Title: McKinney v. Haviland

State: ohio

Issuer: Ohio Supreme Court

Document:

[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as 
McKinney v. Haviland, Slip Opinion No. 2020-Ohio-4785.] 
 
 
 
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-4785 
MCKINNEY, APPELLANT, v. HAVILAND, WARDEN, APPELLEE. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it 
may be cited as McKinney v. Haviland, Slip Opinion No. 2020-Ohio-4785.] 
Habeas corpus—Inmate had adequate remedy in ordinary course of law to raise 
alleged sentencing error—Court of appeals’ dismissal of petition affirmed. 
(No. 2020-0286—Submitted July 7, 2020—Decided October 7, 2020.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Allen County, No. 1-19-68. 
________________ 
 
Per Curiam. 
{¶ 1} Appellant, Daniel P. McKinney, an inmate at the Allen-Oakwood 
Correctional Institution, appeals the judgment of the Third District Court of 
Appeals dismissing his petition for a writ of habeas corpus against appellee, James 
Haviland, the institution’s warden.  We affirm. 
Background 
{¶ 2} In July 2003, a grand jury in Defiance County indicted McKinney on 
five felony counts: (1) robbery, (2) aggravated theft, (3) receiving stolen property, 
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and (4) two counts of failing to comply with a signal or order of a police officer.  
He was convicted of all counts and sentenced to an aggregate term of 20½ years in 
prison. 
{¶ 3} The court of appeals reversed his conviction for receiving stolen 
property, affirmed in all other respects, and remanded the case for a new sentencing 
hearing.  State v. McKinney, 3d Dist. Defiance No. 4-04-12, 2004-Ohio-5518.  On 
remand, the trial court imposed the following prison sentences: 8 years for robbery, 
4 years for aggravated theft, and 5 years and 1½ years, respectively, for the two 
failure-to-comply convictions.  The trial court ordered him to serve the sentences 
consecutively, for an aggregate term of 18½ years. 
{¶ 4} In October 2019, McKinney filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus 
in the Third District.  He alleged that the sentencing judge failed to make the 
findings required by R.C. 2929.14(C) before imposing consecutive sentences.  
According to McKinney, because the trial court failed to make the mandatory 
findings, he is entitled to “a presumption in favor of concurrent sentences.”  Thus, 
he concludes, his 4-year sentence for aggravated theft should have run concurrently 
with his 8-year sentence for robbery, resulting in an aggregate sentence of only 14½ 
years.1  Because he has now served more than 16 years, McKinney contends that 
he is entitled to immediate release. 
{¶ 5} The court of appeals granted Haviland’s motion to dismiss, 
concluding that McKinney’s complaint did not state a claim cognizable in habeas 
corpus.  McKinney has appealed. 
Legal analysis 
{¶ 6} To be entitled to a writ of habeas corpus, a petitioner must show that 
he is being unlawfully restrained of his liberty and that he is entitled to immediate 
release from prison or confinement.  R.C. 2725.01; State ex rel. Cannon v. Mohr, 
                                                 
1. By statute, the sentences for the failure-to-comply charges must be served consecutively to any 
other prison terms.  R.C. 2921.331(D). 
January Term, 2020 
 
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155 Ohio St.3d 213, 2018-Ohio-4184, 120 N.E.3d 776, ¶ 10.  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).  Habeas corpus is not available when there is or was an 
adequate remedy in the ordinary course of the law.  Billiter v. Banks, 135 Ohio 
St.3d 426, 2013-Ohio-1719, 988 N.E.2d 556, ¶ 8.  We review de novo the dismissal 
of a habeas corpus petition for failure to state a claim.  Rock v. Harris, 157 Ohio 
St.3d 6, 2019-Ohio-1849, 131 N.E.3d 6, ¶ 6. 
{¶ 7} In Ohio, there is a statutory presumption of concurrent sentences for 
most felony offenses.  R.C. 2929.41(A).  A trial court may overcome this 
presumption by making three statutory findings described in R.C. 2929.14(C)(4).  
State v. Bonnell, 140 Ohio St.3d 209, 2014-Ohio-3177, 16 N.E.3d 659, ¶ 37.  First, 
the court must find that requiring the sentences to be served consecutively is 
necessary to protect the public or to punish the offender.  R.C. 2929.14(C)(4).  
Second, the court must find that consecutive sentences are not disproportionate to 
the seriousness of the offender’s conduct and to the danger the offender poses to 
the public.  Id.  As for the third requirement, a number of different findings will 
suffice, one of which is that “[t]he offender’s history of criminal conduct 
demonstrates that consecutive sentences are necessary to protect the public from 
future crime by the offender.”  R.C. 2929.14(C)(4)(c).  The trial court must make 
the three findings both at the sentencing hearing and in the sentencing entry.  
Bonnell at ¶ 37. 
{¶ 8} McKinney does not dispute that the trial-court judge made the three 
findings required under R.C. 2929.14(C) at his initial sentencing hearing and in the 
initial sentencing entry.  And there is no question that the trial-court judge made 
the three necessary findings in the sentencing entry on remand.  The entry states 
that consecutive sentences were necessary to protect the public from future harm.  
The entry also observes that each of McKinney’s crimes “approaches the worst 
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form of the particular offenses,” thereby satisfying the proportionality requirement.  
And the entry includes the following language in support of a finding under R.C. 
2929.14(C)(4)(c): “The Court further finds that the Defendant is a danger to the 
community based upon his past conduct and criminal behavior [and] that 
maximum terms of imprisonment are required to protect the public from future 
harm by the Defendant * * *.” 
{¶ 9} McKinney’s argument turns on the trial-court judge’s failure to make 
the third required finding at McKinney’s resentencing hearing.  According to the 
hearing transcript, the trial-court judge stated: 
 
The Court finds that the sentencing factors which compel the 
imposition of terms of imprisonment previously stated still apply 
and the Court would reiterate those findings.  * * *  
* * * The Court, again, based upon the evidence and 
information previously provided reiterates its finding that 
consecutive terms are necessary to protect the public; that 
concurrent terms would demean the seriousness of the offense; that 
consecutive terms in this instance are not disproportionate to the 
harm or risk that the offender presents to the public. 
 
Although the trial-court judge repeated the findings he had made at the initial 
sentencing hearing as to the first two requirements, he did not expressly repeat his 
finding under R.C. 2929.14(C)(4)(a) through (c). 
{¶ 10} McKinney contends that the trial-court judge’s failure to make all 
the necessary findings at the sentencing hearing on remand entitles him to a 
presumption that the sentences run concurrently and that he is therefore entitled to 
immediate release.  But McKinney cites no authority for the proposition that a trial 
court that has previously made findings cannot simply readopt those findings by 
January Term, 2020 
 
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reference at a resentencing hearing.  And regardless, McKinney’s argument that the 
trial court failed to make the necessary findings under R.C. 2929.14(C)(4) raises an 
alleged sentencing error, for which McKinney had an adequate remedy in the 
ordinary course of the law.  See State ex. rel. Heston v. Judges of the Richland Cty. 
Court of Common Pleas, 5th Dist. Richland No. 2019 CA 0098, 2019-Ohio-5399, 
¶ 4-5 (dismissing mandamus petition challenging consecutive sentences because 
the relator had an adequate remedy through direct appeal).  Accordingly, relief is 
unavailable in habeas corpus. 
{¶ 11} For these reasons, the court of appeals was correct to dismiss 
McKinney’s petition for failure to state a claim in habeas corpus. 
 
 
Judgment affirmed. 
O’CONNOR, C.J., and KENNEDY, FRENCH, FISCHER, DEWINE, DONNELLY, 
and STEWART, JJ., concur. 
_________________ 
Daniel P. McKinney, pro se. 
Dave Yost, Attorney General, and Maura O’Neill Jaite, Assistant Attorney 
General, for appellee. 
_________________