Title: James 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 
James v. State, Slip Opinion No. 2016-Ohio-8012.] 
 
 
 
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. 2016-OHIO-8012 
JAMES, APPELLEE, v. THE STATE OF OHIO, APPELLANT. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it 
may be cited as James v. State, Slip Opinion No. 2016-Ohio-8012.] 
R.C. 2743.48—Former prison inmate failed to meet statutory definition of 
“wrongfully imprisoned individual”—Trial court’s grant of summary 
judgment to the state reinstated. 
(No. 2015-1230—Submitted June 14, 2016—Decided December 7, 2016.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Clark County, No. 2013-CA-28,  
2015-Ohio-623. 
_______________________ 
PFEIFER, J. 
{¶ 1} Appellee, Omar K. James, a.k.a. Ahmad K. James, is seeking to be 
declared a wrongfully imprisoned individual as defined in R.C. 2743.48(A).  For 
the reasons that follow, we conclude that he has not satisfied R.C. 2743.48(A)(5).  
Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the court of appeals. 
 
 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
2
Background 
{¶ 2} In 1998, after a trial in which he represented himself, James was 
sentenced to 13 years in prison on various drug and weapons charges, including 
possession of cocaine and crack cocaine.  James sought a writ of habeas corpus in 
the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, Western Division.  
The district court conditionally granted the writ; it ordered the state to release James 
or grant him a new trial within a certain time.  James v. Brigano, S.D.Ohio No. 
3:00CV00491 (June 29, 2005).  The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that 
decision based on its conclusion that James’s waiver of counsel had not been 
knowingly and intelligently made.  470 F.3d 636, 644 (6th Cir.2006). 
{¶ 3} The state did not retry James, and the charges against him were 
dismissed with prejudice.  James subsequently filed a complaint seeking a 
determination that he was a wrongfully imprisoned individual.  See R.C. 
2743.48(A).  Both James and the state moved for summary judgment.  James’s 
motion was denied; the state’s was granted. 
{¶ 4} On appeal, the court of appeals reversed.  2014-Ohio-140 (2d Dist.).  
We reversed the judgment of the court of appeals and remanded with instructions 
for the court of appeals to apply Mansaray v. State, 138 Ohio St.3d 277, 2014-Ohio-
750, 6 N.E.3d 35.  139 Ohio St.3d 1401, 2014-Ohio-2245, 9 N.E.3d 1060. 
{¶ 5} On remand, the court of appeals again reversed the trial court’s grant 
of summary judgment to the state, concluding that James had satisfied all five 
elements of R.C. 2743.48(A).  We accepted the state’s discretionary appeal.  144 
Ohio St.3d 1439, 2015-Ohio-5468, 43 N.E.2d 451. 
Analysis 
{¶ 6} To be declared a wrongfully imprisoned individual, a person must 
satisfy all five elements of R.C. 2743.48(A).  Doss v. State, 135 Ohio St.3d 211, 
2012-Ohio-5678, 985 N.E.2d 1229, paragraph one of the syllabus.  The only 
element at issue in this case is R.C. 2743.48(A)(5), which states: “Subsequent to 
January Term, 2016 
 
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sentencing and during or subsequent to imprisonment, an error in procedure 
resulted in the individual’s release * * *.” 
{¶ 7} We recently had occasion to examine this provision, stating: 
 
When a defendant seeks a declaration that he is a wrongfully 
imprisoned individual and seeks to satisfy R.C. 2743.48(A)(5) by 
proving that an error in procedure resulted in his release, the error in 
procedure must have occurred subsequent to sentencing and during 
or subsequent to imprisonment. 
 
Mansaray, 138 Ohio St.3d 277, 2014-Ohio-750, 6 N.E.3d 35, syllabus. 
{¶ 8} The court of appeals reviewed two procedural errors alleged by 
James, and it rejected one of them but accepted the other.  2015-Ohio-623 at  
¶ 5-10.  The court of appeals concluded that a trial court’s “failure to schedule a 
trial within the time frame set by statute, rule or as directed by a remand would 
constitute an error in procedure within the meaning of R.C. 2743.48(A)(5).”  Id. at 
¶ 6.  We decline to express an opinion on this statement of law because it is 
unnecessary to do so to resolve the issue before us. 
{¶ 9} It is undeniable that after the federal writ of habeas corpus was 
granted, the state chose not to prosecute James.  Accordingly and appropriately, the 
trial court did not set a date for a new trial.  The court of appeals concluded that 
failing to set a date for a new trial was an error.  Whether it was an error is not 
relevant, however, because even if it was an error, it was not the error that “resulted 
in the individual’s release.”  R.C. 2743.48(A)(5).  How could it be, when the failure 
to schedule a new trial occurred after the writ of habeas corpus had been issued?   
{¶ 10} The writ of habeas corpus was issued because the district court 
determined that James had waived his right to counsel other than knowingly and 
intelligently.  His waiver of right to counsel occurred before James was sentenced 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
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or imprisoned, not “[s]ubsequent to sentencing and during or subsequent to 
imprisonment,” as required by R.C. 2743.48(A)(5).  It is obvious that the error that 
resulted in James’s release from prison was the improper waiver of counsel, not the 
alleged error of the trial court’s failing to set a new trial. 
{¶ 11} We conclude that the court of appeals erred when it determined that 
James had satisfied R.C. 2743.48(A)(5).  Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of 
the court of appeals and reinstate the trial court’s order granting summary judgment 
to the state. 
Judgment reversed. 
O’CONNOR, C.J., and O’DONNELL, LANZINGER, KENNEDY, and FRENCH, JJ., 
concur. 
O’NEILL, J., dissents, with an opinion. 
_________________ 
O’NEILL, J., dissenting. 
{¶ 12} Respectfully, I must dissent. 
{¶ 13} In Mansaray v. State, we held that when a person seeks to prove that 
“an error in procedure resulted in his release” under R.C. 2743.48(A)(5), “the error 
in procedure must have occurred subsequent to sentencing and during or subsequent 
to imprisonment.”  138 Ohio St.3d 277, 2014-Ohio-750, 6 N.E.3d 35, syllabus.  
Today, the court drives the last nail into the coffin of the cause of action for 
wrongful imprisonment in Ohio under the error-in-procedure provision.  By 
holding that the state’s decision not to seek retrial following the issuance of the 
conditional writ of habeas corpus was not the error in procedure that resulted in 
release but that the error prior to sentencing was the reason he was released, this 
court essentially hands the keys to the kingdom over to the prosecutors of Ohio.  
You lost your case in federal court?  No problem.  Just close your file, and no one 
will ever hear of this matter again. 
January Term, 2016 
 
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{¶ 14} “It is obvious,” the majority says, that the error resulting in appellee 
Omar K. James’s release happened at trial.  Majority opinion at ¶ 10.  I disagree. 
{¶ 15} If failure to seek a retrial when a court has ordered the state to release 
or retry a defendant is not an error in procedure occurring after sentencing and 
resulting in release, then I am not sure what is.  Almost exclusively, errors in 
procedure that occur after sentencing do not result in a prisoner’s release.  Nobody 
in Ohio gets released from prison because the state made a procedural mistake when 
defending an appeal, responding to a postconviction-relief petition, or responding 
to a petition for an extraordinary writ.  A judgment of conviction and sentence 
stands until and unless the person incarcerated under such a judgment makes a 
meritorious attack on the judgment.  A court will vacate a judgment of conviction 
and sentence only if the proceeding underlying that judgment was in some way 
faulty.  Even if a person is successful in overturning a judgment of conviction and 
is entitled to a new trial, the state is almost always entitled to continue holding the 
person in prison so long as the state pursues an appeal or a retrial.  Thus, only when 
the state fails to retry the incarcerated person is that person released.  If that set of 
circumstances does not satisfy R.C. 2743.48(A)(5), none will.  And a provision that 
can never be satisfied by any conceivable set of circumstances is as absurd as a 
statutory provision that will always be satisfied so long as other provisions are 
satisfied, Mansaray, 138 Ohio St.3d 277, 2014-Ohio-750, 6 N.E.3d 35, at ¶ 11. 
{¶ 16} This case is about dollars and cents, plain and simple.  The state got 
its conviction in a trial that was found to be constitutionally invalid.  The state got 
its pound of flesh; James had served 9 of the 13 years he was ordered to serve in 
prison by the time he was released.  Faced with the expense of retrying the case to 
keep him in prison for four more years, the state made a decision and took a walk.  
And it was a money-saving walk indeed.  The state’s failure to retry James is the 
reason why he was released, even if he was also released because his constitutional 
rights were violated at trial.  And now, despite the fact that James’s conviction has 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
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been invalidated, the state avoids paying its debt to him.  This is not justice.  It is 
economics. 
{¶ 17} For that reason I dissent. 
_________________ 
Derek A. Farmer and Sandra J. Finucane, for appellee. 
Michael DeWine, Attorney General, Eric E. Murphy, State Solicitor, 
Stephen P. Carney and Hannah C. Wilson, Deputy Solicitors, and Debra Gorrell 
Wehrle, for appellant. 
_________________