Title: State ex rel. Ervin v. Court of Common Pleas (Barker)

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. Ervin v. Barker, Slip Opinion No. 2013-Ohio-3171.] 
 
 
 
 
 
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. 2013-OHIO-3171 
THE STATE EX REL. ERVIN, APPELLANT, v. BARKER, JUDGE, APPELLEE. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it 
may be cited as State ex rel. Ervin v. Barker,  
Slip Opinion No. 2013-Ohio-3171.] 
Mandamus—Granting of motion for videotaping of deposition by acting 
administrative judge rather than assigned judge without showing that 
assigned judge was unavailable does not render order void—Petitioner 
had adequate remedy via appeal—Writ denied. 
(No. 2013-0331—Submitted July 9, 2013—Decided July 25, 2013.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Cuyahoga County,  
No. 98704, 2013-Ohio-376. 
____________________ 
 
Per Curiam. 
{¶ 1} This is the appeal of an action for a writ of mandamus by relator-
appellant Levert Ervin to compel respondent-appellee Judge Pamela Barker to 
vacate an order by an acting administrative judge in Ervin’s underlying criminal 
case. 
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{¶ 2} Because Ervin had an adequate remedy at law, the Eighth District 
was correct in dismissing his petition for a writ of mandamus, and we affirm. 
Facts 
{¶ 3} On May 4, 2001, a jury in Cuyahoga County Court of Common 
Pleas case No. CR-01-400774 found Ervin guilty of 11 counts of rape and one 
count of attempted rape.  He was sentenced to mandatory life in prison for six of 
the rape counts, life in prison for the remaining five rape counts, and ten years on 
the count of attempted rape.  His convictions were affirmed on appeal.  State v. 
Ervin, 8th Dist. Cuyahoga No. 80473, 2002 Ohio-4093, appeal not accepted, 
State v. Ervin, 98 Ohio St.3d 1412, 2003-Ohio-60, 781 N.E.2d 1020. 
{¶ 4} Early in the course of Ervin’s trial, the assistant prosecutor 
discovered that one of the prosecution’s witnesses, a social worker named Ian 
Lucash, would not be available to testify live because of previously scheduled 
surgery.  The assistant prosecutor moved to depose Lucash on videotape. The 
assistant prosecutor presented the motion to Judge Boyko, who was the acting 
administrative judge.  Judge Boyko granted the motion and instructed the assistant 
prosecutor and defense attorneys to work out a time to hold the deposition.  For 
reasons unknown, the ruling never made it into the case docket.  However, the 
deposition was held and Lucash’s videotaped testimony was admitted in evidence 
at the trial. 
{¶ 5} On May 8, 2012, more than ten years after he was convicted, Ervin 
filed a motion to vacate Judge Boyko’s order granting testimony by deposition.  
Judge Barker denied the motion, finding that the claim was barred by res judicata 
and that Ervin had failed to demonstrate an abuse of discretion by Judge Boyko in 
granting the motion.  Barker also found that there was ample evidence presented 
as to the finding of guilt, and therefore any error was harmless and would not 
have changed the outcome of the trial. 
January Term, 2013 
 
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{¶ 6} Ervin filed a petition for a writ of mandamus in the Eighth District 
on July 24, 2012.  In it, he claims that Judge Boyko’s order allowing the 
testimony by video deposition is void and must be vacated.  He asserts that the 
prosecuting attorneys failed to make a showing that the assigned judge was not 
available to rule on the motion and that Judge Boyko lacked authority to rule on 
the motion.  He requests that the order be declared void and claims to have no 
adequate remedy at law. 
{¶ 7} The Court of Appeals for the Eighth District dismissed the writ.  
That court noted that on the direct appeal of his conviction, Ervin’s counsel had 
raised ten assignments of error, several attacking Lucash’s testimony.  Among 
these was that the trial judge erred in allowing the video deposition to be used at 
trial. The court of appeals overruled all the assignments of error and found that 
the deposition testimony was proper because the social worker would have been 
unavailable at trial.  2002-Ohio-4093 at ¶ 72-76. 
{¶ 8} The Eighth District went on to hold that, at most, Judge Boyko’s 
order was voidable, and not void, and that therefore Ervin had an adequate 
remedy at law by way of appeal after the trial court denied his motion to vacate. 
Analysis 
{¶ 9} To be entitled to the requested writ of mandamus, Ervin must show 
a clear legal right to the requested relief, a clear legal duty on the part of Judge 
Barker to provide it, and the lack of an adequate remedy in the ordinary course of 
the law.  State ex rel. Waters v. Spaeth, 131 Ohio St.3d 55, 2012-Ohio-69, 960 
N.E.2d 452, ¶ 6.  He must prove that he is entitled to the writ by clear and 
convincing evidence.  Id. at ¶ 13. 
{¶ 10} Here, Ervin clearly has an adequate remedy in the ordinary course 
of the law.  Not only did he already have his direct appeal, in which he objected to 
the  admission of Lucash’s testimony, but, as the Eighth District stated, he could 
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have appealed Judge Barker’s June 22, 2012 denial of his motion to vacate Judge 
Boyko’s order. 
Conclusion 
{¶ 11} Because Ervin has an adequate remedy at law by way of appeal, he 
cannot establish the elements for a writ of mandamus.  The Eighth District Court 
of Appeals did not err in dismissing the petition, and we therefore affirm. 
Judgment affirmed. 
O’CONNOR, C.J., and PFEIFER, O’DONNELL, LANZINGER, KENNEDY, 
FRENCH, and O’NEILL, JJ., concur. 
____________________ 
 
Levert Ervin, pro se. 
Timothy J. McGinty, Cuyahoga County Prosecuting Attorney, and James 
E. Moss, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellee. 
________________________