Frazier v. Stickrath, 87

• Decision Date: 02 May 1988
• Docket Number: No. 87,87
• Parties: FRAZIER, Appellee, v. STICKRATH, Supt., Appellant. CA 15.
• Court: Ohio Court of Appeals

Page 114

42 Ohio App.3d 114

536 N.E.2d 1193

FRAZIER, Appellee, v. STICKRATH, Supt., Appellant.

No. 87 CA 15.

Court of Appeals of Ohio, Fourth District, Pickaway County.

May 2, 1988.

Syllabus by the Court

R.C. 2725.01 clearly permits an individual to petition for a writ of habeas corpus if his maximum sentence has expired and that individual is being held unlawfully.

Randall M. Dana, Public Defender, and John A. Bay, Columbus, for appellee.

Anthony J. Celebrezze, Jr., Atty. Gen., Columbus, and R. Bruce Selnick, Cincinnati, for appellant.

GREY, Presiding Judge.

This is an appeal from a judgment of the Pickaway County Court of Common Pleas granting petitioner, Mansfield Frazier, a writ of habeas corpus. We affirm.

On February 4, 1986, Frazier pleaded guilty to multiple indictments in four separate cases. The journal entries from the first two cases reflected an order of the court that the sentence in the second case be served consecutively to the first creating an aggregate sentence of one year. The journal entries in the latter two cases also provided that the sentence in the third case was to be served consecutively to the sentence in the fourth case. These two journal entries also reflect an aggregate sentence of one year.

All four journal entries were silent as to whether they were to be served concurrently or consecutively to the federal sentence Frazier was serving at the time of his sentence in Cuyahoga County. On November 7, 1986, after Frazier finished serving his federal sentence, he was transported to the Chillicothe Correctional Institute to complete serving the aggregate sentence imposed by the Cuyahoga County court. Frazier received seventy-nine days' credit toward his aggregate sentence. Frazier's sentence expired on November 17, 1986.

On February 25, 1987, Frazier filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. A hearing was held on the matter on March 25, 1987 before Judge William Ammer. At the hearing respondent contended that the sentences imposed by the Cuyahoga County court should run consecutively, equaling an aggregate sentence of two years rather than one year. After reviewing the statutes and the case law relevant in the matter, Judge Ammer determined that Frazier's aggregate sentence was one year. Ammer held that since the trial court's order was silent as to whether the sentences in the latter two cases had to be served consecutively to or concurrently with the sentences in the former two cases the sentences were deemed to be served concurrently. Ammer based his ruling on Hamilton v. Adkins (1983), 10 Ohio App.3d 217, 10 OBR 292, 461 N.E.2d 319, which held in the syllabus:

"When a trial court sentences a defendant in a criminal proceeding and there is an ambiguity in the language as to whether the sentences are to be served concurrently or consecutively, the defendant is entitled to have the language construed in his favor so that the sentences may be...