State v. Davis, 2012 Ohio 4112

Defendant-appellant Lawrence Davis was convicted of three counts of violating R.C. 2925.03(A)(1) and sentenced to 11 years in prison; two counts were later vacated, reducing his sentence to eight years (appeal from Mahoning County Common Pleas).
This court previously vacated two counts and affirmed the remainder in State v. Davis, 7th Dist. No. 05-MA-235, 2007-Ohio-7216, and denied postconviction relief in a later proceeding.
On February 17, 2011, Davis filed a motion to vacate and void judgment of sentence and for a de novo resentencing hearing arguing the trial court failed to impose a mandatory fine and driver’s license suspension.
The trial court overruled Davis’s motion; Davis filed a timely notice of appeal pro se on March 29, 2011.
The assignments of error argued that the trial court failed to impose the statutorily mandated fine and license suspension under R.C. 2925.03(D)(1) and 2929.18(B)(1), and the court remanded for the limited purpose of imposing those sanctions, with the remainder of the sentence affirmed.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether failure to impose mandatory fine and license suspension voids the sentence	Davis argues the sentence is void for the missing sanctions	Davis contends the court erred by not including mandatory sanctions	Yes; remanded to impose the sanctions only
Whether res judicata bars Davis's challenge to his sentence	Davis relies on void-sentence exception to res judicata	State argues res judicata applies	No; void-sentence exception applies; remand limited to sanctions

State v. Perry, 10 Ohio St.2d 175 (1967) (res judicata basics and due process defense under direct appeal)
State v. Fischer, 128 Ohio St.3d 92 (2010) ( void sentence exception to res judicata)
State v. Fields, 183 Ohio App.3d 647 (1st Dist. 2010) (mandatory fine must be imposed; remand for resentencing)
State v. Harris, 2012-Ohio-1908 (Ohio Supreme Court 2012) (mandatory license suspension part of sentence; remedy is limited resentencing)