[Cite as Goodykoontz v. Hunter-Stuff, 2026-Ohio-2297.]
IN THE OHIO COURT OF APPEALS FIFTH APPELLATE DISTRICT RICHLAND COUNTY, OHIO
DAVID GOODYKOONTZ, Case No. 2026 CA 0016
Petitioner-Appellant Opinion And Judgment Entry
-vs- Appeal from the Richland County Court of Common Pleas, Case No. 2025-CV-0774R ANGELA HUNTER-STUFF, Warden, Judgment: Affirmed Respondent-Appellee Date of Judgment Entry: June 17, 2026
BEFORE: Andrew J. King; Craig R. Baldwin; Kevin W. Popham, Judges
APPEARANCES: DAVID GOODYKOONTZ, #A792-642, Pro Se, for Petitioner- Appellant; STACEY M. ALPHONSE, Assistant Attorney General, for Respondent- Appellee.
Baldwin, P.J.
{¶1} Appellant David Goodykoontz appeals the decision of the trial court
dismissing his petition for writ of habeas corpus. Appellee is Angela Hunter-Stuff,
Warden, Richland Correctional Institute. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm the
trial court’s decision.
STATEMENT OF FACTS AND THE CASE
{¶2} The appellant was indicted in 2020 on eleven counts of pandering sexually
oriented material involving a minor; twelve counts of illegal use of a minor in nudity-
oriented material or performance; nine additional counts of pandering sexually oriented
material involving a minor; and one count of possession of criminal tools. The indictment
was based in part on evidence discovered when the Internet Crimes Against Children Unit executed a search warrant on the appellant’s home and discovered a substantial amount
of child exploitative material on his computer. In addition, the appellant’s IP address was
connected to “peer-to-peer” programs which enabled individuals to access files
containing exploitative materials on other users’ computers anonymously.
{¶3} The matter proceeded to a jury trial in 2022. The appellant argued that he
was a “federal agent” “doing his assigned duties or undercover operations.” The appellant
requested an affirmative defense jury instruction stating that he was engaged in the
conduct for a bona fide governmental or judicial purpose. The trial court reviewed the
request in light of the evidence presented and denied the appellant’s request to give said
jury instruction. The appellant was convicted on an amended indictment of seventeen
counts of pandering sexually oriented matter involving a minor; eleven counts of illegal
use of a minor in nudity-oriented material or performance; and, one count of possessing
criminal tools. He was sentenced to thirty-seven years in prison and designated a Tier III
Sex Offender.1
{¶4} The appellant appealed his conviction and sentence to the 8th District Court
of Appeals, setting forth the following four assignments of error: the trial court abused its
discretion when it failed to give the requested affirmative defense jury instruction; the
conviction was not supported by sufficient evidence; the conviction was against the
manifest weight of the evidence; and, the trial court erred when it imposed consecutive
sentences. The 8th District affirmed the appellant’s conviction and sentence in State v.
Goodykoontz, 2023-Ohio-3243 (8th Dist.); appeal dismissed 2023-U.S. App. LEXIS
1 The appellant had also been indicted and convicted on one count of gross sexual imposition after he caressed a child’s buttocks at a local Dollar General. The trial court imposed the aggregate thirty-seven-year prison sentence for both cases. 25580 (6th Cir. Ohio, Sept. 27, 2023); motion for delayed appeal denied, 2024-Ohio-
1832.
{¶5} The appellant has filed approximately nineteen cases since his conviction,
including a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the Warren County court of common
pleas on January 15, 2025. The Warren County common pleas court dismissed the
petition, and the 12th District Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal on September 29,
2025, in Goodykoontz v. Harris, 2025-Ohio-4511 (12th Dist.).
{¶6} On December 1, 2025, the appellant filed the current Petition for Habeas
Corpus in the Richland County court of common pleas. The appellant argues in his current
Petition that he is a classified undercover federal agent who was engaged in official acts
in both the child pornography matter and the gross sexual imposition matter. The
arguments set forth in the appellant’s current Petition are a rehashing of the arguments
he made during his 2022 trial on the underlying matters and the 8th District Court of
Appeals’ review and affirmance of the same, as well as a rehashing of the arguments set
forth in the Warren County Petition. No new arguments are presented in the appellant’s
current Petition. Further, the appellant failed to attach commitment papers to his current
Petition. In addition, while the appellant attached an Affidavit to his current Petition
purporting to set forth nineteen civil actions and appeals, the list does not accurately set
forth the details and outcomes of the cases listed therein, nor does it include the dates of
final orders in said cases as required by R.C. 2969.25.
{¶7} On December 2, 2025, the trial court issued a notice, which was served upon
all parties, advising the parties that the Petition was scheduled for decision on January
30, 2026, and that responses should be received no later than seven days prior to said
date. {¶8} The appellee filed a Motion to Dismiss on January 16, 2026, pursuant to
Civ.R. 12(B)(6), asking the trial court to dismiss the appellant’s petition for failure to state
a claim upon which relief could be granted. On February 2, 2026, the appellant filed a
motion for extension of time to file a brief in opposition to the Motion to Dismiss, and on
February 6, 2026, filed an Opposition to Dismiss. On February 9, 2026, the trial court
issued a Judgment Entry denying the appellant’s motion for extension of time,2 and a
Judgment Entry granting the appellee’s Motion to Dismiss.
{¶9} The appellant filed a timely appeal from the trial court’s February 9th
Judgment Entries. The Appellant’s Brief does not set forth an Assignment of Error.
Instead, it sets forth the following “Statement of Errors:”
“I. THERE ARE MANY ERRORS IN THE JUDGMENT, NAMELY THE RES
JUDICATA AND ACCEPTANCE OF DECISIONS FROM ANOTHER
COURT WHICH WERE DICTUM AND CLEARLY ERRONEOUS PER THE
SUPREME COURT’S RULINGS. THE AFFIDAVITS WERE NOT
MATERIALLY FALSE AND THE STATEMENT WAS RECENT ENOUGH.
DISMISSAL WAS IN ERROR.”
STANDARD OF REVIEW
{¶10} We review a trial court’s dismissal of a petition for habeas corpus de novo.
Goodykoontz v. Harris, supra, at ¶ 8.
2 The trial court noted in its February 9, 2026, Judgment Entry denying the appellant’s motion for extension of time that it would have dismissed the appellant’s Petition with or without the appellee’s motion to dismiss because the Petition “was procedurally deficient, the arguments were barred by res judicata, and the Petitioner failed to state a claim entitling him to habeas relief.” ANALYSIS
Res Judicata
{¶11} The issues presented in the appellant’s current Petition for Habeas Corpus
were also presented in his petition before the Warren County court of common pleas. The
12th District Court of Appeals, when affirming the dismissal of the appellant’s petition in
that matter, stated:
Goodykoontz's remaining 25 assignments of error (Assignments of
Error 1 thru 25) relate to purported errors in his trial in Cuyahoga County,
and involve issues regarding the sufficiency and weight of the evidence
supporting his convictions, speedy trial rights, ineffective assistance of
counsel, immunity from prosecution, double jeopardy, due process,
sentencing, and whether certain statutes under which he was charged and
convicted were void for vagueness.
R.C. Chapter 2725 addresses habeas corpus relief. R.C. 2725.01
provides that a writ of habeas corpus is available to persons who are
"unlawfully restrained of [their] liberty." Generally, a writ of habeas corpus
is available only when the petitioner's maximum sentence has expired and
he is being held unlawfully, or when the sentencing court patently and
unambiguously lacked subject-matter jurisdiction. Leyman v. Bradshaw,
146 Ohio St. 3d 522, 2016-Ohio-1093, ¶ 8, 59 N.E.3d 1236; Stever v.
Wainwright, 160 Ohio St. 3d 139, 2020-Ohio-1452, ¶ 8, 154 N.E.3d 55.
Habeas corpus is not available when the petitioner has an adequate remedy
in the ordinary course of law, unless the trial court's judgment is void for lack of jurisdiction. State ex rel. Davis v. Turner, 164 Ohio St. 3d 395, 2021-
Ohio-1771, ¶ 8, 172 N.E.3d 1026.
Goodykoontz does not argue that his maximum sentence has expired
and he is being held unlawfully. Goodykoontz does argue, in assignment of
error number 18, that the Cuyahoga County trial court lacked jurisdiction.
In that assignment of error, he asserts (without citation to authority) that
the trial court lacked jurisdiction over him because he was a "federal agent"
"doing his assigned duties or undercover operations" when he was accessing
child exploitation materials on his personal electronic devices. However,
this argument is essentially a recasting of other arguments in his petition
that he was immune from prosecution, not that the trial court lacked
jurisdiction to sentence him.
Goodykoontz's argument that he was immune from state
prosecution, as well as the other arguments he raised in the petition and has
raised on appeal, could have been asserted at trial, assigned as error in his
direct appeal, or brought forth in a petition for postconviction relief.
Therefore, Goodykoontz had an adequate remedy at law to raise these
arguments and they are not cognizable in habeas corpus. Kneuss v. Sloan,
146 Ohio St. 3d 248, 2016-Ohio-3310, ¶ 6, 54 N.E.3d 1242.
"Habeas corpus 'is not and never was a post-conviction remedy for
the review of errors or irregularities of an accused's conviction or for a
retrial of the guilt or innocence of an accused.'" Bellman v. Jago, 38 Ohio
St.3d 55, 56, 526 N.E.2d 308 (1988), quoting Walker v. Maxwell, 1 Ohio
St.2d 136, 137, 205 N.E.2d 394 (1965). Accord State ex rel. Tarr v. Williams, 112 Ohio St. 3d 51, 2006-Ohio-6368, ¶ 4, 857 N.E.2d 1225 (finding that
sufficiency of the evidence arguments improper in habeas corpus petition);
Wilson v. Hudson, 127 Ohio St. 3d 31, 2010-Ohio-4990, ¶ 1, 936 N.E.2d 42;
Bozsik v. Hudson, 110 Ohio St. 3d 245, 2006-Ohio-4356, ¶ 7, 852 N.E.2d
1200 (ineffective assistance of counsel); Junius v. Eberlin, 122 Ohio St. 3d
53, 2009-Ohio-2383, ¶ 1, 907 N.E.2d 1179 (actual innocence); State ex rel.
Jaffal v. Calabrese, 105 Ohio St. 3d 440, 2005-Ohio-2591, ¶ 5, 828 N.E.2d
107 (sentencing errors); Bussey v. Maxwell, 2 Ohio St.2d 143, 144, 207
N.E.2d 244 (1965) (denial of right to fair trial); Tucker v. McAninch, 82
Ohio St.3d 423, 1998- Ohio 220, 696 N.E.2d 595 (1998) (due process).
Accordingly, we find that Goodykoontz's petition alleged no set of
facts entitling him to habeas relief. Schweitzer, 2021-Ohio-1786, at ¶ 4.
Therefore, even if Goodykoontz's petition was not fatally defective for failing
to comply with R.C. 2725.04(D), the common pleas court would not have
erred in dismissing Goodykoontz's petition. We overrule Assignments of
Error 1 thru 25.
Goodykoontz v. Harris, supra, at ¶¶ 18-23.
The Ohio Supreme Court discussed the doctrine of res judicata in Norwood v.
McDonald, 142 Ohio St. 299 (1943):
A comprehensive definition of res judicata is as follows: 'The doctrine
of res judicata is that an existing final judgment rendered on the merits,
without fraud or collusion, by a court of competent jurisdiction, is
conclusive of rights, questions and facts in issue, as to the parties and their privies, in all other actions in the same or any other judicial tribunal of
concurrent jurisdiction.
Id. at paragraph 1 of the syllabus, and 305; overruled on other grounds in Grava v.
Parkman Township, 78 Ohio St.3d. 379, 382.
{¶12} The Ohio Supreme Court discussed the application of res judicata to
successive petitions for habeas corpus in the case of Fortson v. Bradshaw, 2006-Ohio-
2291. Fortson was convicted of aggravated murder in June of 2000 and sentenced to life
in prison with the possibility of parole after twenty years. In October of 2003, Fortson
filed a writ of habeas corpus with the court of appeals; the court of appeals dismissed the
writ, and the Ohio Supreme Court affirmed the dismissal. Fortson filed three additional
petitions for habeas corpus, all of which were dismissed in 2004 and 2005. In September
of 2005, Fortson filed yet another petition for a writ of habeas corpus with another court
of appeals, setting forth the same arguments, just as the petitioner has done in this case.
Fortson’s September 2005 petition was dismissed; the dismissal was affirmed by the Ohio
Supreme Court, who stated:
The court of appeals properly dismissed Fortson's petition because
res judicata barred Fortson from filing a successive habeas corpus petition.
State ex rel. Rash v. Jackson, 102 Ohio St.3d 145, 2004 Ohio 2053, 807
N.E.2d 344, P10-11. Since Fortson previously raised the issue of the alleged
dismissal of his aggravated-murder charge, he may not use habeas corpus
to gain successive appellate reviews of the same issue. Agee v. Russell
(2001), 92 Ohio St.3d 540, 548, 2001 Ohio 1279, 751 N.E.2d 1043.
Moreover, Fortson failed to comply with R.C. 2969.25(A), which
required that he file an affidavit describing each civil action or appeal from a civil action that he had filed in the previous five years in any state or
federal court. His belated attempt to file the required affidavit does not
excuse his noncompliance. Fuqua v. Williams, 100 Ohio St.3d 211, 2003
Ohio 5533, 797 N.E.2d 982, P9.
Id. at ¶ 11-12.
{¶13} The appellant herein has also filed a successive petition for habeas corpus,
first in the Warren County court of common pleas, the dismissal of which was affirmed
by the 12th District Court of Appeals, and then in the Richland County court of common
pleas. Both petitions set forth the same arguments: the appellant was wrongfully
convicted because he was a federal agent working in a sting operation. The appellant
implies that the previously filed petition was dismissed on a technicality without a review
of his substantive arguments. This, however, is inaccurate. While the 12th District
addressed the commitment paper and certified accounting statement deficiencies in the
appellant’s petition (deficiencies that are also present herein), it also addressed the
substance of the appellant’s petition. The appellant’s petition in the case sub judice is
barred by res judicata, and the trial court did not err in dismissing the appellant’s petition.
Failure to State a Claim
{¶14} Even if it were not barred by res judicata, the appellant’s Petition fails to
state a claim upon which relief can be granted. The purpose of a Civ.R. 12(B)(6) motion is
to test the sufficiency of a complaint. State ex rel. Boggs v. Springfield Loc. School Dist.
Bd. of Edn., 72 Ohio St.3d 94, 95 (1995). If a petition does not satisfy the requirements
for a properly filed petition for writ of habeas corpus, or does not present a facially viable
claim, it may be dismissed on motion by the respondent or sua sponte by the court. Flora
v. State, 2005-Ohio-2383, ¶ 5 (7th Dist.). {¶15} R.C. 2725.04 addresses applications for a writ of habeas corpus, and states:
Application for the writ of habeas corpus shall be by petition, signed
and verified either by the party for whose relief it is intended, or by some
person for him, and shall specify:
(A) That the person in whose behalf the application is made is
imprisoned, or restrained of his liberty;
(B) The officer, or name of the person by whom the prisoner is so
confined or restrained; or, if both are unknown or uncertain, such officer or
person may be described by an assumed appellation and the person who is
served with the writ is deemed the person intended;
(C) The place where the prisoner is so imprisoned or restrained,
if known;
(D) A copy of the commitment or cause of detention of such
person shall be exhibited, if it can be procured without impairing the
efficiency of the remedy; or, if the imprisonment or detention is without
legal authority, such fact must appear.
The appellant failed to attach a copy of the commitment or cause of his detention to his
petition. That alone is fatal. As set forth in Savage v. Sigsworth, 2022-Ohio-4720, (6th
Dist.):
A habeas petition must conform to certain statutory requirements.
R.C. 2725.04 requires that the complaint be signed and verified, and it must
specify or include: (A) the petitioner is imprisoned or restrained of his
liberty; (B) the name of the person restraining the petitioner, if known; (C)
the place the petitioner is imprisoned or restrained, if known; and (D) a copy of the commitment papers, if the commitment papers can be obtained
without impairing the efficiency of the remedy.
The failure to attach all commitment papers to a petition for habeas
corpus is fatal. Al'shahid v. Cook, 144 Ohio St.3d 15, 2015-Ohio-2079, 40
N.E.3d 1073, ¶ 8.
Id. at ¶ 12-13.
{¶16} Moreover, to be entitled to habeas corpus, “a petitioner must show that he
is being unlawfully restrained of his liberty and that he is entitled to immediate release
from prison or confinement.” State ex rel. Whitt v. Harris, 2019-Ohio-4113, ¶ 6, citing
R.C. 2725.01; State ex rel. Cannon v. Mohr, 2018-Ohio-4184, ¶ 10. Habeas corpus is not
available when an adequate remedy at law exists. Billiter v. Banks, 2013-Ohio-1719, ¶ 8.
In this case, not only did an adequate legal remedy exist, but the appellant also availed
himself of said remedy when he appealed the verdict and sentence following his 2022 jury
trial.
{¶17} While habeas corpus may lie in certain extraordinary circumstances “where
there is an unlawful restraint of a person’s liberty, notwithstanding the fact that only
nonjurisdictional issues are involved,” it can only do so where there is no adequate
remedy at law, for example, appeal or postconviction relief. State ex rel. Jackson v.
McFaul, 73 Ohio St.3d 185, 186 (1995). And even when an adequate remedy does not
exist, habeas corpus relief generally is appropriate only when “the petitioner’s maximum
sentence has expired and he is being held unlawfully.” Heddleston v. Mack, 84 Ohio St.3d
213, 214 (1998).
{¶18} In the case sub judice, the appellant has already availed himself of adequate
remedies at law, having appealed his original convictions and sentence to the 8th District Court of Appeals, as well as to the Ohio Supreme Court. Furthermore, the appellant’s
maximum sentence has not expired, as his release date is not scheduled until 2056.
Accordingly, the trial court did not err in dismissing the appellant’s petition.
CONCLUSION
{¶19} Based upon the foregoing, we find the appellant’s “statement of errors” to
be without merit, and the decision of the Richland Conty Court of Common Pleas is hereby
affirmed.
{¶20} Costs to appellant.
By: Baldwin, P.J.
King, J. and
Popham, J. concur.