefore, the office’s brief was timely filed. 
Bandy’s motion for leave to amend 
{¶ 9} Although styled as a motion for leave to amend his reply brief, Bandy 
actually seeks leave to file a supplemental brief.  That supplemental brief, attached 
to the motion, appears intended to introduce into the record testimony that Deputy 
Coroner McCollum gave at another criminal trial.  Bandy apparently is attempting 
to submit this testimony to achieve two purposes: (1) to cast doubt on the 
conclusion that Ray died from a stab wound, so as to bolster Bandy’s claim that he 
needs the autopsy photographs to prove his innocence, and (2) to prove that the 
photographs and other records he seeks are in the possession of the office. 
{¶ 10} We deny the motion because the evidence Bandy seeks to introduce 
is irrelevant.  Just as a requester’s reason for seeking public records is irrelevant 
and cannot be used as a reason to deny a request, State ex rel. Quolke v. Strongsville 
City School Dist. Bd. of Edn., 142 Ohio St.3d 509, 2015-Ohio-1083, 33 N.E.3d 30, 
¶ 23-24, so too the strength of Bandy’s interest in obtaining the records is not a 
factor in whether he is legally entitled to receive them.  And it is unnecessary for 
Bandy to prove that the records are maintained by the office because that fact is not 
in dispute.  The issue, as discussed below, is whether Bandy is entitled to a writ of 
mandamus compelling the office to provide the records, and the amended reply 
brief does not speak to that issue. 
The merits of Bandy’s appeal 
{¶ 11} For a court to dismiss a complaint pursuant to Civ.R. 12(B)(6), it 
must appear beyond doubt from the complaint that the relator can prove no set of 
facts warranting relief, after all factual allegations of the complaint are presumed 
true and all reasonable inferences are made in the relator’s favor.  State ex rel. Natl. 
Elec. Contrs. Assn., Ohio Conference v. Ohio Bur. of Emp. Servs., 83 Ohio St.3d 
179, 181, 699 N.E.2d 64 (1998).  We review a dismissal under Civ.R. 12(B)(6) de 
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novo.  State ex rel. Brown v. Nusbaum, 152 Ohio St.3d 284, 2017-Ohio-9141, 95 
N.E.3d 365, ¶ 10. 
{¶ 12} To be entitled to a writ of mandamus, the relator must establish, by 
clear and convincing evidence, (1) a clear legal right to the requested relief, (2) a 
clear legal duty on the part of the respondent to provide it, and (3) the lack of an 
adequate remedy in the ordinary course of the law.  State ex rel. Love v. O’Donnell, 
150 Ohio St.3d 378, 2017-Ohio-5659, 81 N.E.3d 1250, ¶ 3. 
{¶ 13} As a general rule, the records of a coroner having jurisdiction over a 
particular case—“ ‘including, but not limited to, the detailed descriptions of the 
observations written during the progress of an autopsy and the conclusions drawn 
from those observations filed in the office of the coroner’ ”—are public records.  
State ex rel. Cincinnati Enquirer v. Pike Cty. Gen. Health Dist., 154 Ohio St.3d 
297, 2018-Ohio-3721, 114 N.E.3d 152, ¶ 13, quoting R.C. 313.10(A)(1).  And “[a]ll 
records in the coroner’s office that are public records are open to inspection by the 
public, and any person may receive a copy of any such record or part of it upon 
demand in writing, accompanied by payment of” the requisite fees.  R.C. 
313.10(B). 
{¶ 14} However, R.C. 313.10 expressly exempts certain categories of 
documents from the definition of “public record.”  Subject to certain exceptions not 
relevant here (pertaining to requests from journalists, R.C. 313.10(D), and insurers, 
R.C. 313.10(E)), “the following records in a coroner’s office are not public records: 
* * * [p]hotographs of a decedent made by the coroner or by anyone acting under 
the coroner’s direction or supervision.”  R.C. 313.10(A)(2)(b).  Bandy’s request for 
the coroner’s photos showing Ray’s injuries falls squarely within this exception. 
{¶ 15} Bandy’s legal argument rests almost entirely on State ex rel. Fellows 
v. Soboslay, 11th Dist. Trumbull No. 96-T-5422, 1996 WL 706825 (July 26, 1996).  
In Fellows, the court of appeals granted a writ of mandamus to compel a county 
coroner to provide autopsy photographs to a requester.  However, in 1996, when 
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Fellows was decided, R.C. 313.10 did not contain an exception for photographs.  
R.C. 313.10(A)(2), which exempts coroner photographs from the definition of 
“public record,” became effective on August 17, 2006, as part of Am.Sub.H.B. No. 
235, 151 Ohio Laws, Part IV, 7190, 7192.  To the extent that Fellows stands for the 
proposition that a coroner’s autopsy photographs are public records, that aspect of 
the decision is no longer good law. 
{¶ 16} Bandy also cites State ex rel. Clay v. Cuyahoga Cty. Med. 
Examiner’s Office, 2016-Ohio-407, 58 N.E.3d 552 (8th Dist.2016), aff’d, 152 Ohio 
St.3d 163, 2017-Ohio-8714, 94 N.E.3d 498, in which a court of appeals granted a 
writ of mandamus compelling a county medical examiner to produce his complete 
file on an autopsy.  However, Clay is distinguishable.  The requester in that case 
was not only the person convicted of murdering the deceased, he was also her 
father.  Id. at ¶ 4-5.  Therefore, he was able to invoke R.C. 313.10(C)(1), which 
requires a coroner to provide, upon written request, a complete copy of a file on a 
decedent to the decedent’s next of kin.  Bandy, by contrast, has not claimed to be 
Ray’s next of kin. 
{¶ 17} For these reasons, the court of appeals was correct to deny the writ 
of mandamus as to the coroner’s photographs. 
{¶ 18} Bandy claims to be entitled to other records from the coroner’s 
office—specifically, the X-rays of the stab wounds and the signed autopsy report.  
But in his request, Bandy mentioned only photographs.  A requester “must request 
records before bringing the mandamus action.”  State ex rel. Essi v. Lakewood, 
2018-Ohio-5027, 126 N.E.3d 254, ¶ 26 (8th Dist.).  And when a requester has not 
clearly requested a specific document, a writ of mandamus will not issue to compel 
production of that record.  See State ex rel. Cushion v. Massillon, 5th Dist. Stark 
No. 2010CA00199, 2011-Ohio-4749, ¶ 57 (holding that records concerning 
arbitrator fees fell outside scope of public-records request because initial request 
did not clearly request arbitrator-fee records).  Bandy argues that “the thrust of his 
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writ of mandamus was solely to compel [the office] to release to [him] all items in 
its files pertaining to the death of Emerson Ray” to which he is entitled.  (Emphasis 
added.)  But a public-records request must be specific and particularly describe 
what is being sought.  State ex rel. Zauderer v. Joseph, 62 Ohio App.3d 752, 756, 
577 N.E.2d 444 (10th Dist.1989). 
{¶ 19} The court of appeals was correct to deny Bandy’s request for a writ 
of mandamus, and so we affirm. 
Judgment affirmed. 
O’CONNOR, C.J., and KENNEDY, FRENCH, FISCHER, DEWINE, and 
DONNELLY, JJ. 
STEWART, J., not participating. 
_________________ 
Willie Bandy, pro se. 
Michael C. O’Malley, Cuyahoga County Prosecuting Attorney, and Mark 
R. Musson, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellee. 
_________________