Opinion ID: 4472525
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Smith had an adequate remedy at law

Text: {¶ 35} Finally, we emphasize that Smith had an adequate remedy at law. He could have objected to the juvenile court’s failure to give his father timely notice, and if the court overruled his objection, he could have appealed the ruling in his appeal from his criminal convictions. But he chose instead to waive his right to have his father present at the hearing. He thus gave up his right to complain of the juvenile court’s noncompliance with R.C. 2152.12(G). See State v. Fitzgerald, 9th Dist. Summit No. 23072, 2007-Ohio-701, ¶ 8 (“Where a party has affirmatively waived an objection   , the error may not be asserted on appeal even if it does amount to plain error”). We therefore affirm the court of appeals’ denial of the writ of habeas corpus. Judgment affirmed. O’CONNOR, C.J., and FRENCH, FISCHER, DONNELLY, and STEWART, JJ., concur. 13 SUPREME COURT OF OHIO KENNEDY, J., concurs in judgment only, with an opinion joined by DEWINE, J. _________________ KENNEDY, J., concurring in judgment only. {¶ 36} Because appellant, Ja’Relle Smith, has not demonstrated that he is entitled to the writ of habeas corpus, I concur with the majority’s affirmance of the Fifth District Court of Appeals’ judgment denying the requested writ. I also agree that it is time to revisit our caselaw treating “an improper bindover procedure,” majority opinion at ¶ 27, as a jurisdictional defect for which habeas relief may be available and to clarify that a procedural error in conducting a bindover hearing does not deprive the general division of the common pleas court of subject-matter jurisdiction over a case that has been transferred from the juvenile court. However, because my analysis for determining whether an improper bindover procedure affects the subject-matter jurisdiction of the common pleas court differs from that of the majority, I concur in judgment only. {¶ 37} Subject-matter jurisdiction refers to the constitutional or statutory power of a court to adjudicate a particular class or type of case. Pratts v. Hurley, 102 Ohio St.3d 81, 2004-Ohio-1980, 806 N.E.2d 992, ¶ 11-12, 34. It is a “ ‘condition precedent to the court’s ability to hear the case. If a court acts without jurisdiction, then any proclamation by that court is void.’ ” Pratts at ¶ 11, quoting State ex rel. Tubbs Jones v. Suster, 84 Ohio St.3d 70, 75, 701 N.E.2d 1002 (1998). “A court’s subject-matter jurisdiction is determined without regard to the rights of the individual parties involved in a particular case.” Bank of Am., N.A. v. Kuchta, 141 Ohio St.3d 75, 2014-Ohio-4275, 21 N.E.3d 1040, ¶ 19. Rather, the focus is on whether the forum itself is competent to hear the controversy. 18A Wright, Miller & Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure, Section 4428, 6 (3d Ed.2017) (“Jurisdictional analysis should be confined to the rules that actually allocate judicial authority among different courts”). 14 January Term, 2020 {¶ 38} “Article IV, Section 4(B) of the Ohio Constitution grants exclusive authority to the General Assembly to allocate certain subject matters to the exclusive original jurisdiction of specified divisions of the courts of common pleas.” State v. Aalim, 150 Ohio St.3d 489, 2017-Ohio-2956, 83 N.E.3d 883, ¶ 2. The General Assembly exercised that power in enacting R.C. 2151.23(A)(1), which grants juvenile courts exclusive subject-matter jurisdiction over children alleged to be delinquent for committing acts that would constitute a crime if committed by an adult. R.C. 2152.12 establishes an exception to that rule, authorizing a juvenile court to relinquish its exclusive jurisdiction in certain cases involving a delinquent child and to transfer a case to the general division of the common pleas court. And once a juvenile court relinquishes jurisdiction, “[t]he transfer abates the jurisdiction of the juvenile court with respect to the delinquent acts alleged in the complaint, and, upon the transfer, all further proceedings pertaining to the act charged shall be discontinued in the juvenile court, and the case then shall be within the jurisdiction of the court to which it is transferred.” R.C. 2152.12(I). {¶ 39} It is therefore within the subject-matter jurisdiction of a juvenile court to transfer a case and within the subject-matter jurisdiction of the general division of the common pleas court to receive it. {¶ 40} “ ‘Once a tribunal has jurisdiction over both the subject matter of an action and the parties to it, “   the right to hear and determine is perfect; and the decision of every question thereafter arising is but the exercise of the jurisdiction thus conferred.” ’ ” (Ellipsis sic.) Pratts, 102 Ohio St.3d 81, 2004-Ohio-1980, 806 N.E.2d 992, at ¶ 12, quoting State ex rel. Pizza v. Rayford, 62 Ohio St.3d 382, 384, 582 N.E.2d 992 (1992), quoting Sheldon’s Lessee v. Newton, 3 Ohio St. 494, 499 (1854). And when a specific action is within a court’s subject-matter jurisdiction, any error in the exercise of that jurisdiction renders the court’s judgment voidable, not void. Pratts at ¶ 12, 21. Generally, a voidable judgment is not subject to collateral attack and therefore may not be challenged in habeas corpus as a 15 SUPREME COURT OF OHIO substitute for a direct appeal. State v. Filiaggi, 86 Ohio St.3d 230, 240, 714 N.E.2d 867 (1999); State ex rel. Drexel v. Alvis, 153 Ohio St. 244, 246, 91 N.E.2d 22 (1950). {¶ 41} We have stated that “[a]bsent a proper bindover procedure   , the juvenile court has the exclusive subject matter jurisdiction over any case concerning a child who is alleged to be a delinquent.” State v. Wilson, 73 Ohio St.3d 40, 652 N.E.2d 196 (1995), paragraph one of the syllabus. But Wilson did not involve an erroneous bindover procedure. Rather, because the state and the trial court had mistakenly believed that the offender was an adult at the time of the offense, no bindover had occurred at all, see id. at 44. For that reason, the juvenile court’s exclusive subject-matter jurisdiction over the case had not been relinquished and the general division of the common pleas court’s jurisdiction was never invoked. {¶ 42} Cases following Wilson, however, confused the difference between a court lacking subject-matter jurisdiction and a court with jurisdiction but improperly exercising it. In Gaskins v. Shiplevy, we noted that a petition for a writ of habeas corpus asserting that a child had not been represented by counsel at his bindover hearing and had not been given the mental and physical examination required by Ohio’s statutes at that time “stated a potentially good cause of action in habeas corpus, alleging, as it did, that the court of common pleas lacked jurisdiction over [the child] because of improper bindover.” 74 Ohio St.3d 149, 151, 656 N.E.2d 1282 (1995). We reversed the court of appeals’ dismissal of the petition and ordered the court to require a return and determine whether the bindover was improper. {¶ 43} In Johnson v. Timmerman-Cooper, a juvenile court had ordered the mandatory bindover of a juvenile for prosecution in an adult court, despite the uncontroverted evidence in the case that the juvenile was in fact not subject to a mandatory bindover. 93 Ohio St.3d 614, 616-617, 757 N.E.2d 1153 (2001). This court held that the adult court “patently and unambiguously lacked jurisdiction to 16 January Term, 2020 convict and sentence [the juvenile] on the charged offenses when she had not been lawfully transferred to that court.” (Emphasis added.) Id. at 617. Accordingly, “[t]he resulting conviction and sentence [were] void, and the availability of alternate remedies [did] not prevent issuance of the writ.” Id. This court distinguished between “merely challenging the accuracy of the bindover entry” and “challenging the propriety of her bindover.” Id. {¶ 44} We adhered to both Gaskins and Timmerman-Cooper in Johnson v. Sloan, 154 Ohio St.3d 476, 2018-Ohio-2120, 116 N.E.3d 91, ¶ 14, in which we explained that “[i]f the juvenile court fails to comply with the mandatory requirements of the bindover statute, its purported transfer to adult court is ineffective and any judgment issued by the adult court is void.” {¶ 45} And in Turner v. Hooks, 152 Ohio St.3d 559, 2018-Ohio-556, 99 N.E.3d 354, we reviewed a court of appeals’ holding that a juvenile court’s failure to give notice of a bindover hearing to a child’s legal custodian invalidated the transfer of the case to adult court and rendered the resulting judgment of conviction void for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. We reversed the court of appeals’ judgment, id. at ¶ 14, explaining that the notice that the juvenile court had provided to the child’s biological mother satisfied R.C. 2152.12(G)’s requirement of written notice of the time, place, and purpose of a bindover hearing “to the child’s parents, guardian, or other custodian.” But nothing in our opinion disputed the underlying premise of the court of appeals’ holding that a complete lack of notice to a custodian would render a resulting conviction void for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, and it is telling that we considered the merits in Turner rather than concluding that a direct appeal of the conviction would have been an adequate remedy. {¶ 46} As these cases show, and contrary to the majority’s assertion, Gaskins, 74 Ohio St.3d 149, 656 N.E.2d 1282, is not an outlier that has been eroded by subsequent decisions. Nonetheless, I agree that it is time to overrule Gaskins and its progeny and clarify that an error in following the statutory procedures 17 SUPREME COURT OF OHIO prescribed for conducting a bindover hearing—including the notice required by R.C. 2152.12(G)—does not vitiate the subject-matter jurisdiction of the general division of the common pleas court over a case that has been transferred from the juvenile court. Rather, it is an error in the exercise of the juvenile court’s jurisdiction that renders the transfer and resulting conviction voidable, not void. {¶ 47} Here, the juvenile court allegedly conducted a bindover hearing without providing Smith’s father with timely notice as required by R.C. 2152.12(G). But importantly, that alleged error would not have required reversal had Smith raised it in a direct appeal. Smith had already been bound over for prosecution in adult court for multiple felony offenses. The newest complaint alleged additional counts subject to a mandatory bindover: aggravated robbery, aggravated burglary, and kidnapping. The juvenile court sent Smith’s father, who had attended the earlier hearing, notice of the second bindover hearing, but he did not appear. However, Smith expressly waived his father’s presence and then stipulated to the existence of the facts that were necessary to transfer the case to adult court. Accordingly, any alleged error in that procedure was harmless, and a bindover to adult court on the new counts was a foregone conclusion. It strains reason to assume that an error that would not have required reversal in a direct appeal could support a collateral attack on an adult court’s jurisdiction. {¶ 48} In any case, the juvenile court had subject-matter jurisdiction to conduct the bindover proceeding and any failure to comply with R.C. 2152.12(G) did not divest it of that jurisdiction to transfer the case to adult court, because “once conferred, [jurisdiction] remains,” Pratts, 102 Ohio St.3d 81, 2004-Ohio-1980, 806 N.E.2d 992, at ¶ 34. The juvenile court therefore retained its exclusive jurisdiction over Smith’s case until it journalized the bindover order, which “abate[d] the jurisdiction of the juvenile court with respect to the delinquent acts alleged in the complaint,” R.C. 2152.12(I). The general division of the common pleas court then 18 January Term, 2020 had subject-matter jurisdiction over Smith’s case and therefore had the authority to proceed to judgment. {¶ 49} Any alleged procedural error in transferring Smith’s case to adult court is at most an error in the exercise of jurisdiction that would render the affected convictions potentially voidable on direct appeal, not void. For this reason, Smith had an adequate remedy for purposes of challenging any errors in the bindover proceeding, and the court of appeals correctly denied his request for the writ of habeas corpus. DEWINE, J., concurs in the foregoing opinion. _________________ Timothy Young, Ohio Public Defender, and Charlyn Bohland and Timothy B. Hackett, Assistant Public Defenders, for appellant. Dave Yost, Attorney General, and Jerri L. Fosnaught, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee. _________________ 19