State v. Singleton

2009 Ohio 6434, 920 N.E.2d 958, 124 Ohio St. 3d 173
CourtOhio Supreme Court
DecidedDecember 22, 2009
Docket2008-1255
StatusPublished
Cited by344 cases

This text of 2009 Ohio 6434 (State v. Singleton) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Singleton, 2009 Ohio 6434, 920 N.E.2d 958, 124 Ohio St. 3d 173 (Ohio 2009).

Opinions

O’Donnell, J.

[174]*174{¶ 1} The question we confront in this case is whether the de novo sentencing procedures detailed in decisions of this court or the remedial procedures set forth in R.C. 2929.191 (see Appendix for the text of R.C. 2929.191), which became effective July 11, 2006, should be used by trial courts to properly sentence an offender when correcting a failure to properly impose postrelease control. The answer to this question is that in the absence of a statutory remedy, our caselaw provides a constitutional remedial procedure for trial courts to follow in correcting a court’s failure to properly impose postrelease control prior to July 11, 2006; with the enactment of R.C. 2929.191, however, which became effective July 11, 2006, the legislature has promulgated a statutory remedy for trial courts to use to correct an error in imposing postrelease control. Accordingly, for sentences imposed prior to July 11, 2006, in which a trial court failed to properly impose postrelease control, trial courts shall conduct a de novo sentencing hearing in accordance with decisions of the Supreme Court of Ohio. However, for criminal sentences imposed on and after July 11, 2006, in which a trial court failed to properly impose postrelease control, trial courts shall apply the procedures set forth in R.C. 2929.191.

{¶ 2} In this case, the court sentenced Jason Singleton on December 21, 2000, prior to the effective date of R.C. 2929.191. Therefore, we affirm the judgment of the court of appeals, which remanded this case for a de novo sentencing in accordance with our prior decisions.

Facts and Procedural History

{¶ 3} On February 22, 2000, Detective Dave Loeding of the North Royalton Police Department filed complaints in the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court alleging 16-year-old Jason Singleton to be a delinquent child. The juvenile court conducted an amenability hearing and transferred the case to the general division of the common pleas court, and subsequently a grand jury indicted Singleton for rape with a sexually violent predator specification, kidnapping with sexual motivation and sexually violent predator specifications, aggravated burglary, aggravated robbery, and felonious assault. As a result of plea bargaining, Singleton pleaded guilty to rape without a sexually violent offender specification and to felonious assault, and the state nolled the remaining counts.

{¶ 4} The court sentenced Singleton on December 21, 2000, to a term of imprisonment of ten years for rape consecutive with a term of seven years for felonious assault, and it notified Singleton of five years of postrelease control. However, at that sentencing hearing, the court failed to notify Singleton that for a violation of postrelease control, the parole board could impose a prison term as part of his sentence of up to one-half of the stated prison term originally imposed on him. And in its sentencing entry, the court referred only to the possibility of five years of postrelease control, and it did not specify that the parole board could [175]*175impose an additional prison term of up to one-half of his prison sentence for a violation of postrelease control. See R.C. 2929.19(B)(3)(c) and (e).

{¶ 5} The General Assembly enacted Am.Sub.H.B. No. 137, Baldwin’s Ohio Legislative Service Annotated (Vol. 4, 2006) L-1911, L-1934 (“H.B. 137”), effective July 11, 2006, which amended R.C. 2929.14, 2929.19, and 2967.28 and enacted R.C. 2929.191. Thus, the original sentencing hearing in Singleton’s case occurred before the effective date of H.B. 137.

{¶ 6} On October 25, 2006, Singleton moved to vacate his guilty pleas, claiming that the court had failed to advise him of the mandatory period of postrelease control and the consequences of a postrelease-control violation. The trial court denied the motion to vacate, and Singleton appealed. The court of appeals affirmed the denial of the motion to vacate the plea, but vacated Singleton’s sentence because the judgment entry referred to “discretionary rather than mandatory postrelease control.” State v. Singleton, Cuyahoga App. No. 90042, 2008-Ohio-2351, 2008 WL 2058571, ¶ 48. The court of appeals remanded the cause for a de novo sentencing hearing in accordance with prior decisions of this court because it determined that R.C. 2929.191 did not specify whether a de novo or partial resentencing should be conducted. Id. at ¶ 46.

{¶ 7} We accepted the state’s discretionary appeal and its sole proposition of law: prior to the expiration of a prison term, a trial court may correct a sentence lacking a mandatory term of postrelease control pursuant to R.C. 2929.191. State v. Singleton, 120 Ohio St.3d 1415, 2008-Ohio-6166, 897 N.E.2d 651.

{¶ 8} The state advances two bases for its contention that the trial court does not need to conduct a de novo sentencing hearing to correct the failure to properly impose a mandatory term of postrelease control. First, it argues that the procedures set forth in R.C. 2929.191 have supplanted our caselaw and permit the trial court to conduct a limited resentencing hearing to simply add the missing postrelease-control language. Second, citing our holdings in State v. Saxon, 109 Ohio St.3d 176, 2006-Ohio-1245, 846 N.E.2d 824, and State v. Evans, 113 Ohio St.3d 100, 2007-Ohio-861, 863 N.E.2d 113, the state asserts that appellate courts must review sentences on a sanction-by-sanction basis and may vacate erroneously imposed sanctions without vacating other sanctions that the trial court validly imposed. Thus, the state contends that we should remand the cause for a hearing pursuant to R.C. 2929.191 to add the necessary postreleasecontrol language to Singleton’s sentence without conducting a de novo sentencing hearing.

{¶ 9} Singleton, on the other hand, argues that R.C. 2929.191 does not affect our decisions requiring a de novo sentencing hearing to correct the failure to properly impose mandatory postrelease control. Maintaining that his original sentence is void, Singleton contends that a court may not merely add a term of [176]*176postrelease control to remedy its failure to provide the statutorily mandated notices of postrelease control at the original sentencing hearing or to impose postrelease control in the original sentencing entry. Further, according to Singleton, permitting the trial court to conduct a resentencing hearing limited solely to imposing postrelease control would violate double-jeopardy and due-process protections.

{¶ 10} Accordingly, we are asked to address whether a trial court should apply the procedure set forth in R.C. 2929.191 to add postrelease control to a criminal sentence entered prior to July 11, 2006, or whether it should adhere to the procedure authorized in decisions of this court requiring the trial court to conduct a de novo sentencing hearing.

Law and Analysis

Postrelease Control

{¶ 11} R.C. 2967.28(B) (see Appendix for July 11, 2006 version of R.C. 2967.28) requires a sentencing court imposing a prison term on a first- or second-degree-felony offender or certain other offenders to include in the sentence a term of mandatory postrelease control to be imposed by the parole board on the offender’s release from prison. In addition, R.C. 2929.19 mandates that a court, when imposing sentence, notify the offender at the hearing that he will be supervised pursuant to R.C.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
2009 Ohio 6434, 920 N.E.2d 958, 124 Ohio St. 3d 173, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-singleton-ohio-2009.