AGEE, APPELLANT, v. RUSSELL, WARDEN, APPELLEE.
No. 00-2211
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO
Submitted May 15, 2001—Decided August 15, 2001.
92 Ohio St.3d 540 | 2001-Ohio-1279
Juvenile court—Transfer of case for criminal prosecution—Claim of improper bindover—Habeas corpus sought to compel relator‘s release from prison—Court of appeals’ denial of writ affirmed albeit for different reasons than those expressed by court of appeals—State v. Hanning limited to mandatory bindover cases under
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Warren County, No. CA2000-07-062.
Per Curiam.
{¶ 1} In late March 1997, appellant, Jacob Agee, then sixteen years old, obtained a gun. After trying unsuccessfully to sell the gun, Agee got bullets and test-fired the gun twice.
{¶ 2} At approximately 11:30 p.m. on April 2, 1997, Agee and Bryan Singleton, eighteen years old at the time, were riding in a car driven by a man named Ashley. They stopped and picked up a friend of theirs, Bradley Fannin, who was walking along a road in Miami Township, Montgomery County, Ohio. After Fannin entered the vehicle, Agee showed him the gun, which was loaded. Agee told Fannin that in the three days since he had gotten the gun, he had been thinking about “pulling a 187,”1 i.e., committing a murder.
{¶ 3} Agee and Singleton told Fannin that they were going to rob a Sunoco gasoline station and convenience store. Agee said that he had been watching the
{¶ 4} In the early morning of April 3, Agee and Singleton entered the Sunoco store and robbed it. During the robbery, a clerk was shot twice in the head and killed. Agee and Singleton did not wear masks during the robbery. Later that same morning, Agee told a friend that he and Singleton had stolen between $200 and $300 from the store safe and that Agee had hidden the gun in a bag that he had placed under some rocks in a creek. Agee stated that he would go back and get the gun “after things had cooled off.” According to Agee, Singleton shot the clerk, who had previously fired Singleton.
{¶ 5} Singleton was subsequently convicted of aggravated murder, aggravated robbery, aggravated burglary, and having a weapon while under a disability, and was sentenced to life in prison. See State v. Singleton (Mar. 31, 1999), Montgomery App. Nos. 17003 and 17004, unreported, 1999 WL 173357. In his criminal trial, Singleton was viewed as the principal offender, i.e., the actual killer, in the murder of the Sunoco clerk.
{¶ 6} On April 7, 1997, a complaint was filed in the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas, Juvenile Division, charging Agee with being a delinquent child due to the acts committed on April 3. Agee was charged with committing one count of aggravated murder in violation of
{¶ 8} On appeal, the court of appeals affirmed the convictions and sentence. State v. Agee (1999), 133 Ohio App.3d 441, 728 N.E.2d 442. In its opinion, the court of appeals determined that the complicity statute,
{¶ 9} Over eight months following our denial of Agee‘s discretionary appeal, we held in State v. Hanning (2000), 89 Ohio St.3d 86, 728 N.E.2d 1059, at paragraph one of the syllabus, “The mandatory bindover provision of
{¶ 10} Shortly following our decision in Hanning, Agee filed a petition in the Court of Appeals for Warren County for a writ of habeas corpus to compel appellee, his prison warden, to release him from prison. Agee claimed that under Hanning, his trial court lacked jurisdiction to try, convict, and sentence him because the juvenile court bindover was invalid. The warden moved for summary judgment, contending that Hanning did not apply to Agee‘s case, that bindover was proper under
{¶ 11} In October 2000, the court of appeals granted the warden‘s motion and denied the writ. The court of appeals reasoned that Hanning could not be applied retroactively to Agee. This cause is now before the court upon Agee‘s appeal as of right. The Ohio Public Defender filed an amicus curiae brief on behalf of Agee.
{¶ 12} Agee asserts that the court of appeals erred in denying the writ. We hold that although the court of appeals may have erred in its rationale, its judgment is correct and is affirmed.
{¶ 13} Agee initially claims that the court of appeals erred in holding that, pursuant to Teague v. Lane (1989), 489 U.S. 288, 109 S.Ct. 1060, 103 L.Ed.2d 334, and Pinch v. Maxwell (1965), 3 Ohio St.2d 212, 32 O.O.2d 504, 210 N.E.2d 883, the court‘s decision in Hanning cannot be retroactively applied to him. For the reasons that follow, Agee‘s claim has merit.
{¶ 14} Teague is not applicable here. In Teague, the United States Supreme Court held, “Unless they fall within an exception to the general rule, new constitutional rules of criminal procedure will not be applicable to those cases which have become final before the rules are announced.” Teague, 489 U.S. at 310, 109 S.Ct. at 1075, 103 L.Ed.2d at 356. For purposes of retroactivity analysis, a
{¶ 15} Unlike Teague, this case does not involve the application of a new constitutional rule of criminal procedure. Instead, it involves our interpretation of
{¶ 16} Pinch is similarly inapposite. In Pinch, we applied factors set forth by the United States Supreme Court in Linkletter v. Walker (1965), 381 U.S. 618, 85 S.Ct. 1731, 14 L.Ed.2d 601, to deny retrospective operation of a new constitutional rule to a habeas corpus case. But as noted previously, this case does not involve a new constitutional rule. And Linkletter was subsequently overruled. See, e.g., Teague; Griffith v. Kentucky (1987), 479 U.S. 314, 107 S.Ct. 708, 93 L.Ed.2d 649.
{¶ 17} In fact, there is no retroactivity issue here because we did not announce a new rule of law in Hanning. Instead, we merely determined what
{¶ 19} Nevertheless, we will not reverse a correct judgment merely because a court of appeals erred in its specified rationale. State ex rel. Gilmore v. Mitchell (1999), 86 Ohio St.3d 302, 303, 714 N.E.2d 925, 926. Therefore, we must determine whether denial of the writ was otherwise justified.
{¶ 20} “[H]abeas corpus, like other extraordinary writ actions, is not available where there is an adequate remedy at law.” Gaskins v. Shiplevy (1996), 76 Ohio St.3d 380, 383, 667 N.E.2d 1194, 1197. “In the absence of a patent and unambiguous lack of jurisdiction, a court having general subject-matter jurisdiction can determine its own jurisdiction, and a party challenging that jurisdiction has an adequate remedy at law by appeal.” Brooks v. Gaul (2000), 89 Ohio St.3d 202, 203, 729 N.E.2d 752, 753. We have applied this principle in habeas corpus cases. See Howard v. Catholic Social Serv. of Cuyahoga Cty., Inc. (1994), 70 Ohio St.3d 141, 145, 637 N.E.2d 890, 894.
{¶ 21} Agee claims that under Hanning, his trial court lacked jurisdiction to try, convict, and sentence him because of an improper mandatory bindover. Although a claim of improper bindover alleges a potentially viable habeas corpus claim, it must be emphasized that this is a limited exception to the general rule that
{¶ 22} Agee claims that under Hanning, he is not subject to the mandatory bindover provisions of
{¶ 23} The juvenile court transferred Agee to the general division of the common pleas court for trial as an adult in response to the state‘s motion requesting mandatory bindover pursuant to
“(B) After a complaint has been filed alleging that a child is a delinquent child for committing an act that would be an offense if committed by an adult, the court at a hearing shall transfer the case for criminal prosecution to the appropriate court having jurisdiction of the offense if the child was fourteen years of age or older at the time of the act charged, if there is probable cause to believe that the child committed the act charged, and if one or more of the following applies to the child or the act charged:
” * * *
“(3) The act charged is a category one offense, and either or both of the following apply to the child:
“(a) The child was sixteen years of age or older at the time of the act charged.
” * * *
“(4) The act charged is a category two offense, other than a violation of section 2905.01 of the Revised Code, the child was sixteen years of age or older at the time of the commission of the act charged, and either or both of the following apply to the child:
” * * *
“(b) The child is alleged to have had a firearm on or about the child‘s person or under the child‘s control while committing the act charged and to have displayed the firearm, brandished the firearm, indicated possession of the firearm, or used the firearm to facilitate the commission of the act charged.”
{¶ 24} In Hanning, Derrick Hanning, a juvenile charged with a delinquency count alleging that he had committed aggravated robbery, was bound over by a juvenile court under
{¶ 25} The court of appeals determined that the juvenile court erred in binding Hanning over for adult criminal prosecution upon a finding that Hanning‘s actions in aiding and abetting a codefendant who actually possessed a firearm
{¶ 26} Despite Agee‘s attempts to portray Hanning as controlling in this case, Hanning differs in several significant respects.
{¶ 27} First, Hanning did not involve a mandatory bindover under
{¶ 28} Second, despite the breadth of the second paragraph of the Hanning syllabus, which would include discretionary as well as mandatory bindovers, we expressed in our opinion that the syllabus was more limited by specifying that
{¶ 29} Third, if we were to determine that Hanning applies to all mandatory bindovers, including those under
“Our holding does not allow Hanning or other juveniles to escape responsibility for their own actions. We merely find that the legislature did not intend to automatically attribute responsibility to the juvenile for the actions of his or her accomplice. Contrary to the judge‘s remarks at the probable cause hearing, and contrary to the state‘s argument, Hanning and other youths who find themselves in the same situation are not ‘saved’ by the fact that someone other than themselves personally possessed the firearm. Juveniles in Hanning‘s situation are still subject to transfer to adult court under
R.C. 2151.26(C) , which provides that a child who commits a felony can be bound over if he is fourteen years of age or older and the results of an investigation and hearing indicate reasonable grounds to believe that the child is not amenable to care or rehabilitation in the juvenile system and the safety of the community requires that the child be placed under legal restraint, including, if necessary, for a period extending beyond the child‘s majority.” (Emphasis added.)
{¶ 30} But like the mandatory bindover requirement at issue here—the
{¶ 31} Fourth, unlike the juvenile court‘s bindover decision in Hanning, the underlying bindover entry as well as the comments by the juvenile court judge in Agee‘s case do not establish that the judge relied on the complicity statute to transfer Agee to be tried as an adult. In fact, although the court of appeals did not reach this issue in denying the writ, it expressly observed that “[t]he record submitted to this court does not reflect that the juvenile court found petitioner to be an accomplice to the acts committed.”
{¶ 32} Fifth,
{¶ 33} Therefore, our holding in Hanning does not warrant a finding that the juvenile court lacked jurisdiction, much less that it patently and unambiguously lacked jurisdiction to transfer Agee under
{¶ 35} Based on the foregoing, we affirm the judgment denying the writ, albeit for different reasons than those expressed by the court of appeals.
Judgment affirmed.
MOYER, C.J., DOUGLAS, RESNICK, F.E. SWEENEY, PFEIFER, COOK and LUNDBERG STRATTON, JJ., concur.
Anthony R. Cicero and Carl G. Goraleski, Montgomery County Assistant Public Defenders, for appellant.
Betty D. Montgomery, Attorney General, David M. Gormley, State Solicitor, and Stephanie L. Watson, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.