State v. Johnson
| Decision Date | 28 September 2016 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 16CA3733 |
| Citation | 2016 Ohio 7036 |
| Parties | STATE OF OHIO, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. TRACY L. JOHNSON, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | Ohio Court of Appeals |
DECISION AND JUDGMENT ENTRY
APPEARANCES:
W. Jeffrey Moore, Columbus, Ohio for appellant.
Mark E. Kuhn, Scioto County Prosecuting Attorney and Julie Cooke Hutchinson, Assistant Scioto County Prosecuting Attorney, Portsmouth, Ohio for appellee.
{¶ 1} Defendant-appellant Tracy L. Johnson ("Johnson") appeals a judgment from the Scioto County Common Pleas Court denying his motion to dismiss the charges against him. The plaintiff-appellee State of Ohio ("State") extradited Johnson from Pennsylvania to Ohio to answer charges that had been pending since 2008. In the course of Johnson's case, Johnson filed a motion to dismiss arguing that the State and the trial court violated sections of the Interstate Agreement on Detainers ("IAD"), as codified in Ohio in R.C. 2963.30. After the trial court denied Johnson's motion, he entered a plea of no contest to charges of trafficking in drugs and tampering with evidence. The trial court found Johnson guilty of the two charges, convicted him, and sentenced him to prison terms of two years on each count to run concurrent to one another.
{¶ 2} On appeal, Johnson raises three assignments of error challenging the trial court's denial of his motion to dismiss the criminal charges. First, Johnson alleges that the State violated Article III(c) of the IAD because he was never given notice of the detainer lodged against him by the State. However, we find that the IAD does not provide for dismissal of charges in a receiving state for solely a violation of Article III(c). Therefore, we cannot reverse the trial court's judgment and order a dismissal of the charges for the violation Johnson asserts.
{¶ 3} In his second assignment of error, Johnson alleges that the State violated Article IV(e) of the IAD by allowing him to return to Pennsylvania before the disposition of the Ohio charges against him. Article IV(e), known as the "anti-shuttling" provision of the IAD, provides that if a trial is not held in the receiving state prior to the return of the prisoner to the original place of imprisonment, the charges are to be dismissed with prejudice. After Johnson arrived in Ohio following extradition, he posted bond out of Ohio's custody and returned to a residential treatment facility in Pennsylvania. We hold that Johnson's affirmative action of posting bond and returning to Pennsylvania waived his protections under Article IV(e) of the IAD.
{¶ 4} Finally, in his third assignment of error, Johnson claims that the trial court erred by not bringing him to trial within 120 days of his arrival in Ohio, as required by Article IV of the IAD. We disagree. First, Johnson's counsel agreed to continue the case until September 21, 2011, a date beyond the IAD, Article IV(c)'s 120-day statutory period. Second, Johnson filed three motions to suppress in April 2011, before he arrived in Ohio. Johnson eventually withdrew those motions to suppress in September 2011. We find the IAD's 120-day time period was tolled from the time Johnson filed his motions to suppress until the time he withdrew those motions. Because the trial was scheduled in November 2011, the 120-day limitation had not elapsed before Johnson filed his motion to dismiss.
{¶ 5} Consequently, for those reasons and the reasons more fully discussed below, we overrule Johnson's assignments of error; and we affirm the judgment of the Scioto County Common Pleas Court denying Johnson's motion to dismiss.
{¶ 6} In June 2008, the Scioto County Grand Jury returned an indictment charging Johnson with four counts: (1) trafficking in marijuana, a felony of the third degree; (2) possession of marijuana, a felony of the third degree; (3) conspiracy to trafficking in marijuana, a felony of the fourth degree; and (4) tampering with evidence, a felony of the third degree. Johnson retained counsel and entered a plea of not guilty to the charges. In November 2008, Johnson filed three motions to suppress evidence. The trial court scheduled hearings on the motions for January 2009. When Johnson failed to appear, the trial court issued a bench warrant for Johnson's arrest.
{¶ 7} In February 2011, the State learned that Johnson was incarcerated in Pennsylvania and proceeded to request temporary custody of Johnson under Article IV(a) of the IAD. The State ultimately decided, however, to wait until Johnson was released on parole from the Pennsylvania prison to proceed on the bench warrant and seek his extradition. In April 2011, Johnson was released on parole from the Pennsylvania prison and was arrested pursuant to the bench warrant issued by the trial court in 2009. On April 29, 2011, Johnson waived extradition to Ohio to answer the pending charges; thus, a Pennsylvania court ordered the extradition. Earlier that month, Johnson's counsel refiled his three motions to suppress. Johnson was returned to Ohio around May 9, 2011; and he was released on bond on June 3, 2011. At that time, Johnson returned to Pennsylvania to serve a portion of his parole in a community education center providing reentry services to parolees.
{¶ 8} In September 2011, Johnson withdrew his motions to suppress. Two months later, Johnson filed a motion to dismiss based on the claim that the State had violated various provisions of the IAD. The State filed a response; and Johnson filed a reply. The parties attached exhibits to their filings regarding the motion to dismiss. Afterwards, Johnson appealed the trial court's denial of the motion to dismiss; however, in July 2012 this Court dismissed Johnson's appeal because the trial court's entry denying his motion to dismiss was not a final, appealable order. See State v. Johnson, 4th Dist. Scioto No. 12CA3478.
{¶ 9} After this court dismissed Johnson's appeal, the case then proceeded in the trial court. The case was scheduled for a jury trial in October 2012. On October 11, 2012, Johnson waived his right to a jury trial. In December 2012, Johnson signed a waiver form stating that, "I withdraw my former plea of not guilty, and enter a plea of guilty to the crime of [trafficking in drugs and tampering with evidence]* * *." However, at a plea hearing, Johnson orally entered a plea of no contest to the charges. The trial court's December 6, 2012 judgment entry indicates that Johnson entered a no contest plea to the charges. Subsequent judgment entries and the parties herein state that Johnson entered a no contest plea.
{¶ 10} For reasons unknown and not disclosed in the record, more than one and a half years passed before Johnson was actually sentenced. In September 2014, the trial court found Johnson guilty of the trafficking in drugs and tampering with evidence charges; and the trial court sentenced Johnson to an aggregate two-year prison term. However, the trial court's judgment entry contained no disposition of Johnson's other charges—possession of marijuana and conspiracy to trafficking in marijuana—and no other journal entry in the record indicated any resolution of these charges.
{¶ 11} Johnson appealed his convictions in State v. Johnson, 4th Dist. No. 14CA3660, 2015-Ohio-3370. However, because the trial court failed to dispose of the possession of marijuana charges and since no journal entry appeared in the record resolving all of the charges against Johnson, no final appealable order existed. Id. at ¶ 2. Consequently, this Court lacked jurisdiction to address the merits of Johnson's appeal; and we dismissed it. Id.
{¶ 12} On remand, on January 20, 2016, the trial court filed a notice of dismissal of the counts of possession of marijuana and conspiracy to trafficking in marijuana. Thereafter, the parties reasserted this appeal.
{¶ 13} Johnson sets forth three assignments of error.
Assignment of Error No. 1:
The trial court erred in failing to find the State of Ohio violated Article III section (C) of the Interstate Agreement on Detainers.
Assignment of Error No. 2:
The trial court erred in failing to find the State of Ohio violated Article IV section (E) of the Interstate Agreement on Detainers in that it allowed the Appellant to return to the sending state before trial was held in Ohio.
Assignment of Error No. 3:
The trial court erred by failing to bring Mr. Johnson to trial within 120 days of his presence in Ohio in violation of Article IV of the Interstate Agreement on Detainers.
{¶ 14} "The Interstate Agreement on Detainers ("IAD") is a compact among 48 states, the District of Columbia, and the United States that establishes procedures for one jurisdiction to obtain temporary custody of a prisoner incarcerated in another jurisdiction for the purpose of bringing the prisoner to trial." State v. Black, 142 Ohio St.3d 332, 2015-Ohio-513, 30 N.E.3d 918, ¶ 3, citing Cuyler v. Adams, 449 U.S. 433, 435, 101 S.Ct. 703, 66 L.Ed.2d 641 (1981), fn 1. "Ohio adopted the IAD in 1969 and codified its provisions in R.C. 2963.30. Am.S.B. No. 356 ("S.B. 356"), 133 Ohio Laws, Part I, 1067." Black at ¶ 3. "As 'a congressionally sanctioned interstate compact' within the Compact Clause of the United States Constitution, Art. I, § 10, cl. 3, the IAD is a federal law subject to federal construction." State v. Golden, 177 Ohio App.3d 771, 2008-Ohio-3227, 896 N.E.2d 170, ¶ 9, quoting New York v. Hill, 528 U.S. 110, 111, 120 S.Ct. 659, 145 L.Ed.2d 560 (2000). (Other citations omitted).
{¶ 15} "The IAD arose from a report issued in 1948 that addressed difficulties that prisoners and state authorities faced regarding the use of detainers." Black at ¶ 4, citing United States v. Mauro, 436 U.S. 340, 349-350, 98 S.Ct. 1834, 56 L.Ed.2d 329 (1978); see also Meadows, Interstate Agreement on Detainers and the Rights it Created, 18 Akron L.Rev. 691 (1985). "The Council...
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