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

Jones v. Wainwright, Slip Opinion No. 2020-Ohio-4870.] 

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-4870

JONES, APPELLANT, v. WAINWRIGHT, WARDEN, APPELLEE.

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

may be cited as Jones v. Wainwright, Slip Opinion No. 2020-Ohio-4870.] 

(No. 2020-0452—Submitted August 18, 2020—Decided October 15, 2020.) 

APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Marion County, No. 9-19-81. 

__________________ 

Per Curiam.

{¶ 1} Appellant, Anthony Jones, a prison inmate, filed a petition for a writ 

of habeas corpus in the Third District Court of Appeals alleging that he has 

completed his sentence and is entitled to immediate release. The Third District 

dismissed the petition. We affirm. 

Background 

{¶ 2} In 1985, after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter and 

aggravated robbery, Jones was sentenced to an aggregate prison term of 12 to 50 

years. He was released on parole in 1994, and the Adult Parole Authority granted 

him permission to move to Maryland. Maryland accepted transfer of Jones’s parole 
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supervision on February 6, 2002. Two days later, the Ohio Department of 

Rehabilitation and Correction, Division of Parole and Community Services, created 

a “Close of Interest” report concerning Jones; that same day, Jones’s Ohio parole 

officer authored a document stating that, in view of Maryland’s acceptance of 

supervision, her reporting unit was “closing interest” in his case. 

{¶ 3} In January 2018, the Ohio Parole Board found that Jones had violated 

the conditions of his release and revoked his parole. Later that year, Jones filed a 

petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the Marion County Court of Common Pleas 

against appellee, Lyneal Wainwright, warden of the Marion Correctional 

Institution. The common pleas court dismissed the petition, the Third District 

affirmed the dismissal, and this court denied discretionary review. See Jones v. 

Wainwright, 157 Ohio St.3d 1440, 2019-Ohio-4211, 132 N.E.3d 701. 

{¶ 4} In November 2019, Jones filed a second habeas petition against the 

warden, this time as an original action in the Third District. He alleged that the Ohio 

Parole Board lacked authority to revoke his parole because Ohio “closed” its parole 

supervision in 2002. The warden argued that Jones’s claim was barred under the 

doctrine of res judicata and that the 2002 documents referring to the closure of Ohio’s 

parole supervision did not constitute a final release from parole under R.C. 

2967.16(A). Therefore, the warden contended, Jones remains in custody under his 

original sentence. The Third District agreed with both of the warden’s arguments 

and dismissed the petition. Jones has appealed to this court as of right. 

Analysis

{¶ 5} The warden raised res judicata as a defense in a motion styled as a 

“Civ.R. 12(B)(6) Motion to Dismiss and/or Motion for Summary Judgment.” In 

accepting that defense, the Third District did not clearly state whether it was 

dismissing Jones’s petition for failure to state a claim under Civ.R. 12(B)(6) or 

granting summary judgment under Civ.R. 56. That distinction ordinarily would 

matter—although res judicata usually is not a proper basis for dismissal under 
January Term, 2020 

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Civ.R. 12 (under which the court examines only the pleadings), it is more readily 

applied under Civ.R. 56 (under which the court may consider extrinsic evidence). 

See Jefferson v. Bunting, 140 Ohio St.3d 62, 2014-Ohio-3074, 14 N.E.3d 1036, 

¶ 10-12. But the warden’s res judicata defense does not depend on documents 

outside the pleadings. In two affidavits attached to his petition, Jones conceded 

that he filed a habeas petition in 2018. And he has never disputed that he asserts 

the same claim here. So in this case, it does not matter whether the Third District 

dismissed the petition under Civ.R. 12(B)(6) or Civ.R. 56; either way, it was 

appropriate for the court to consider whether res judicata applies. 

{¶ 6} Under the doctrine of res judicata, “a final judgment or decree

rendered on the merits by a court of competent jurisdiction is a complete bar to any 

subsequent action on the same claim between the same parties or those in privity 

with them.” Brooks v. Kelly, 144 Ohio St.3d 322, 2015-Ohio-2805, 43 N.E.3d 385, 

¶ 7. Res judicata bars a successive habeas petition when the petitioner either raised 

or could have raised the same issues in his first habeas action. Id. at ¶ 7-8. Given 

that the claim Jones asserts here is identical to the one he asserted earlier, this case 

presents a straightforward application of res judicata. 

{¶ 7} But Jones contends that his first case cannot have preclusive effect for 

two reasons. First, he says that the common pleas court was not a court of 

competent jurisdiction, because he did not attach to his first petition documents that 

were required under R.C. 2725.04 and 2969.25. Jones offers little support for this 

argument. It is well settled that the requirements of R.C. 2725.04 and 2969.25 are 

mandatory and that the failure to attach documents required under those statutes 

mandates dismissal of a habeas petition. Pence v. Bunting, 143 Ohio St.3d 532, 

2015-Ohio-2026, 40 N.E.3d 1058, ¶ 6 (R.C. 2725.04); Russell v. Duffey, 142 Ohio 

St.3d 320, 2015-Ohio-1358, 29 N.E.3d 978, ¶ 11 (R.C. 2969.25). But not every 

mandatory requirement is jurisdictional in nature. Smith v. May, 159 Ohio St.3d 

106, 2020-Ohio-61, 148 N.E.3d 542, ¶ 31. Jones refers to a court of appeals that—
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without any analysis—stated that noncompliance with R.C. 2725.04 was a 

“fail[ure] to properly invoke [its] jurisdiction,” Wilson v. Eberlin, 7th Dist. Belmont 

No. 08 BE 9, 2008-Ohio-4320, ¶ 1. And he cites another decision in which a court 

of appeals—again without any analysis—dismissed a complaint “for lack of 

jurisdiction” based on an inmate’s a failure to satisfy R.C. 2969.25(C), State ex rel. 

Armengau v. Ohio Dept. of Rehab. & Corr., 10th Dist. Franklin No. 15AP-1070, 

2017-Ohio-368, ¶ 3, 13. Those undeveloped statements, however, are not enough 

to show that the common pleas court lacked jurisdiction to adjudicate Jones’s first 

habeas petition. 

{¶ 8} Jones also contends that he could not have raised his claim previously 

because he now relies on documents that the warden produced after the first case 

was dismissed. But whether or not Jones now has additional evidence that he 

believes supports his claim, the fact remains that he could—and did—assert the 

same claim in an earlier action. 

{¶ 9} We therefore affirm the Third District’s determination that Jones’s 

claim is barred by res judicata. 

Judgment affirmed. 

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

STEWART, JJ., concur. 

DONNELLY, J., dissents and would grant an alternative writ. 

_________________ 

Anthony Jones, pro se. 

Dave Yost, Attorney General, and Maura O’Neill Jaite, Assistant Attorney 

General, for appellee. 

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