Court Opinion

ID: 2689749
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2014-08-01 20:22:21.100013+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:23:17.562332
License: Public Domain

The State ex rel. Duganitz, Appellant, v. Ohio Adult Parole Authority, Appellee.

[Cite as State ex rel. Duganitz v. Ohio Adult Parole Auth. (1996), Ohio St.3d .]

Criminal procedure -- Parole -- Reversal of a conviction which formed the

        basis for parole revocation does not automatically entitle a parolee

        to final release pursuant to R.C. 2967.16.

        (No. 96-1401 -- Submitted October 15, 1996 -- Decided December 18,

1996.)

        Appeal from the Court of Appeals for Franklin County, No. 95APD10-

1366.

        In 1984, the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas convicted appellant,

Michael J. Duganitz, of felonious assault and sentenced him to a term of five-to-

ten years in prison. Duganitz was paroled in December 1988.

        In June 1989, Duganitz was arrested and charged with carrying a concealed

weapon and having a weapon while under a disability. As a result of Duganitz’s

arrest, appellee, Ohio Adult Parole Authority (“APA”), revoked his parole in July

1989. The common pleas court convicted him of both charges and sentenced him

accordingly. The court of appeals subsequently reversed the conviction based on

insufficient evidence that Duganitz possessed the weapon. State v. Duganitz

(1991), 76 Ohio App.3d 363, 601 N.E.2d 642.
      In August 1992, as a result of the reversed conviction, the APA reparoled

Duganitz. The APA did not grant Duganitz a final release from his 1984

conviction and sentence for felonious assault. In December 1992, Duganitz was

arrested and charged with felony drug abuse. He was convicted of the charge and

sentenced to a term of two and one-half to five years in prison.

      In October 1995, Duganitz filed a complaint in the Court of Appeals for

Franklin County requesting a writ of mandamus compelling the APA to vacate his

August 1992 parole release and correct its records by granting him a final release

from confinement on his prior conviction.         Duganitz claimed that the only

sentence he should be serving is the most recent one relating to his drug abuse

conviction.   The court of appeals granted the APA’s motion for summary

judgment and denied the writ.

      The cause is now before this court upon an appeal as of right.

                             ____________________

      Paul Mancino, Jr., for appellant.

      Betty D. Montgomery, Attorney General, and Robert C. Angell, Assistant

Attorney General, for appellee.

                             ____________________

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      Per Curiam. Duganitz claims that the court of appeals erred in granting the

APA’s motion for summary judgment and denying the writ.               Civ.R. 56(C)

provides that before summary judgment may be granted, it must be determined

that (1) no genuine issue as to any material fact remains to be litigated, (2) the

moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law, and (3) it appears from the

evidence that reasonable minds can come to but one conclusion, and viewing the

evidence most strongly in favor of the nonmoving party, that conclusion is adverse

to the nonmoving party. State ex rel. Cassels v. Dayton City School Dist. Bd. of

Edn. (1994), 69 Ohio St.3d 217, 219, 631 N.E.2d 150, 152.

      In his sole proposition of law, Duganitz asserts that an inmate is entitled to

unconditional release without further parole supervision where the inmate’s parole

is revoked because of a new conviction that is subsequently determined to be

factually unsupported. Duganitz contends that after the reversal of his conviction

for carrying a concealed weapon and having a weapon while under a disability, he

should have been unconditionally released rather than reparoled.        Duganitz’s

argument is based on his misconception that release from parole supervision

“follows automatically unless there has been some intervening violation.”

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      Former R.C. 2967.16(A) provides that “when a paroled prisoner has

faithfully performed the conditions and obligations of his parole and has obeyed

the rules and regulations adopted by the adult parole authority that apply to him,

the authority upon the recommendation of the superintendent of parole supervision

may enter upon its minutes a final release and thereupon shall issue to the paroled

prisoner a certificate of final release, but no final release shall be granted earlier

than one year after the prisoner is released from the institution on parole unless his

maximum sentence has expired prior thereto ***.” See, also, Ohio Adm. Code

5120:1-1-13.

      Under R.C. 2967.16, a parolee whose maximum sentence has not expired

must satisfy the following requirements before being considered for final release:

(1) the parolee has faithfully performed the conditions and obligations of the

parole and obeyed the APA’s rules and regulations, (2) the parolee has been on

parole for at least one year, and (3) the Superintendent of Parole Supervision has

recommended that the parolee be granted final release.         Even if all of these

requirements are met, the APA’s decision whether to grant final release is still

discretionary.   See, e.g., Bates v. Ohio Adult Parole Auth. (Sept. 22, 1987),

Franklin App. No. 86AP-471, unreported, 1987 WL 17528 (“While the Adult

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Parole Authority had the discretion to terminate that parole after one year, it was

not obligated to do so.”).

      As the court of appeals correctly concluded, R.C. 2967.16 does not confer a

legal right to unconditional release of a parolee whose maximum sentence has not

expired. See, e.g., Porter v. Ohio Parole Bd. (Mar. 8, 1995), Lorain App. Nos.

94CA005878 and 94CA005899, unreported, 1995 WL 92147 (“[R.C. 2967.16]

does not mandate a parole release, thus it does not create a protected statutory

entitlement to release from parole.”). Further, there is no evidence or assertion

that the Superintendent of Parole Supervision ever recommended that Duganitz be

granted a final release. Moreover, Duganitz’s contention that he would have

faithfully complied with his parole conditions for the minimum one-year period

but for the intervening, invalid conviction, is belied by the fact that less than four

months after his subsequent reparole, he was arrested for yet another crime.

      Duganitz cites Zanders v. Anderson (1996), 74 Ohio St.3d 269, 658 N.E.2d

300, and Flenoy v. Ohio Adult Parole Auth. (1990), 56 Ohio St.3d 131, 564

N.E.2d 1060, in support of his contentions. In these cases, we held that parole and

probation may be revoked even though criminal charges based on the same facts

are dismissed, the defendant is acquitted, or the conviction is overturned, unless

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all factual support for the revocation is removed. Zanders and Flenoy apply only

to the propriety of revocation and not to the final release of paroled prisoners.

Therefore, a reversal of the conviction which formed the basis for parole

revocation does not automatically entitle a parolee to final release pursuant to R.C.

2967.16. See Stahl v. Shoemaker (Nov. 23, 1976), Franklin App. No. 76AP-49,

unreported, affirmed on other grounds (1977), 50 Ohio St.2d 351, 4 O.O.3d 485,

364 N.E.2d 286. In addition, as appellee notes, not all factual support for the

revocation was removed by reversal of Duganitz’s conviction because there was

evidence that he had told a police officer that he was in the area to buy crack

cocaine. See Hattie v. Anderson (1994), 68 Ohio St.3d 232, 235, 626 N.E.2d 67,

70 (other alleged crimes which do not result in charges may be considered by the

APA in decision to revoke parole).        The APA could appropriately consider

Duganitz’s intent to commit a new crime in exercising its discretion to reparole

him rather than granting him a final release.

      Based on the foregoing, the summary-judgment evidence introduced in the

court of appeals established neither a clear legal right for Duganitz’s unconditional

release in 1992 from his prior sentence nor a corresponding clear legal duty on the

part of the APA to grant the requested release.        Accordingly, we affirm the

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judgment of the court of appeals entering summary judgment in favor of the APA

and denying the writ.

                                                     Judgment affirmed.

      MOYER, C.J., DOUGLAS, RESNICK, F.E. SWEENEY, PFEIFER, COOK and

STRATTON, JJ., concur.

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