Cleveland Hts. v. Coleman

2021 Ohio 846, 169 N.E.3d 298
CourtOhio Court of Appeals
DecidedMarch 18, 2021
Docket109527
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 2021 Ohio 846 (Cleveland Hts. v. Coleman) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Cleveland Hts. v. Coleman, 2021 Ohio 846, 169 N.E.3d 298 (Ohio Ct. App. 2021).

Opinion

[Cite as Cleveland Hts. v. Coleman, 2021-Ohio-846.]

COURT OF APPEALS OF OHIO

EIGHTH APPELLATE DISTRICT COUNTY OF CUYAHOGA

CITY OF CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, :

Plaintiff-Appellee, : No. 109527 v. :

JIMMY COLEMAN, :

Defendant-Appellant. :

JOURNAL ENTRY AND OPINION

JUDGMENT: AFFIRMED RELEASED AND JOURNALIZED: March 18, 2021

Criminal Appeal from the Cleveland Heights Municipal Court Case No. CRB-1801162

Appearances:

William R. Hanna, Director of Law, City of Cleveland Heights, and Pamela Roessner, Assistant City Prosecutor, for appellee.

Milton A. Kramer Law Clinic, Case Western Reserve University School of Law, Andrew S. Pollis, attorney, Rocco Screnci, P.P.A., Joseph Shell, and David A. Codispoti, certified legal interns, for appellant.

SEAN C. GALLAGHER, P.J.:

Jimmy Coleman appeals his misdemeanor conviction for disorderly

conduct, entered following a plea of no contest after the trial court rejected Coleman’s speedy trial violation claims advanced under R.C. 2941.401. For the

following reasons, we affirm the conviction.

Coleman was charged with stealing a pressure washer from a local

retail establishment in July 2018, leading to the underlying prosecution in Cleveland

Heights, Ohio. At the time he faced several, unrelated felony charges in the

Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas. Coleman was held in the Cuyahoga

County Jail pending the disposition of the felony charges. In January 2019,

Coleman filed a “notice of availability” under R.C. 2941.401 claiming to be

“incarcerated” at the county jail and that a “certificate of custody” was available

“upon request.”1 There is no certificate of service accompanying the filing as

required under Crim.R. 49(C), nor does the record contain evidence that Coleman

contacted the warden or superintendent having custody of him to either provide a

certificate of custody or to forward the notice of availability through the appropriate

channels. The municipal court denied Coleman’s motion to dismiss, in which he

claimed that his trial was not timely under the 180-day limit imposed by R.C.

2941.401.

Throughout these proceedings, Coleman repeatedly references the

fact that he was “incarcerated” at the Cuyahoga County Jail at the time that his

January 2019 notice of availability was filed. This phrasing of his status is curious

1 R.C. 2941.401 creates the right to file “written notice of the place of his imprisonment and a request for a final disposition to be made of the matter.” For the sake of simplicity, “notice of availability” shall be used throughout this opinion in reference to the statutory notice. in light of the fact that R.C. 2941.401 entitles a person who “has entered upon a term

of imprisonment” to file a notice of availability. (Emphasis added.) There is no

statutory definition for the term “incarcerate,” which is generally, and quite broadly,

defined as “to put in prison” or “to subject to confinement.” Merriam-Webster

Online Dictionary, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/incarcerate

(accessed Mar. 11, 2021). Coleman’s repeated usage of the term with respect to R.C.

2941.401 exposes a misnomer — that “incarcerated” is necessarily synonymous with

“term of imprisonment.”

R.C. 2941.401 provides that

When a person has entered upon a term of imprisonment in a correctional institution of this state, and when during the continuance of the term of imprisonment there is pending in this state any untried indictment, information, or complaint against the prisoner, he shall be brought to trial within one hundred eighty days after he causes to be delivered to the prosecuting attorney and the appropriate court in which the matter is pending, written notice of the place of his imprisonment and a request for a final disposition to be made of the matter, * * *. The request of the prisoner shall be accompanied by a certificate of the warden or superintendent having custody of the prisoner, stating the term of commitment under which the prisoner is being held, the time served and remaining to be served on the sentence, the amount of good time earned, the time of parole eligibility of the prisoner, and any decisions of the adult parole authority relating to the prisoner.

(Emphasis added.) Thus, the statute creates a fundamental prerequisite. The

person seeking to invoke R.C. 2941.401 must be serving a “term of imprisonment,”

a term of art as used throughout the Revised Code. R.C. 1.05(A) provides that

“imprisoned” or “imprisonment” “means being imprisoned under a sentence

imposed for an offense or serving a term of imprisonment, prison term, jail term, term of local incarceration, or other term under a sentence imposed for an offense

* * *.” (Emphasis added.) Id. Thus, a “term of imprisonment” is the length or

duration of the final sentence imposed upon an offense, and a term of local

incarceration is merely one method of serving such a sentence. See State ex rel.

McKee v. Cooper, 40 Ohio St.2d 65, 73, 320 N.E.2d 286 (1974), citing R.C. 5141.01

(“term of imprisonment” is defined as “the duration of the state’s legal custody and

control over a person sentenced.” (Emphasis added.)). By definition, “term of

imprisonment” does not include being detained or confined in lieu of bail pending

resolution of an indictment, information, or complaint since the confinement is not

a result of a sentence being imposed upon an offense. State v. Trammell, 12th Dist.

Butler Nos. CA2016-11-220, CA2016-11-221, and CA2016-11-222, 2017-Ohio-8198,

¶ 25, fn. 4; see also State v. Black, 142 Ohio St.3d 332, 2015-Ohio-513, 30 N.E.3d

918, ¶ 54 (broadly defining the type of institution under the similarly worded R.C.

2963.30 but concluding that the prisoner must first begin serving the imposed

sentence before that statute is properly invoked). Pretrial detention, or

“confinement in lieu of bail while awaiting trial” in statutory parlance under R.C.

2967.191 (statutory section providing for the reduction of a prison term for related

days of confinement), cannot be considered synonymous with a “term of

imprisonment.”

This conclusion is bolstered by the fact that R.C. 2941.401

unambiguously requires the defendant to take steps to cause the warden or

superintendent of the inmate’s institution to deliver a “certificate of custody” to accompany the “notice of availability.” State v. Hairston, 101 Ohio St.3d 308, 2004-

Ohio-969, 804 N.E.2d 471, ¶ 20 (finding R.C. 2941.401 to be unambiguous as a

matter of law). A certificate of custody must contain, according to the express

language of the statute, the term of commitment the defendant is then serving. A

certificate of custody cannot be issued in the case of pretrial confinement — the term

of commitment, and all other information that must be contained within the

certificate, would be nonexistent in light of the transient nature of the pretrial

detention. This distinction is important.

R.C. 2941.401 in part “allows inmates to resolve the misdemeanor

charges against themselves while serving a felony sentence. Since, the misdemeanor

sentence would most likely run concurrent to the felony sentence, the misdemeanor

sentence may be completed prior to the completion of the felony sentence.” State v.

Lewis, 7th Dist. Mahoning Nos. 19 MA 0100, 19 MA 0101, 19 MA 0102, 19 MA 0104,

19 MA 0105, and 19 MA 0106, 2020-Ohio-5294, ¶ 25. The goal of R.C. 2941.401 is

to permit an inmate to have all cases resolved during the inmate’s term of

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
2021 Ohio 846, 169 N.E.3d 298, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cleveland-hts-v-coleman-ohioctapp-2021.