Cleveland Hts. v. ColemanCleveland Hts. v. Coleman
JOURNAL ENTRY AND OPINION
JUDGMENT: AFFIRMED
RELEASED AND JOURNALIZED: March 18, 2021
Criminal Appeal from the Cleveland Heights Municipal Court Case No. CRB-1801162
Appearances:
William R. Hanna, Director of Law, City of Cleveland Heights, and Pamela Roessner, Assistant City Prosecutor, for appellee.
Milton A. Kramer Law Clinic, Case Western Reserve University School of Law, Andrew S. Pollis, attorney, Rocco Screnci, P.P.A., Joseph Shell, and David A. Codispoti, certified legal interns, for appellant.
{1} Jimmy Coleman appeals his misdemeanor conviction for disorderly conduct, entered following a plea of no contest after the trial court rejected Coleman‘s speedy trial violation claims advanced under
{2} Coleman was charged with stealing a pressure washer from a local retail establishment in July 2018, leading to the underlying prosecution in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. At the time he faced several, unrelated felony charges in the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas. Coleman was held in the Cuyahoga County Jail pending the disposition of the felony charges. In January 2019, Coleman filed a “notice of availability” under
{3} Throughout these proceedings, Coleman repeatedly references the fact that he was “incarcerated” at the Cuyahoga County Jail at the time that his January 2019 notice of availability was filed. This phrasing of his status is curious in light of the fact that
{4}
When a person has entered upon a term of imprisonment in a correctional institution of this state, and when during the continuance of the term of imprisonment there is pending in this state any untried indictment, information, or complaint against the prisoner, he shall be brought to trial within one hundred eighty days after he causes to be delivered to the prosecuting attorney and the appropriate court in which the matter is pending, written notice of the place of his imprisonment and a request for a final disposition to be made of the matter, * * *. The request of the prisoner shall be accompanied by a certificate of the warden or superintendent having custody of the prisoner, stating the term of commitment under which the prisoner is being held, the time served and remaining to be served on the sentence, the amount of good time earned, the time of parole eligibility of the prisoner, and any decisions of the adult parole authority relating to the prisoner.
(Emphasis added.) Thus, the statute creates a fundamental prerequisite. The person seeking to invoke
{5} This conclusion is bolstered by the fact that
{6}
{7} At the time Coleman filed his notice of availability in the underlying case, he was not serving a term of imprisonment. Coleman was confined in lieu of bail pending resolution of several felony cases. See Appellant‘s Brief, fn. 2 (noting the four cases that were then “pending” and the cause of Coleman‘s local “incarceration“). Nothing in the record establishes that Coleman was serving a term of imprisonment imposed in any of the cases in January 2019. His notice of availability was premature, but importantly,
{8} Nevertheless, the foregoing analysis was not the basis of the trial court‘s decision. The city‘s sole contention is that even if
{9} Instead of erring toward the letter of the statute and initiating the statutory process by forwarding the necessary information to the warden or superintendent of
{10} But beyond that deficiency, assuming for the sake of discussion that Coleman complied with the letter of
{11} In Hemingway, it was concluded that ”
{12} Coleman claims that Hemingway‘s interpretation of
{13} It suffices that Hemingway‘s conclusion to require an offender to be serving a term of imprisonment during the entire 180-day period was expressly based on the plain language of the
{14} Regardless, we cannot offer Coleman his requested relief of overturning Hemingway. As one panel of this court, we lack authority to contravene controlling authority.
{15} In both cases, the respective courts were reviewing application of the Interstate Agreement on Detainers (“IAD“), under which the member states enacted legislation to effectuate the state‘s agreement to provide for prompt disposition of all charges against the offender. The language used is similar to the language employed by
{16} And finally, as to this line of argument, Coleman claims that the canon of statutory construction, expressio unius est exclusio alterius, the express mention of an item excludes others, must be considered in this case because
{17} An escape and a release after completely serving a term of imprisonment are remarkably different situations. An inmate who has escaped from prison must finish serving the imposed term of imprisonment from which he escaped — the term of imprisonment does not simply expire as a result of the misconduct. Thus, the escape exception applies to divest those inmates, who “during the continuation” of the prison term had delivered the requisite notice and had originally secured the right to be tried within 180 days, of the rights secured under
{18} In the alternative, Coleman claims the 82 days that transpired between his filing the notice of availability and his release from jail should be counted against the 90-day period under
{19} Inasmuch as Coleman relies on a footnote from Hemingway, in which the panel opined that the time between service of the inmate‘s notice and the inmate‘s release from prison may be counted against the state for speedy trial purposes under
{20}
{21} Coleman indirectly suggests that State v. Collins, 91 Ohio App.3d 10, 14, 631 N.E.2d 666 (6th Dist.1993), supports the proposition that the date the warrant was issued in the underlying matter was the triggering event for
{22} With respect to Coleman‘s statutory speedy trial rights, between Coleman‘s arrest on August 20, 2019, and his plea of no contest on January 17, 2020, approximately 150 calendar days transpired. The record does not contain any indication that a summons was served
{23} The trial court did not err by denying Coleman‘s motion to dismiss in which he alleged a violation of his statutory speedy trial rights under
It is ordered that appellee recover of appellant costs herein taxed.
The court finds there were reasonable grounds for this appeal.
It is ordered that a special mandate issue out of this court directing the municipal court to carry this judgment into execution. The defendant‘s conviction having been affirmed, any bail pending appeal is terminated. Case remanded to the trial court for execution of sentence.
A certified copy of this entry shall constitute the mandate pursuant to Rule 27 of the Rules of Appellate Procedure.
SEAN C. GALLAGHER, PRESIDING JUDGE
MARY EILEEN KILBANE, J., and
EMANUELLA D. GROVES, J., CONCUR