Title: Rogers v. Eppinger

State: ohio

Issuer: Ohio Supreme Court

Document:

[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as 
Rogers v. Eppinger, Slip Opinion No. 2018-Ohio-4058.] 
 
 
 
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. 2018-OHIO-4058 
ROGERS, APPELLANT, v. EPPINGER, WARDEN, APPELLEE. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it 
may be cited as Rogers v. Eppinger, Slip Opinion No. 2018-Ohio-4058.] 
Habeas Corpus—R.C. 2969.25(C)—Failure to document balance of inmate 
account for six months preceding filing of petition—Court of appeals’ 
dismissal of petition affirmed. 
(No. 2017-1644—Submitted April 10, 2018—Decided October 9, 2018.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Lorain County, No. 17CA011193. 
________________ 
 
Per Curiam. 
{¶ 1} Appellant, Willie J. Rogers, appeals the judgment of the Ninth District 
Court of Appeals dismissing his petition for a writ of habeas corpus.  We affirm. 
Background 
{¶ 2} On June 9, 1983, Rogers was convicted of two counts of kidnapping 
and three counts of gross sexual imposition in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
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Court case No. CR-82-176974.  The trial judge imposed an aggregate prison term 
of 20 to 65 years.  Rogers’s sentence was subsequently modified to 15 to 65 years. 
{¶ 3} On August 17, 1992, Rogers was granted parole, effective December 
2, 1992.  However, on November 24, 1992, the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation 
and Correction (“ODRC”) informed Rogers that he would be released into the 
custody of the Maricopa County (Arizona) Sheriff’s Department and that his 
reporting obligations in Ohio would begin once Arizona released him from custody.  
ODRC also notified Rogers that his Ohio reporting obligations would continue for 
at least two years. 
{¶ 4} Arizona received custody of Rogers in December 1992 and released 
him in December 1996.  However, it appears that Rogers failed to report his 
whereabouts to the state of Ohio, as required by the terms of his release.  Rogers 
was declared a parole violator on August 1, 2003. 
{¶ 5} On July 12, 2013, an Ohio arrest warrant was issued for Rogers for 
violating the conditions of his parole.  On June 18, 2015, Governor John Kasich 
signed an extradition request to the state of California for the return of Rogers.  
Rogers was returned to the custody of Ohio on July 30, 2015.  He received a parole 
hearing on July 25, 2017 and was denied an early release. 
{¶ 6} On September 1, 2017, Rogers filed a complaint in the Ninth District 
Court of Appeals seeking a writ of habeas corpus against appellee, Grafton 
Correctional Institution Warden LaShann Eppinger.  He raised two arguments 
against his reincarceration in Ohio: (1) that he never received notice of his Ohio 
reporting obligations upon release from custody in Arizona and that he never agreed 
to those conditions and (2) that due to the length of time that had passed since 
Rogers was released on parole by the Adult Parole Authority, the state of Ohio was 
estopped from pursuing him for a technical parole violation.  He also averred that 
he did attempt to report to Ohio but was told that there was no record of him being 
on parole. 
January Term, 2018 
 
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{¶ 7} On October 10, 2017, the court of appeals sua sponte dismissed the 
petition due to Rogers’s failure to abide by the mandatory filing requirements of 
R.C. 2969.25.  When an inmate files a civil action or appeal against a government 
entity or employee in a court of common pleas, court of appeals, county court, or 
municipal court, he must comply with the procedural requirements contained in 
R.C. 2969.25.  R.C. 2969.25(C)(1) specifies that when an inmate files a civil suit 
against a government official and seeks a waiver of the filing fees, the inmate must 
file an affidavit that contains the monetary balance in the inmate’s account for each 
of the preceding six months as certified by the institutional cashier.  The account 
statement submitted by Rogers covered the six months between January 1, and July 
1, 2017, but it did not have any information for the two months immediately 
preceding the filing of the petition. 
{¶ 8} Rogers appealed. 
Analysis 
{¶ 9} In his first proposition of law, Rogers argues that we should excuse 
his noncompliance with the “petty” technical requirements of R.C. 2969.25(C).  
However, R.C. 2969.25(C) “[does not] permit substantial compliance.”  State ex 
rel. Manns v. Henson, 119 Ohio St.3d 348, 2008-Ohio-4478, 894 N.E.2d 47, ¶ 4.  
“The requirements of R.C. 2969.25 are mandatory and failure to comply with them 
requires dismissal of an inmate’s complaint.”  State ex rel. Hall v. Mohr, 140 Ohio 
St.3d 297, 2014-Ohio-3735, 17 N.E.3d 581, ¶ 4. 
{¶ 10} In his second proposition of law, Rogers challenges the 
constitutionality of the statute on its face and as applied, summarily asserting that 
R.C. 2969.25 is “unconstitutionally vague, ambiguous, and overbroad” and is 
“arbitrarily applied.”  But his conclusory statements do not “rebut the presumed 
constitutionality of the statute.”  State ex rel. Evans v. McGrath, 151 Ohio St.3d 
345, 2017-Ohio-8290, 88 N.E.3d 957, ¶ 6 (rejecting constitutional challenge to 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
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R.C. 2969.25(C)(1) filing requirements); accord Boles v. Knab, 129 Ohio St.3d 
222, 2011-Ohio-2859, 951 N.E.2d 389, ¶ 3 (same). 
{¶ 11} Although Rogers also attempts to argue that the state of Ohio has no 
authority to keep him confined, the merits of any underlying claims in his habeas 
petition are not properly before this court. 
{¶ 12} We hold that the court of appeals properly dismissed Rogers’s 
petition for failure to attach the statement of his inmate account that is required by 
R.C. 2969.25(C). 
Judgment affirmed. 
O’CONNOR, C.J., and O’DONNELL, FRENCH, FISCHER, DEWINE, and 
DEGENARO, JJ., concur. 
KENNEDY, J., concurs in judgment only. 
_________________ 
Willie J. Rogers, pro se. 
Michael DeWine, Attorney General, and Maura O’Neill Jaite, Assistant 
Attorney General, for appellee. 
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