State v. Mims

• Decision Date: 30 March 2023
• Docket Number: 111780
• Citation: 2023 Ohio 1044
• Parties: STATE OF OHIO, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. JAMONE MIMS, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: Ohio Court of Appeals

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2023-Ohio-1044

STATE OF OHIO, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. JAMONE MIMS, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 111780

Court of Appeals of Ohio, Eighth District, Cuyahoga

March 30, 2023

Criminal Appeal from the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Case No. CR-21-660626-A

JUDGMENT REVERSED IN PART AND REMANDED

Michael C. O'Malley, Cuyahoga County Prosecuting Attorney, and Gregory J. Ochocki, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellant.

Cullen Sweeney, Cuyahoga County Public Defender, and Robert B McCaleb and John T. Martin, Assistant Public Defenders, for appellee.

JOURNAL ENTRY AND OPINION

EILEEN A. GALLAGHER, PRESIDING JUDGE

{¶ 1} Plaintiff-appellant, the state of Ohio, appeals the sentence imposed on defendant-appellee Jamone Mims for felonious assault with a firearm specification.

The state argues that the trial court improperly applied jail-time credit to the mandatory prison term imposed on the specification.

I. Factual Background and Procedural History

{¶ 2} For the reasons that follow, we find the state's appeal to be ripe and the trial court's application of jail-time credit to be contrary to law. We therefore reverse the judgment, in part, by modifying it to delete the request that jail-time credit be applied to the mandatory prison term.

{¶ 3} On August 12, 2021, a Cuyahoga County Grand Jury indicted Jamone Mims for, among other things, felonious assault in violation of R.C. 2903.11(A)(2) with a one-year firearm specification pursuant to R.C. 2941.141(A). On May 11, 2022, Mims pleaded guilty to that charge and specification. The state dismissed the remaining counts in the indictment.

{¶ 4} On June 27, 2022, the trial court imposed a sentence of one year in prison on the firearm specification, to be served prior, and consecutive, to an indefinite sentence of two to three years in prison on the underlying felonious-assault conviction.

{¶ 5} At the sentencing hearing, Mims' counsel made the following request:

Your Honor, I would also ask that, based on his position, based on the fact that he's been here 20 months, I would ask you to find him indigent in terms of fines and court costs. I would also ask this Court to consider an entry that would give him credit for the one-year firearm specification while he's been in jail. I would ask the Court to consider that because he has been in for 20 months here.

{¶ 6} The court addressed the request as follows during the hearing:

I will put language in the journal entry because I think the situation with the pandemic and our inability to properly process your case and bring it to a resolution does impact you differently. It hits differently because of the pandemic. So I will put language that at the time that you have spent, the credit that you get shall be credited to the one-year firearm specification and any remaining credit will go towards your underlying sentence.

Now, whether the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation & Correction[] disregards that order, I don't know. I don't know how they process those orders because typically time served does not go towards the firearm specifications. I'm going to put it in my entry and I hope that they abide by it.

{¶ 7} The court calculated Mims' jail-time credit to be 588 days.^[1] The state objected to the allocation of this jail-time credit to the firearm specification.

{¶ 8} The trial court thereafter reduced its sentence to a journal entry, which stated as follows, in relevant part:

The court imposes a prison sentence at the Lorain Correctional Institution of 3 year(s). Ct.2: 1 year firearm spec runs prior and consecutive to 2 year underlying sentence. The sentence imposed upon Defendant is an indefinite sentence under SB 201 - Reagan Tokes Law. The aggregate minimum term imposed by the Court is 2 years. The maximum term is 3 years. * * * Court is requesting jail credit shall be applied to firearm spec and remainder to be applied to underlying sentence.

{¶ 9} The state sought leave to appeal the sentence pursuant to App.R 5(C) and RC. 2945.67 and our court granted leave. The state raises one assignment of error for review:

The trial court erred when it requested that defendant's jail-time credit be applied to the portion of the sentence imposed for a firearm specification.

{¶ 10} Mims filed a responsive brief and also moved to dismiss the appeal. He argued that the issue is not ripe and that our court lacks jurisdiction to hear the appeal. The state opposed the motion and the parties addressed the motion at oral argument. We denied the motion,^[2] a decision that we explain here before reaching the merits of the appeal.

II. Law and Analysis

A. Ripeness and Jurisdiction

{¶ 11} We first address Mims' argument that the appeal is not ripe and that we lack jurisdiction to hear the appeal.

1. The Appeal Is Ripe

{¶ 12} With respect to ripeness, Mims contends that the only circumstance in which it would matter which portion of the sentence the credit is applied against is if he is granted judicial release before serving one full year in prison (the length of the mandatory term). If Mims does not obtain judicial release, the argument goes, then he will be released on the same day whether the credit is applied to the specification portion of the sentence or the underlying felony portion. Mims says the state's argument would only become ripe if Mims applies for, and is granted, judicial release before actually serving one year in prison.

{¶ 13} The state argues that the issue is ripe following the Supreme Court's opinion in State v. Smith, 131 Ohio St.3d 297, 2012-Ohio-781, 964 N.E.2d 423. We agree that the issue is ripe for adjudication.

{¶ 14} "'In order to be justiciable, a controversy must be ripe for review.'" State v. Maddox, 168 Ohio St.3d 292, 2022-Ohio-764, 198 N.E.3d 797, ¶ 7, quoting Keller v. Columbus, 100 Ohio St.3d 192, 2003-Ohio-5599, 797 N.E.2d 964, ¶ 26. To consider ripeness is to consider the constitutional and prudential justiciability of a controversy. See Maddox at ¶ 8; see also Natl. Park Hospitality Assn. v. Dept. of Interior, 538 U.S. 803, 808, 123 S.Ct. 2026, 155 L.Ed.2d 1017 (2003) (holding that the issue of ripeness stems from constitutional limits on judicial power, as well as prudential reasons for refusing to exercise jurisdiction). The constitutional requirements of the ripeness doctrine are met "'if a threatened injury is sufficiently "imminent" to establish standing * * *.'" Maddox at ¶ 8, quoting Natl. Treasury Emps. Union v. United States, 101 F.3d 1423, 1428 (D.C.Cir.1996). "The prudential-justiciability concerns include (1) whether the claim is fit for judicial decision and (2) whether withholding court consideration will cause hardship to the parties." Maddox at ¶ 8, citing Hill v. Snyder, 878 F.3d 193, 213 (6th Cir.2017). A controversy is fit for judicial decision when "'[t]he issue presented in th[e] case is purely legal, and will not be clarified by further factual development."' Maddox at ¶ 8, quoting Thomas v. Union Carbide Agricultural Prods. Co., 473 U.S. 568, 581, 105 S.Ct. 3325, 87 L.Ed.2d 409 (1985).

{¶ 15} Mims tries to cast this case as one of executive-agency discretion, but it is not. This case concerns the imposition of a sentence that the state says is contrary to black-letter statutory law. See State v. Gamble, 2021-Ohio-1810, 173 N.E.3d 132, ¶ 26 (8th Dist.) (comparing challenges to the imposition of a sentence with the ripeness of due-process claims based on an executive agency's execution of that sentence). The injury, if there is one, already exists; Mims "ha[s] received the entirety of [his] sentence[] and the sentence[] ha[s] been journalized." See Maddox at ¶ 16.

{¶ 16} The state is not asking us to address an abstract or hypothetical or remote issue here, nor would we be "'entangling [ourselves] in abstract disagreements over administrative policies'" by taking up the state's appeal. See State ex rel. Elyria Foundry Co. v. Indus. Comm. of Ohio, 82 Ohio St.3d 88, 89, 694 N.E.2d 459 (1998), quoting Abbot Laboratories v. Gardner, 387 U.S. 136, 148, 87 S.Ct. 1507, 18 L.Ed.2d 681 (1967). And no further factual development would clarify the purely legal issue at hand - whether the trial court's application of jail-time credit to the mandatory firearm specification was contrary to law under the facts of the case.

{¶ 17} If we do not resolve this legal issue now, an issue we are perfectly capable of reviewing at this time, our decision would cause hardship to the parties.

{¶ 18} If the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction ("DRC") applies the credit to the specification time, the state may not be able to assert a challenge to the imposition of this sentence in judicial-release briefing as easily as Mims suggests. Ohio has returned "to the traditional distinction between void and voidable" sentences such that '"sentences based on an error, including sentences in which a trial court fails to impose a statutorily mandated term, are voidable if the court imposing the sentence has jurisdiction over the case and the defendant."' Gamble at ¶ 22, quoting State v. Henderson, 161 Ohio St.3d 285, 2020-Ohio-4784, 162 N.E.3d 776, ¶ 1. "If the sentencing error rendered the defendant's sentence voidable, the error cannot be corrected through a postconviction proceeding or though another form of collateral attack." Gamble at ¶ 22, citing Henderson at ¶ 43.

{¶ 19} On the other hand, if DRC does not apply the credit to the firearm specification when it should have done so, Mims may never be able to effectively challenge that determination either. In addition to the "void and voidable" issue just mentioned, a trial court may deny a motion for judicial release without a hearing and without making any specific findings - State v. Cruz, 8th Dist. Cuyahoga No....