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

ex rel. Swain v. Harris, Slip Opinion No. 2018-Ohio-4066.] 

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-4066

THE STATE EX REL. SWAIN, APPELLANT, v. HARRIS, WARDEN, APPELLEE. 

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

may be cited as State ex rel. Swain v. Harris, Slip Opinion No. 

2018-Ohio-4066.] 

Habeas Corpus—Erie County ceded to Ohio in the Treaty of Fort Industry—Court 

of appeals’ dismissal of petition affirmed.

(No. 2018-0464—Submitted June 26, 2018—Decided October 10, 2018.) 

APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Warren County, No. CA2018-01-009. 

________________ 

 Per Curiam. 

{¶ 1} Appellant, Sean Swain, appeals the judgment of the Twelfth District 

Court of Appeals dismissing his petition for a writ of habeas corpus. We affirm. 

Background 

{¶ 2} Swain was convicted of aggravated murder in 1991, but his conviction 

was reversed on appeal and the cause was remanded back to the Erie County 

Common Pleas Court. State v. Swain, 6th Dist. Erie No. E-91-80, 1993 WL 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO

2

434581, *1, 8 (Oct. 29, 1993). In 1995, Swain was retried, convicted of murder 

and aggravated murder, and sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole 

after 20 years. See State v. Swain, 6th Dist. Erie No. E-95-011, 1996 WL 402026, 

*1 (July 19, 1996) (affirming Swain’s 1995 conviction). He is currently 

incarcerated at the Warren Correctional Institution. 

{¶ 3} On January 17, 2018, Swain filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus 

in the Twelfth District Court of Appeals against appellee, Warden Chae Harris. 

Swain alleged that the trial court in which he was convicted lacked jurisdiction 

because it was operating outside the territory of Ohio. According to Swain, Erie 

County is located in land recognized as sovereign Native American Territory under 

Article III of the Treaty of Greenville, signed August 3, 1795. 

{¶ 4} Warden Harris filed a motion to dismiss. On March 8, 2018, the court 

of appeals granted Harris’s motion to dismiss, stating that “despite [Swain’s] 

argument to the contrary, he was convicted by a court of competent jurisdiction.” 

Swain timely appealed. 

Legal analysis 

{¶ 5} On appeal, Swain continues to maintain that his conviction and 

sentence are void based on the terms of the Treaty of Greenville. He is correct that 

the Treaty of Greenville fixed the western boundary of the United States so that 

today’s Erie County was not included in the Ohio Territory but remained in the 

possession of Native Americans. Ohio History Central, Treaty of Greenville 

(1795), http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Treaty_of_Greenville_(1795) 

(accessed September 5, 2018). However, 

following the Treaty of Greenville, numerous other treaties were 

entered whereby the various Native-American tribes residing in the 

region “ceded land to the United States in a piecemeal fashion.” See 

Ottawa Tribe of Oklahoma v. Logan, 577 F.3d 634, 637 (6th 
January Term, 2018 

3

Cir.2009). By the end of the 1830s, the tribes “had conveyed all of 

their lands in Ohio to the United States,” and “[b]y 1839, the main 

tribal organization had transferred to Kansas.” Id. at 636. 

Coffey v. Warden, Warren Corr. Inst., S.D.Ohio No. 1:16-cv-353, 2016 WL 

7106238, *2 (Dec. 5, 2016). 

{¶ 6} Specifically, in the Treaty of Fort Industry—which was signed on July 

4, 1805—representatives of the Wyandot (Huron), Ottawa, Objibwe (Chippewa), 

Munsee, Lenape (Delaware), Potawatomi, and Shawnee tribes relinquished 

500,000 acres of land south of Lake Erie and west of the Cuyahoga River in 

northeastern Ohio to the United States. Ohio History Central, Treaty of Fort 

Industry (1805), http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Treaty_of_Fort_Industry_ 

(1805) (accessed Sept. 5, 2018). That territory, known then and now as the 

Firelands (or the Sufferers’ Land), included all of present-day Erie County, 

including Sandusky, the county seat where Swain was tried and convicted. See

Firelands Council of Historical Societies, About the Firelands, 

http://firelandsohio.ericebinger.com/?page_id=2 (accessed Sept. 5, 2018); see also

1 Howe, Historical Collections of Ohio in Two Volumes, 565 (1904). 

{¶ 7} Swain’s assertion that Erie County was never ceded to the United 

States is incorrect. Therefore, he has stated no basis for relief in habeas corpus. 

Judgment affirmed. 

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

and DEGENARO, JJ., concur. 

_________________ 

Sean Swain, pro se. 

Michael DeWine, Attorney General, and Stephanie Watson, Assistant 

Attorney General, for appellee. 

_________________