[Cite as State v. Long, 2018-Ohio-4194.]

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS 

FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT OF OHIO 

HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO 

STATE OF OHIO, 

 Respondent-Appellee, 

 vs. 

JOHN LONG, 

 Petitioner-Appellant. 

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APPEAL NO. C-170529 

TRIAL NO. B-0402803 

O P I N I O N.

 

Criminal Appeal From: Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas 

 

Judgment Appealed From Is: Reversed and Cause Remanded 

Date of Judgment Entry on Appeal: October 17, 2018 

Joseph T. Deters, Hamilton County Prosecuting Attorney, and Philip R. Cummings, 

Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for Plaintiff-Appellee, 

John W. Long, pro se. 
OHIO FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS 

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Per Curiam.

{¶1} Petitioner-appellant John Long appeals the Hamilton County 

Common Pleas Court’s judgment denying his “Request for Leave to Request Public 

Records Pursuant to ORC 149.43(B)(8) and * * * State ex rel. Caster v. City of 

Columbus.” We reverse the court’s judgment. 

{¶2} Long was convicted in 2004 of murder. We affirmed his conviction on 

direct appeal. State v. Long, 1st Dist. Hamilton No. C-040643 (Oct. 26, 2005), 

appeal not accepted, 108 Ohio St.3d 1489, 2006-Ohio-962, 843 N.E.2d 794. And 

after remanding for correction of his sentence in 2010, see State v. Long, 1st Dist. 

Hamilton No. C-100285, 2010-Ohio-6115, we affirmed the denial of postconviction 

petitions filed between 2012 and 2014. See State v. Long, 1st Dist. Hamilton No. C140420 (Mar. 20, 2015); State v. Long, 1st Dist. Hamilton Nos. C-130566 and C130605 (June 13, 2014), appeal not accepted, 140 Ohio St.3d 1466, 2014-Ohio-4629, 

18 N.E.3d 446; State v. Long, 1st Dist. Hamilton No. C-120521 (Apr. 24, 2013), 

appeal not accepted, 136 Ohio St.3d 1476, 2013-Ohio-3790, 993 N.E.2d 779. 

{¶3} In 2015, Long again filed with the common pleas court a petition for 

postconviction relief pursuant to R.C. 2953.21 et seq., seeking relief from his 

conviction on grounds of prosecutorial misconduct and ineffective assistance of trial 

counsel. In his 2015 postconviction petition, Long asserted that evidence outside the 

trial record, in the form of a stranger’s unsolicited letter to him and a written report 

submitted to his trial counsel by an investigator assigned to his case, revealed the 

existence of statements made by eyewitnesses to law enforcement that exonerated 

him in the murder. He sought relief from his conviction on the grounds of 

prosecutorial misconduct, in failing to disclose that exculpatory evidence in 

discovery, and ineffective assistance of counsel, in failing to discover the evidence 

and present it in his defense. 
OHIO FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS 

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{¶4} Then, in 2016, in an effort to gain access to information contained in 

public records to support his pending postconviction claims, he filed with the 

common pleas court his “Request for Leave to Request Public Records.” The court 

denied the request upon its determination that Long “failed to demonstrate under 

R.C. 149.43(B)(8) that he is entitled to the records.” 

{¶5} In this appeal, Long advances a single assignment of error contending 

that the common pleas court erred in denying his “Request for Leave to Request 

Public Records.” We agree. 

Jurisdiction

{¶6} We determine, as a preliminary matter, that the common pleas court’s 

entry denying Long an R.C. 149.43(B)(8) justiciable-claim finding constituted a final 

appealable order, because it was entered in a special proceeding and affects a 

substantial right. See R.C. 2505.03(A); 2505.02(B)(2). Accord State v. Heid, 4th 

Dist. Scioto No. 14CA3655, 2014-Ohio-4714, ¶ 4-6. 

An Inmate’s Access to Public Records

{¶7} Ohio’s Public Records Act, R.C. 149.43 (“the Act”), mandates that 

public records be made accessible and available upon request. R.C. 149.43(B)(1). 

Courts are to construe the Act’s provisions liberally in favor of broad access, 

resolving any doubt in favor of disclosure of public records. State ex rel. McCaffrey 

v. Mahoning Cty. Prosecutor’s Office, 133 Ohio St.3d 139, 2012-Ohio-4246, 976 

N.E.2d 877, ¶ 16. 

{¶8} The Act’s grant of broad access to public records does not, however, 

extend to a convicted inmate seeking public records pertaining to his prosecution or 

the investigation leading to his prosecution. Under R.C. 149.43(B)(8), 

A public office or person responsible for public records is not required 

to permit a person who is incarcerated pursuant to a criminal 

conviction * * * to inspect or to obtain a copy of any public record 
OHIO FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS 

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concerning a criminal investigation or prosecution * * *, unless the 

request to inspect or to obtain a copy of the record is for the purpose of 

acquiring information that is subject to release as a public record 

under this section and the judge who imposed the sentence or made 

the adjudication with respect to the person, or the judge’s successor in 

office, finds that the information sought in the public record is 

necessary to support what appears to be a justiciable claim of the 

person. 

See State ex rel. Russell v. Thornton, 111 Ohio St.3d 409, 2006-Ohio-5838, 856 

N.E.2d 966, ¶ 14 (construing similarly-worded former R.C. 149.43(B)(4) to declare 

that R.C. 149.43(B)(8) evinces the General Assembly’s “public-policy decision to 

restrict a convicted inmate’s unlimited access to public records in order to conserve 

law enforcement resources”). 

A Justiciable Claim

{¶9} Under the Act, a convicted inmate is entitled to access to information 

pertaining to his investigation or prosecution only after he has secured from his 

sentencing judge or the judge’s successor a “finding * * * that ‘the information sought 

in the public record is necessary to support what appears to be a justiciable claim’.” 

Thornton at ¶ 16. Long’s “Request for Leave to Request Public Records,” filed with 

the common pleas court before which his postconviction petition is pending, can only 

be read as a request, preliminary to a public-records request, for a justiciable-claim 

finding. And the court, in denying that request, must be said to have determined 

that Long failed to demonstrate that he was entitled to that finding. We disagree 

with that conclusion. 

{¶10} While the Act itself does not define a “justiciable claim,” Ohio courts 

have described a “justiciable claim” as one that is “properly brought before a court of 

justice for relief.” See State v. Askew, 2017-Ohio-1512, 89 N.E.3d 55, ¶ 11 (11th 
OHIO FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS 

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Dist.); State v. Seal, 4th Dist. Highland No. 13CA10, 2014-Ohio-4168, ¶ 8; State v. 

Rodriguez, 12th Dist. Preble No. CA2013-11-011, 2014-Ohio-2583, ¶ 14; State v. 

Wilson, 2d Dist. Montgomery No. 23734, 2011-Ohio-4195, ¶ 9; see also State v. 

Dowell, 8th Dist. Cuyahoga No. 102408, 2015-Ohio-3237, ¶ 7 (holding that a 

“justiciable” claim is a claim that is “capable of affording appropriate relief”). The 

statute’s requirement may be satisfied by “identifying ‘a pending proceeding with 

respect to which the requested documents would be material.’ ” Wilson at ¶ 5, 

quoting State v. Gibson, 2d Dist. Champaign No. 06-CA-37, 2007-Ohio-7161, ¶ 14. 

Accord Dowell at ¶ 7; Seal at ¶ 8; Rodriquez at ¶ 14; see also Askew at ¶ 11-12 

(holding that a “justiciable claim” may be demonstrated by, but need not be, a 

pending claim). 

{¶11} Long filed his “Request for Leave to Request Public Records” with the 

common pleas court in connection with his pending 2015 postconviction petition. In 

his request, he sought leave to request access to allegedly exculpatory eyewitness 

statements to law enforcement that had not been disclosed in discovery or presented 

at trial. Those statements were material to the prosecutorial-misconduct and 

ineffective-counsel claims advanced in his petition. 

{¶12} And his prosecutorial-misconduct and ineffective-counsel claims were 

cognizable under R.C. 2953.21 et seq. The claims sought relief from his murder 

conviction based on alleged constitutional violations during the proceedings leading 

to that conviction. See R.C. 2953.21(A)(1). The claims were not subject to dismissal 

under the doctrine of res judicata, because they depended for their resolution upon 

evidence outside the trial record. See State v. Perry, 10 Ohio St.2d 175, 226 N.E.2d 

104 (1967), paragraph nine of the syllabus. 

{¶13} Further, R.C. 2953.23(A)(1) provides jurisdiction to entertain a late or 

successive postconviction petition if the petitioner demonstrates that he had been 

unavoidably prevented from discovering the facts upon which his postconviction 
OHIO FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS 

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claim depends, and that the alleged constitutional error was outcome-determinative. 

In his petition, Long invoked the jurisdiction conferred under R.C. 2953.23 to 

entertain a late and successive postconviction petition by alleging outcomedeterminative constitutional errors and by arguing that the R.C. 149.43(A)(2)(c) 

exception to public-records access had precluded his access to necessary records 

until 2016, when the Ohio Supreme Court held that the exception did not extend past 

the completion of the criminal procedure for which the requested information had 

been gathered. See State ex rel. Caster v. Columbus, 151 Ohio St.3d 425, 2016-Ohio8394, 89 N.E.3d 598, ¶ 47, overruling in part State ex rel. Steckman v. Jackson, 70 

Ohio St.3d 420, 639 N.E.2d 83 (1994), and State ex rel. WLWT–TV5 v. Leis, 77 Ohio 

St.3d 357, 673 N.E.2d 1365 (1997). 

We Reverse

{¶14} We, therefore, hold that the common pleas court erred in denying 

Long’s request for, because he had established an entitlement to, a finding for 

purposes of R.C. 149.43(B)(8) that “the information sought in the public record is 

necessary to support what appears to be a justiciable claim.” This is not a statement 

on whether we believe that information exists, on whether it is in the possession of 

any agency from which Long might seek it, or on the underlying merits of his 

postconviction petition. We hold only that he is entitled to the finding required for 

him to make a public-records request. Accordingly, we sustain the assignment of 

error, reverse the court’s judgment denying that finding, and remand for an entry 

conforming to the requirements of the statute. 

Judgment reversed and cause remanded. 

MOCK, P.J., MYERS and DETERS, JJ. 

Please note: 

 The court has recorded its own entry on the date of the release of this opinion.