Title: Leyman v. Bradshaw

State: ohio

Issuer: Ohio Supreme Court

Document:

[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as 
Leyman v. Bradshaw, Slip Opinion No. 2016-Ohio-1093.] 
  
 
 
 
 
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-1093 
LEYMAN, APPELLANT, v. BRADSHAW, WARDEN, APPELLEE. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it 
may be cited as Leyman v. Bradshaw, Slip Opinion No. 2016-Ohio-1093.] 
Habeas corpus—Trial court in petitioner’s criminal case did not lack subject-
matter jurisdiction— R.C. 2901.11—Petitioner is not entitled to immediate 
release—Court of appeals’ dismissal of petition affirmed. 
(No. 2015-0367—Submitted December 15, 2015—Decided March 22, 2016.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Richland County, 
No. 14 CA 93, 2015-Ohio-751. 
_____________________ 
Per Curiam. 
{¶ 1} Appellant, Donald F. Leyman, appeals from the decision of the Fifth 
District Court of Appeals dismissing his petition for a writ of habeas corpus.  
Leyman contends that he is entitled to immediate release from prison because the 
trial court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction to convict him of and sentence him for 
rape and gross sexual imposition.  Leyman is not entitled to a writ of habeas corpus 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
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because he has not established that the trial court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction.  
We affirm. 
Facts 
{¶ 2} In 1991, Leyman married a woman who had two children, a girl and 
a boy, from a previous relationship.  In June 1993, the woman and the two children 
moved from Hamilton, New York, to Medina, Ohio.  Leyman soon followed them, 
moving to Ohio in August or September 1993 and living in an apartment with them.  
According to the woman, Leyman remained in Ohio until early 1996, when he 
moved out of state after the couple separated.  He and the woman later divorced.  
In September 1996, the children told their mother that Leyman had assaulted them.  
Leyman was eventually indicted by a grand jury on several counts of rape and gross 
sexual imposition (“GSI”). 
{¶ 3} In 1999, Leyman was convicted of rape of his former stepson and GSI 
upon both children and sentenced to 7 to 25 years for rape and 18 months for each 
count of GSI, with all sentences to be served concurrently.  Leyman appealed his 
rape conviction, and the trial court’s judgment was affirmed.  State v. Leyman, 9th 
Dist. Medina No. 2970-M, 2000 WL 1471062 (Oct. 4, 2000).  We declined review.  
91 Ohio St.3d. 1433, 741 N.E.2d 895 (2001). 
{¶ 4} In 2013, Leyman filed a petition for postconviction relief and a motion 
for leave to file a motion for a new trial, which the trial court dismissed and denied, 
respectively.  The trial court’s rulings were ultimately affirmed.  State v. Leyman, 
9th Dist. Medina No. 14CA0037-M, 2016-Ohio-59.  Leyman filed an application 
in the Ninth District Court of Appeals in 2013 to reopen his direct appeal.  That 
court denied the application for reopening, and we declined review.  139 Ohio St.3d 
1429, 2014-Ohio-2725, 11 N.E.3d 284. 
{¶ 5} Leyman then filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the Fifth 
District Court of Appeals.  That court dismissed the petition, and this appeal 
followed. 
January Term, 2016 
 
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Analysis 
Oral Argument 
{¶ 6} Leyman requests oral argument.  Oral argument in a direct appeal is 
discretionary.  S.Ct.Prac.R. 17.02(A).  This case involves a straightforward 
application of statutory interpretation, not a matter of great public importance, 
complex issues of law or fact, a substantial constitutional issue, or a conflict among 
the courts of appeals.  See State ex rel. Manley v. Walsh, 142 Ohio St.3d 384, 2014-
Ohio-4563, 31 N.E.3d 608, ¶ 16, citing Appenzeller v. Miller, 136 Ohio St.3d 378, 
2013-Ohio-3719, 996 N.E.2d 919, ¶ 4, and cases cited therein. 
{¶ 7} We deny the motion for oral argument. 
Merits 
{¶ 8} To be entitled to a writ of habeas corpus, Leyman must show that he 
is being unlawfully restrained of his liberty, R.C. 2725.01, and that he is entitled to 
an “immediate release from prison or some other physical confinement,” Scanlon 
v. Brunsman, 112 Ohio St.3d 151, 2006-Ohio-6522, 858 N.E.2d 411, ¶ 4.  A writ 
of habeas corpus is generally “available only when the petitioner’s maximum 
sentence has expired and he is being held unlawfully.”  Heddleston v. Mack, 84 
Ohio St.3d 213, 214, 702 N.E.2d 1198 (1998), citing Morgan v. Ohio Adult Parole 
Auth., 68 Ohio St.3d 344, 346, 626 N.E.2d 939 (1994).  Like other extraordinary-
writ actions, “habeas corpus is not available when there is an adequate remedy in 
the ordinary course of law.”  In re Complaint for Writ of Habeas Corpus for 
Goeller, 103 Ohio St.3d 427, 2004-Ohio-5579, 816 N.E.2d 594, ¶ 6. 
{¶ 9} However, there is a limited exception to the adequate-remedy 
requirement: “when a court’s judgment is void because it lacked jurisdiction, 
habeas is still an appropriate remedy despite the availability of appeal.”  Gaskins v. 
Shiplevy, 74 Ohio St.3d 149, 151, 656 N.E.2d 1282 (1995); see also Davis v. Wolfe, 
92 Ohio St.3d 549, 552, 751 N.E.2d 1051 (2001).  Leyman argues that under R.C. 
2901.11 and State v. Yarbrough, 104 Ohio St.3d 1, 2004-Ohio-6087, 817 N.E.2d 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
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845, the trial court lacked jurisdiction to convict him of the rape of his former 
stepson, the only offense for which he remains incarcerated. 
{¶ 10} In Yarbrough, we reversed a defendant’s multiple murder 
convictions based on the language of former R.C. 2901.11(B), Am.Sub.S.B. No. 
565, 147 Ohio Laws, Part II, 4493, 4498, which, at the time, required that with 
regard to homicide, the act or physical conduct that caused death, or the death itself, 
must have occurred in Ohio for the trial court to have jurisdiction over the 
prosecution of the homicide:  “R.C. 2901.11(B) narrows the scope of ‘any element’ 
in homicide cases to ‘either the act that causes death, or the physical contact that 
causes death, or the death itself.’ ”  Yarbrough at ¶ 43, quoting R.C. 2901.11(A)(1) 
and former R.C. 2901.11(B).  In that case, it was undisputed that all the acts 
resulting in the victims’ deaths occurred in Pennsylvania, not in Ohio.  
Consequently, Ohio courts did not have jurisdiction over the homicides under the 
statute as it was worded at the time.  Id. at ¶ 44. 
{¶ 11} In Yarbrough, we admonished the prosecutor and trial court for 
misconstruing Ohio’s venue statute, R.C. 2901.12, as applicable to the trial court’s 
jurisdiction over the homicides under R.C. 2901.11.  Id. at ¶ 1-5, 46.  Leyman 
argues that the Ninth District in his direct appeal, the Fifth District in this original 
action, and the warden in her brief all make that same mistake.  To be sure, the 
concepts of venue and jurisdiction are stated in different statutes and each statute is 
subject to its own separate legal analysis. 
{¶ 12} But for two reasons, Leyman’s argument is without merit.  First, 
Yarbrough involved R.C. 2901.11(B), the division of the statute that specifically 
pertains to jurisdiction over only homicide.  Leyman has not been convicted of 
homicide but of rape.  Neither R.C. 2901.11(B) nor Yarbrough applies to his 
conviction. 
{¶ 13} Second, R.C. 2901.11(D) does apply to Leyman’s case.  That 
division provides: 
January Term, 2016 
 
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When an offense is committed under the laws of this state, 
and it appears beyond a reasonable doubt that the offense or any 
element of the offense took place either in this state or in another 
jurisdiction or jurisdictions, but it cannot reasonably be determined 
in which it took place, the offense or element is conclusively 
presumed to have taken place in this state for purposes of this 
section. 
 
{¶ 14} Moreover, as we noted in Yarbrough, R.C. 2901.11 “is intended to 
grant Ohio courts ‘the broadest possible jurisdiction over crimes and persons 
committing crimes in or affecting this state, consistent with constitutional 
limitations.’ ”  104 Ohio St.3d 1, 2004-Ohio-6087, 817 N.E.2d 845, at ¶ 42, quoting 
the 1973 Legislative Service Commission comment to R.C. 2901.11.  This standard 
was codified with slightly different wording, effective July 13, 2005, as R.C. 
2901.11(G).  Sub.S.B. No. 20, 151 Ohio Laws, Part I, 10, 12. 
{¶ 15} At trial, Leyman’s former stepson testified that the events at issue 
occurred when he was “[s]ix, seven, eight” years old.  The former stepson, who was 
born in June 1985, could not remember where he was living when the offenses 
occurred.  His mother testified at trial that the family, including Leyman, lived in 
Ohio after August or September 1993.  Therefore, because the former stepson’s 
testimony supported that the offenses occurred during at least part of the time period 
that the family lived in Ohio, under R.C. 2901.11(D), the offenses, including the 
rape, are presumed to have taken place in Ohio. 
{¶ 16} Because Leyman has not demonstrated that the trial court lacked 
jurisdiction, he cannot obtain a writ of habeas corpus. 
 
 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
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Conclusion 
{¶ 17} Leyman is not entitled to a writ of habeas corpus because under the 
relevant statute, the trial court did not lack subject-matter jurisdiction over his case. 
Judgment affirmed. 
O’CONNOR, C.J., and PFEIFER, O’DONNELL, LANZINGER, KENNEDY, 
FRENCH, and O’NEILL, JJ., concur. 
_____________________ 
Stephen P. Hanudel, for appellant. 
Michael DeWine, Attorney General, and William H. Lamb, Assistant 
Attorney General, for appellee. 
_____________________