State v. Singleton
| Decision Date | 22 December 2009 |
| Docket Number | No. 2008-1255.,2008-1255. |
| Citation | 2009 Ohio 6434,920 N.E.2d 958,124 Ohio St.3d 173 |
| Parties | The STATE of Ohio, Appellant, v. SINGLETON, Appellee. |
| Court | Ohio Supreme Court |
William D. Mason, Cuyahoga County Prosecuting Attorney, and T. Allan Regas, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellant.
Timothy Young, Ohio Public Defender, and Stephen P. Hardwick, Assistant Public Defender, for appellee.
{¶ 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 (), 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.
{¶ 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 impose 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 postrelease-control 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 postrelease 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.
{¶ 11} R.C. 2967.28(B) () 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. 2967.28 and that the parole board may impose a prison term of up to one-half of the prison term originally imposed on the offender if he violates supervision or a condition of postrelease control. R.C. 2929.19(B)(3)(c) and (e). And the imposed postrelease-control sanctions are to be included in the judgment entry journalized by the court.
{¶ 12} This court has addressed the consequences of a trial court's failure to adhere to the mandatory requirements of sentencing statutes on several occasions. In State v. Beasley (1984), 14 Ohio St.3d 74, 14 OBR 511, 471 N.E.2d 774, we considered whether the court's failure to impose a mandated sentence and its subsequent correction of that sentence violated the defendant's constitutional guarantee against double jeopardy. Id. at 75, 14 OBR 511, 471 N.E.2d 774. We recognized that "[a]ny attempt by a court to disregard statutory requirements when imposing a sentence renders the attempted sentence a nullity or void." Id. Because jeopardy does not attach to a void sentence, we held that the court's subsequent correction of the void sentence did not violate principles of double jeopardy. Id.
{¶ 13} In Woods v. Telb (2000), 89 Ohio St.3d 504, 733 N.E.2d 1103, we addressed the constitutional significance of a trial court's including postrelease control in its sentence and stated that because the separation-of-powers doctrine precludes the executive branch of government from impeding the judiciary's imposition of a sentence, the Adult Parole Authority may impose postrelease-control sanctions only if a trial court incorporates postrelease control into its original sentence. Id. at 512-513, 733 N.E.2d 1103.
{¶ 14} In State v. Jordan, 104 Ohio St.3d 21, 2004-Ohio-6085, 817 N.E.2d 864, this court considered the consequences of a trial court's failure to advise an offender about postrelease control at the sentencing hearing. Id. at ¶ 1. Applying Beasley, we held that "[b]ecause a trial court has a statutory duty to provide notice of postrelease control at the sentencing hearing, any sentence imposed without such notification is contrary to law" and void, and the cause must be remanded for resentencing. Id. at ¶ 23, 27.
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