[Cite as State v. Stowers, 2018-Ohio-926.] 

 

Criminal Appeal From: Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas 

 

Judgment Appealed From Is: Reversed and Cause Remanded 

Date of Judgment Entry on Appeal: March 14, 2018 

Joseph T. Deters, Hamilton County Prosecuting Attorney, and Paula E. Adams,

Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for Plaintiff-Appellee, 

Ohio Justice and Policy Center and David A. Singleton, for Defendant-Appellant. 

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS 

FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT OF OHIO 

HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO 

STATE OF OHIO, 

 Plaintiff-Appellee, 

 vs. 

TODD WALLACE STOWERS, 

 Defendant-Appellant. 

: 

: 

: 

: 

: 

APPEAL NO. C-160724 

TRIAL NO. B-7800309 

 O P I N I O N.

 
OHIO FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS

2 

MYERS, Presiding Judge.

{¶1} Defendant-appellant Todd Wallace Stowers was indicted for rape and 

robbery on February 4, 1978. He pleaded guilty to attempted rape and the robbery 

charge was dismissed. On May 11, 1978, he was sentenced to two to 15 years’ 

incarceration. He was paroled on July 19, 1981. On March 4, 1982, he was convicted 

of two counts of theft and sentenced to concurrent terms of two to five years. He was 

returned to prison on the parole violation for the attempted rape and on the theft 

convictions. Because he had committed the thefts while on parole, former R.C. 

2929.14(B)(3) required that the sentences for the thefts be served consecutively to 

the sentence for attempted rape. 

{¶2} Effective July 1, 1997, the General Assembly enacted former R.C. 

Chapter 2950 (“Megan’s Law”). See Am.Sub.H.B. No. 180, 146 Ohio Laws, Part II, 

2560, enacted in 1996, amended in 2003 by Am.Sub.S.B. No. 5, 150 Ohio Laws, Part 

IV, 6556. Former R.C. 2950.04(A)(1)(a) provided that an offender who was serving a 

prison term for a sexually-oriented offense on July 1, 1997, was required to register 

as a sex offender. On April 7, 1997, while serving time for a parole violation, Stowers 

was ordered back from prison to the trial court for a sexual-offender-classification 

hearing under Megan’s Law. He was adjudicated as a sexual predator. We affirmed 

his classification on appeal, overruling his constitutional challenges. State v. 

Stowers, 1st Dist. Hamilton No. C-970423, 1998 WL 140097 (Mar. 27, 1998) 

(“Stowers I”). After being released on parole and reincarcerated various times for 

parole violations, Stowers was finally released from prison on December 3, 1997, 

after serving a total of nearly 17 years. 

{¶3} In 2005, the Ohio Supreme Court decided State v. Champion, 106 

Ohio St.3d 120, 2005-Ohio-4098, 832 N.E.2d 718, which held that an offender 
OHIO FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS

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whose prison term for a sex offense had been completed before July 1, 1997, was not 

required to register under Megan’s Law even if the offender had been returned to 

prison on a parole violation for a term to be served concurrently with the term for the 

sexually-oriented offense. In 2006, Stowers filed a motion to set aside the order 

requiring him to register based on Champion. Stowers argued that he had finished 

serving his sentence for the attempted rape prior to July 1, 1997, and therefore, 

Megan’s Law could not be applied to him. The trial court overruled the motion, but 

did not order the clerk to serve Stowers with a copy of the order. Stowers did not 

appeal from that judgment. 

{¶4} On January 7, 2014, in a separate case, Stowers was indicted for failing 

to notify the sheriff of an address change. Citing Champion, he filed a motion to 

dismiss the indictment and requested an order removing his name from the sexoffender registry. The trial court granted the motion to dismiss the indictment and 

ordered that his name be removed from the registry. The state appealed. We held 

that res judicata precluded Stowers from raising the Champion issue, because he had 

raised that issue in the 2006 motion in the other case, it had been decided against 

him, and he had not appealed from that judgment. We reversed the trial court’s 

judgment dismissing the indictment and removing Stowers’s name from the sexoffender registry and remanded the cause for further proceedings. State v. Stowers, 

1st Dist. Hamilton No. C-150095, 2015-Ohio-4846 (“Stowers II”). 

{¶5} After our opinion was released, Stowers filed a motion in his original 

1978 attempted-rape case, the case sub judice, requesting that the trial court comply 

with Civ.R. 58(B) and order the clerk to serve him with the 2006 entry overruling his 

Champion motion to set aside the order requiring him to register. He cited State v. 

Banks, 1st Dist. Hamilton No. C-130469 (May 2, 2014), a judgment entry from this 

court, arguing that he had never been served with the 2006 judgment entry as 
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required by Civ.R. 58(B), and therefore, the time to appeal the 2006 entry had not 

run. On September 6, 2016, the trial court granted the motion and ordered the clerk 

to serve Stowers with the 2006 judgment entry. Stowers filed his notice of appeal as 

to the 2006 Champion motion on September 15, 2016. 

{¶6} Before reaching the merits of Stowers’s appeal, we must determine 

whether it is timely. 

{¶7} Proceedings under Megan’s Law were civil, not criminal. State v. 

Ferguson, 120 Ohio St.3d 7, 2008-Ohio-4824, 896 N.E.2d 110; State v. Wilson, 113 

Ohio St.3d 382, 2007-Ohio-2202, 865 N.E.2d 1264; State v. Cook, 83 Ohio St.3d 

404, 416-418, 700 N.E.2d 570 (1998); State v. Hunter, 144 Ohio App.3d 116, 121, 759 

N.E.2d 809 (1st Dist.2001). In civil cases, App.R. 4(A) requires the notice of appeal 

to be filed within 30 days of “service of the notice of judgment and its entry if service 

is not made on the party within the three day period in Rule 58(B) of the Ohio Rules 

of Civil Procedure.” App.R. 4(A); Harvey v. Hwang, 103 Ohio St.3d 16, 2004-Ohio4112, 812 N.E.2d 1275, ¶ 15. Civ.R. 58(B) requires the court to endorse on its 

judgment “a direction to the clerk to serve upon all parties * * * notice of the 

judgment and its date of entry upon the journal.” Civ.R. 58(B); Harvey at ¶ 14. 

The thirty-day time limit for filing the notice of appeal does not begin 

to run until the later of (1) entry of the judgment or order appealed if 

the notice mandated by Civ.R. 58(B) is served within three days of the 

entry of judgment; or (2) service of the notice of judgment and its date 

of entry if service is not made on the party within the three-day period 

in Civ.R. 58(B). 

Whitehall ex rel. Fennessy v. Bambi Motel, Inc., 131 Ohio App.3d 734, 723 N.E.2d 

633 (10th Dist.1998). “App.R. 4(A) contains a tolling provision that applies in civil 

cases when a judgment has not been properly served on a party according to Civ.R. 
OHIO FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS

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58(B).” In re Anderson, 92 Ohio St.3d 63, 748 N.E.2d 67 (2001); see Frazier v. 

Cincinnati School of Med. Massage, 1st Dist. Hamilton No. C-060359, 2007-Ohio2390, ¶ 17. “Thus, regardless of whether an appellant actually knows that a 

judgment has been entered, the time for appealing that judgment begins to run only 

‘upon service of notice of the judgment and notation of service on the docket by the 

clerk of courts.’ ” State v. Young, 1st Dist. Hamilton No. C-140236, 2015-Ohio-774, ¶ 

4, quoting Clermont Cty. Transp. Improvement Dist. v. Gator Milford, L.L.C., 141 

Ohio St.3d 542, 2015-Ohio-241, 26 N.E.3d 806, syllabus. 

{¶8} Stowers was not served with the trial court’s 2006 judgment 

overruling his motion to set aside the order requiring him to register until September 

9, 2016. Service was made pursuant to the court’s September 6, 2016 order to the 

clerk to serve Stowers with the judgment. Stowers filed his notice of appeal on 

September 15, 2016. Therefore his appeal from the 2006 judgment is timely, and we 

may entertain his appeal on the merits. See State v. Reece, 1st Dist. Hamilton Nos. 

C-160228 and C-160229, 2016-Ohio-7858, ¶ 4 (where the trial court had entered an 

order in 2006 overruling defendant’s Champion motion to set aside the order 

requiring him to register, but defendant had never been served with the 2006 

judgment entry, defendant’s appeals filed in 2016 were timely). 

{¶9} The state argues that Stowers’s appeal is untimely pursuant to the 

Ohio Supreme Court’s decision in State v. Clayborn, 125 Ohio St.3d 450, 2010-Ohio2123, 928 N.E.2d 1093, which stated, “An appeal from an R.C. Chapter 2950 sexualoffender classification judgment is an appeal in a criminal case that must be filed 

pursuant to App.R. 4(A) within 30 days after judgment is entered.” Id. at syllabus. 

But Clayborn is distinguishable. Clayborn involved a direct appeal from an initial 

sex-offender-classification judgment. In Clayborn, the Supreme Court recognized its 

line of cases holding that sex-offender-classification procedures under Megan’s Law 
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were civil and remedial, but carved out an exception for the time for appealing a sexoffender-classification judgment, noting that “the [sex-offender] classification and its 

concomitant duties appear in the criminal judgment.” Id. at ¶ 10. The court held 

that “an appeal from a sexual offender classification judgment is a civil matter within 

the context of a criminal case” and that “the appeal requirements applicable to 

criminal cases * * * apply.” Id. at ¶ 11. In Clayborn, as in all initial classification 

hearings, the defendant was present in court when the classification was announced. 

{¶10} In this case, Stowers is not appealing from the initial sex-offenderclassification judgment entered in 1997. He is appealing from the trial court’s 2006 

judgment overruling his motion to vacate his sex-offender classification, which was 

filed after conviction and to which Civ.R. 58(B) service rules apply. See Reece at ¶ 4. 

Unlike his initial classification, Stowers was not present when the decision was 

announced, nor was it part of his criminal sentencing entry. Therefore, his appeal is 

timely. 

{¶11} The state also argues that pursuant to our opinion in Stowers II, res 

judicata precludes Stowers from raising the issue of whether the trial court had the 

authority to order him to register as a sex offender. In Stowers II, Stowers had been 

indicted for failing to notify the sheriff of an address change. The trial court granted 

Stowers’s Champion motion to dismiss the indictment, and the state appealed. We 

stated that where a jurisdictional issue has been fully litigated and decided by a court 

with the authority to pass on the issue, the decision is res judicata in a collateral 

action and can only be challenged in a direct appeal. We held, based on the record 

before us in that case, that Stowers could not collaterally attack the trial court’s 2006 

judgment where he had failed to appeal it. The parties did not raise, and we did not 

address, the issue of whether the time had run for appealing the trial court’s 2006 

judgment overruling Stowers’s motion to set aside the order requiring him to register 
OHIO FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS

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in the original attempted-rape case. We hold now that it had not. Stowers has now 

filed a timely appeal from that judgment, and we will address its merits. 

{¶12} Stowers’s sole assignment of error alleges that the trial court erred in 

denying his 2006 motion to set aside the order requiring him to register as a sexual 

predator. Stowers argues that pursuant to Champion, 106 Ohio St.3d 120, 2005-

Ohio-4098, 832 N.E.2d 718, he has no duty to register because he completed his 

prison sentence for attempted rape before July 1, 1997. 

{¶13} On May 11, 1978, Stowers was sentenced to two to 15 years’ 

incarceration for attempted rape. He was paroled on July 19, 1981. While on parole, 

he committed two theft offenses, for which he was sentenced on March 4, 1982, to 

concurrent terms of two to five years. Stowers was returned to prison on the parole 

violation for the attempted rape and on the theft convictions. Because he had 

committed the thefts while on parole, former R.C. 2929.14(B)(3) required that the 

theft sentences be served consecutively to the attempted-rape sentence. Following 

several returns to prison for parole violations, Stowers ultimately was released from 

prison on December 3, 1997. He had served a total of nearly 17 years. Therefore, he 

had to have completed the 15-year maximum sentence for attempted rape well before 

July 1, 1997, the effective date of Megan’s Law’s registration requirements. We note 

that the state does not argue in its brief that Stowers had not completed his 

attempted-rape sentence before July 1, 1997. The state argues only that res judicata 

precludes Stowers from raising this issue and that Civ.R. 58(B) does not apply to 

Stowers’s appeal, issues that we have resolved in Stowers’s favor. 

{¶14} We hold that the trial court erred in overruling Stowers’s 2006 motion 

to set aside the order requiring him to register as a sexual predator. Pursuant to 

Champion, 106 Ohio St.3d 120, 2005-Ohio-4098, 832 N.E.2d 718, he has no duty to 
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register because he completed his prison sentence for attempted rape before July 1, 

1997. Stowers’s assignment of error is sustained. 

{¶15} The judgment of the trial court overruling Stowers’s 2006 motion to 

set aside the order requiring him to register is reversed and this cause is remanded to 

the trial court with instructions to enter an order granting Stowers’s motion because 

he has no duty to register as a sex offender. 

Judgment reversed and cause remanded. 

MILLER and DETERS, JJ., concur. 

Please note: 

 The court has recorded its own entry this date.