State ex rel. Peoples v. O'Shaughnessy (Slip Opinion)

[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as State

ex rel. Peoples v. O’Shaughnessy, Slip Opinion No. 2021-Ohio-1572.]

NOTICE

This slip opinion is subject to formal revision before it is published in an

advance sheet of the Ohio Official Reports. Readers are requested to

promptly notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of Ohio, 65

South Front Street, Columbus, Ohio 43215, of any typographical or other

formal errors in the opinion, in order that corrections may be made before

the opinion is published.

SLIP OPINION NO. 2021-OHIO-1572

THE STATE EX REL. PEOPLES, APPELLANT, v. O’SHAUGHNESSY, CLERK, ET AL.,

APPELLEES.

[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it

may be cited as State ex rel. Peoples v. O’Shaughnessy, Slip Opinion No.

2021-Ohio-1572.]

Mandamus—R.C. 2953.13—There is no justification for granting a writ of

mandamus to compel an inmate’s transfer to county jail when the trial court

is ordered to issue an amended judgment entry on remand to correct a

sentencing error and there will be no resentencing hearing—Compliance

with R.C. 2953.13 will not compel a vain act —Court of appeals’ dismissal

of writ affirmed.

(No. 2020-1142—Submitted March 2, 2021—Decided May 6, 2021.)

APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Mahoning County,

No. 19 MA 0072, 2020-Ohio-4432.

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Per Curiam.

SUPREME COURT OF OHIO

{¶ 1} Appellant, David A. Peoples, appeals the judgment of the Seventh

District Court of Appeals dismissing his complaint for a writ of mandamus to

compel officials to transfer him from the Northeast Ohio Correctional Center

(“NEOCC”) to the Franklin County jail. We affirm.

Background

{¶ 2} In June 2002, Peoples was convicted in the Franklin County Court of

Common Pleas of aggravated murder and two accompanying firearm

specifications. See State v. Peoples, 10th Dist. Franklin No. 02AP-945, 2003-Ohio-

4680, ¶ 1. He received an aggregate prison sentence of 34 years to life, which

included a six-year term for an R.C. 2941.146 firearm specification (discharging a

firearm from a motor vehicle). Id. at ¶ 2. The Tenth District Court of Appeals

affirmed his convictions and sentences on direct appeal. Id. at ¶ 60.

{¶ 3} In 2017, Peoples filed a motion to vacate his sentence. The trial court

denied the motion, but on May 30, 2019, the Tenth District reversed because the

maximum term for the drive-by specification was five years, not six years as the

trial court had imposed. State v. Peoples, 10th Dist. Franklin No. 18AP-850, 2019-

Ohio-2141, ¶ 8, 11-13. The court of appeals remanded the case to the trial court

“with instructions to vacate Peoples’ six-year sentence on the R.C. 2941.146

firearm specification and resentence Peoples to the statutorily mandated five-year

term for that specification.” Id. at ¶ 15.

{¶ 4} R.C. 2953.13 provides that when a defendant is incarcerated at a state

correctional institution, if the defendant’s case is remanded to the trial court for any

reason, the clerk of courts is required to certify the remand to the warden. Upon

receipt of that certification, “the warden shall forthwith cause the defendant to be

conveyed to the jail of the county in which the defendant was convicted, and

committed to the custody of the sheriff of that county.” Id.

{¶ 5} Here, however, on June 10, 2019, before the clerk of courts certified

the Tenth District’s remand order to the warden, the trial court issued an amended

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judgment entry that changed Peoples’s sentence for the drive-by specification from

six years to five years. State v. Peoples, Franklin C.P. No. 01CR07-4150 (June 10,

2019).

{¶ 6} In July 2019, Peoples commenced this original action in the Seventh

District Court of Appeals against appellees, Franklin County Clerk of Courts

Maryellen O’Shaughnessy, NEOCC Warden Christopher LaRose, and Ohio

Department of Rehabilitation and Correction Director Annette Chambers-Smith.

Peoples sought writs of mandamus to compel their compliance with R.C. 2953.13.

Specifically, he asked the court to compel O’Shaughnessy to certify the remand

order to LaRose and to compel LaRose and Chambers-Smith to transfer him to the

custody of the Franklin County sheriff upon receipt of O’Shaughnessy’s

certification.

{¶ 7} O’Shaughnessy, LaRose, and Chambers-Smith each filed motions to

dismiss Peoples’s complaint pursuant to Civ.R. 12(B)(6) for failure to state a claim

upon which relief can be granted. In response to O’Shaughnessy’s motion, Peoples

agreed that she had issued the statutory certification in July 2019 and should

therefore be dismissed from the claim.

{¶ 8} The Seventh District dismissed Peoples’s complaint in its entirety as

moot. 2020-Ohio-4432, ¶ 9, 15, 18-19. First, the court noted that O’Shaughnessy

had already fulfilled her statutory duty by sending a certified copy of the Tenth

District’s decision to the appropriate parties, and thus there was no further action

to compel from her. Id. at ¶ 9. Further, the court observed that (1) the Tenth

District’s remand order contained specific instructions to the trial court to amend

the judgment entry regarding Peoples’s sentence, but the order did not include any

reference to a resentencing hearing or any other proceeding that would have

required Peoples’s transfer to the Franklin County jail, and (2) the trial court had

entered an amended judgment entry as instructed. Id. at ¶ 10-13. The Seventh

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SUPREME COURT OF OHIO

District therefore concluded that any transfer of Peoples from NEOCC to the

Franklin County jail would have been a vain act.

{¶ 9} Peoples appealed.

Legal analysis

{¶ 10} To be entitled to a writ of mandamus, a party must establish, by clear

and convincing evidence, (1) a clear legal right to the requested relief, (2) a clear

legal duty on the part of the respondents to provide it, and (3) the lack of an adequate

remedy in the ordinary course of the law. State ex rel. Waters v. Spaeth, 131 Ohio

St.3d 55, 2012-Ohio-69, 960 N.E.2d 452, ¶ 6, 13. For a court to dismiss a

mandamus complaint pursuant to Civ.R. 12(B)(6) for failure to state a claim upon

which relief can be granted, it must appear beyond doubt from the complaint that

the relator can “prove no set of facts warranting relief, after all factual allegations

of the complaint are presumed true, and all reasonable inferences are made in [the

relator’s] favor.” State ex rel. Natl. Elec. Contrs. Assn., Ohio Conference v. Ohio

Bur. of Emp. Servs., 83 Ohio St.3d 179, 181, 699 N.E.2d 64 (1998). This court

reviews de novo a decision granting a motion to dismiss under Civ.R. 12(B)(6).

State ex rel. Brown v. Nusbaum, 152 Ohio St.3d 284, 2017-Ohio-9141, 95 N.E.3d

365, ¶ 10.

{¶ 11} On appeal, Peoples no longer appears to be asserting a claim for

relief against O’Shaughnessy and does not dispute the Seventh District’s dismissal

of his claim against her. His merit brief seeks relief against only LaRose and

Chambers-Smith. The court of appeals correctly concluded that LaRose and

Chambers-Smith had no duty to convey Peoples to the Franklin County jail,

because returning Peoples to the sheriff’s custody to await resentencing would have

been a vain act. Id. at ¶ 15. “[M]andamus will not issue to compel a vain act.”

State ex rel. Strothers v. Turner, 79 Ohio St.3d 272, 274, 680 N.E.2d 1238 (1997);

see also State ex rel. Thomas v. Ghee, 81 Ohio St.3d 191, 192, 690 N.E.2d 6 (1998).

An act is in vain when the underlying dispute has become moot, such that relief in

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January Term, 2021

the pending lawsuit would not affect the outcome. See, e.g., State ex rel. Snider v.

Stapleton, 65 Ohio St.3d 40, 41-42, 600 N.E.2d 240 (1992) (ordering elections

official to submit candidate’s materials to the board of elections to establish

candidate’s qualifications for office would be futile because the relevant election

was over, rendering the issue of ballot access moot).

{¶ 12} On June 10, 2019, Franklin County Common Pleas Court Judge

Daniel Hawkins issued an amended judgment entry in Peoples’s criminal case,

imposing the correct five-year term for the firearm specification. Granting the writ

of mandamus Peoples sought in July 2019 to compel his transfer to the Franklin

County jail would therefore do nothing more than require a vain act; because there

will not be a sentencing hearing, he would be immediately returned to NEOCC.

See State ex rel. Ellis v. Burnside, 8th Dist. Cuyahoga No. 103469, 2015-Ohio-

5432, ¶ 7 (holding that it would be a vain act to transport an inmate to the county

jail when the court of appeals has already determined that he is not entitled to a new

sentencing hearing).

{¶ 13} For this reason, we affirm the judgment of the court of appeals.

Judgment affirmed.

O’CONNOR, C.J., and KENNEDY, FISCHER, DEWINE, DONNELLY, STEWART,

and BRUNNER, JJ., concur.

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David A. Peoples, pro se.

Struck, Love, Bojanowski & Acedo, P.L.C., and Timothy J. Bojanowski,

for appellee Christopher LaRose.

G. Gary Tyack, Franklin County Prosecuting Attorney, and Bryan B. Lee,

Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellee Maryellen O’Shaughnessy.

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