[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as State 

ex rel. Sands v. Court of Common Pleas, Slip Opinion No. 2018-Ohio-4245.] 

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-4245

THE STATE EX REL. SANDS, APPELLANT, v. COURT OF COMMON PLEAS JUDGE,

APPELLEE. 

[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it 

may be cited as State ex rel. Sands v. Court of Common Pleas, Slip Opinion 

No. 2018-Ohio-4245.] 

Mandamus—Appellant not entitled to extraordinary relief in mandamus because 

he failed to identify the alleged duty he sought to enforece and he had an 

adequate remedy by way of appeal—Court of appeals’ dismissal affirmed. 

(No. 2017-1700—Submitted April 10, 2018—Decided October 23, 2018.) 

APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Lake County, 

No. 2017-L-079, 2017-Ohio-8532. 

________________ 

 Per Curiam. 

{¶ 1} Appellant, Joseph A. Sands, appeals the decision of the Eleventh 

District Court of Appeals dismissing his complaint for a writ of mandamus against 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO

2

the Lake County Court of Common Pleas. For the reasons set forth below, we deny 

Sands’s motion for oral argument and affirm the judgment of the court of appeals. 

Background

{¶ 2} Sands was convicted in the Lake County Common Pleas Court on 

three counts of conspiracy to commit aggravated murder, two counts of conspiracy 

to commit aggravated arson, and one count of engaging in a pattern of corrupt 

activity. State v. Sands, 11th Dist. Lake No. 2007-L-003, 2008-Ohio-6981, ¶ 23. 

The trial court merged the conspiracy counts and sentenced Sands to two ten-year 

prison terms, to be served consecutively. The court of appeals affirmed. We denied 

Sands’s motion to file a delayed appeal. 127 Ohio St.3d 1443, 2010-Ohio-5762, 

937 N.E.2d 1034. 

{¶ 3} On June 19, 2017, Sands commenced the present action for a writ of 

mandamus against the Lake County Common Pleas Court. The complaint provided 

a lengthy procedural background and raised a host of objections to his convictions 

and sentences (discussed below) but requested no specific mandamus relief. On 

August 11, 2017, Judge Vincent A. Culotta, on behalf of the Lake County Common 

Pleas Court, filed a motion to dismiss or, in the alternative, for summary judgment. 

{¶ 4} On November 13, 2017, the court of appeals granted the motion to 

dismiss for failure to state a claim in mandamus. The court of appeals gave two 

reasons for dismissing the complaint: first, the complaint did not request any relief 

and second, mandamus was unavailable because all the issues raised in the 

complaint could have been raised on direct appeal from the convictions. 2017-

Ohio-8532, ¶ 8-9, 19. 

{¶ 5} Sands timely appealed. 

The motion for oral argument

{¶ 6} We have discretion whether to grant oral argument in an original 

action. S.Ct.Prac.R. 17.02. In exercising that discretion, we consider whether the 

case “involves a matter of great public importance, complex issues of law or fact, 
January Term, 2018 

3

a substantial constitutional issue, or a conflict among courts of appeals.” State ex 

rel. BF Goodrich Co., Specialty Chems. Div. v. Indus. Comm., 148 Ohio St.3d 212, 

2016-Ohio-7988, 69 N.E.3d 728, ¶ 23. None of those factors is present in this case. 

Sands merely asserts that oral argument would help to avoid confusion regarding 

the relief he is seeking. We deny the request for oral argument. 

The merits of the appeal 

{¶ 7} To be entitled to a writ of mandamus, a party must establish, by clear 

and convincing evidence, (1) a clear legal right to the requested relief, (2) a clear 

legal duty on the part of the respondent to provide it, and (3) the lack of an adequate 

remedy in the ordinary course of the law. State ex rel. Love v. O’Donnell, 150 Ohio 

St.3d 378, 2017-Ohio-5659, 81 N.E.3d 1250, ¶ 3. “In order for a court to dismiss 

a [mandamus] complaint under Civ.R. 12(B)(6) for failure to state a claim upon 

which relief can be granted, it must appear beyond doubt that [the relator] could 

prove no set of facts warranting relief, after all factual allegations of the complaint 

are presumed true, and all reasonable inferences are made in [the relator’s] favor.” 

State ex rel. Natl. Elec. Contrs. Assn. v. Bur. of Emp. Servs., 83 Ohio St.3d 179, 

181, 699 N.E.2d 64 (1998).

{¶ 8} The “unsupported conclusions of a complaint are not considered 

admitted and are not sufficient to withstand a motion to dismiss.” State ex rel. 

Seikbert v. Wilkinson, 69 Ohio St.3d 489, 490, 633 N.E.2d 1128 (1994). The failure 

to identify the source of the alleged duty in a mandamus action is grounds for 

dismissal. State ex rel. Fain v. Summit Cty. Adult Probation Dept., 71 Ohio St.3d 

658, 659, 646 N.E.2d 1113 (1995) (upholding dismissal of complaint alleging that 

the county probation department had a clear legal duty to correct information in a 

presentence-investigation report without identifying the source of the alleged duty). 

In this case, Sands provided less information than did the Fain complaint: Sands 

did not even identify the alleged duty he sought to enforce, much less the legal 
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authority creating that duty. The court of appeals correctly dismissed the 

complaint.

{¶ 9} Moreover, the specific allegations in the complaint fail to state a claim 

in mandamus. Sands challenges his convictions and sentences on the grounds that

 the indictment was defective,

 there was insufficient evidence to convict him of a pattern of corrupt activity,

 the time frame for the actions underlying his conviction for engaging in a 

pattern of corrupt activity was insufficient to support the charge,

 he cannot be convicted of both conspiracy and engaging in a pattern of corrupt 

activity, as a matter of law,

 he was improperly extradited to Ohio, 

 the trial judge failed to make the required factual findings before imposing 

consecutive sentences, and

 the judgment entry was defective because it renumbered the counts from how 

they appeared in the indictment.

{¶ 10} With respect to all these allegations, mandamus will not lie because 

Sands had an adequate legal remedy by way of direct appeal from his criminal 

convictions. See State ex rel. Hamilton v. Brunner, 105 Ohio St.3d 304, 2005-

Ohio-1735, 825 N.E.2d 607, ¶ 6 (mandamus unavailable to challenge a defective 

indictment); State ex rel. Thomas v. Franklin Cty. Court of Common Pleas, 141 

Ohio St.3d 547, 2015-Ohio-474, 26 N.E.3d 810, ¶ 4 (mandamus unavailable to 

challenge sufficiency of the evidence); State ex rel. Thomas v. Richard, 149 Ohio 

St.3d 712, 2017-Ohio-1343, 77 N.E.3d 962, ¶ 8 (holding that improper extradition 

may not be attacked collaterally); State ex rel. Ridenour v. O’Connell, 147 Ohio 

St.3d 351, 2016-Ohio-7368, 65 N.E.3d 742, ¶ 3 (improper imposition of 

consecutive sentences and other sentencing errors “are generally not remediable by 

extraordinary writ”).
January Term, 2018 

5

{¶ 11} Finally, Sands suggests that the trial court failed to dispose of all 

charges against him in a single document, in violation of Crim.R. 32(C). But his 

complaint does not identify which charge or charges the trial court supposedly 

failed to resolve in the sentencing entry, and he did not attach the judgment entry 

or entries to the complaint. He has therefore failed to plead sufficient facts to state 

a claim for mandamus relief. See State ex rel. Hickman v. Capots, 45 Ohio St.3d 

324, 544 N.E.2d 639 (1989) (dismissing mandamus complaint when inmate failed 

to plead sufficient facts to show that dismissal of state charges removed all support 

for the parole revocation under which he was confined).

{¶ 12} The court of appeals correctly dismissed the complaint, and we 

affirm. 

Judgment affirmed. 

O’CONNOR, C.J., and O’DONNELL, KENNEDY, FRENCH, FISCHER, DEWINE,

and DEGENARO, JJ., concur. 

_________________ 

Joseph A. Sands, pro se. 

Charles E. Coulson, Lake County Prosecuting Attorney, and Michael L. 

DeLeone, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for respondent. 

_________________