THE STATE EX REL. PARKER BEY, APPELLANT, v. BYRD, CLERK OF COURTS, APPELLEE.
No. 2021-0624
Supreme Court of Ohio
February 22, 2022
Slip Opinion No. 2022-Ohio-476
Submitted October 26, 2021
[Until this оpinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as State ex rel. Parker Bey v. Byrd, Slip Opinion No. 2022-Ohio-476.]
NOTICE
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SLIP OPINION NO. 2022-OHIO-476
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as State ex rel. Parker Bey v. Byrd, Slip Opinion No. 2022-Ohio-476.]
Public-records requests—Court of appeals did not err on remand in applying
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Cuyahoga County, No. 107909, 2021-Ohio-1413.
{¶ 1} The Eighth District Court of Appeals has twice denied appellant, Vincent El Alan Parker Bey, a writ of mandamus ordering appellee, Nailah K. Byrd, the Cuyahoga County Clerk of Courts, to produce various records relating tо criminal proceedings against Parker Bey in the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas. After the first denial of the writ, we held in State ex rel. Parker Bey v. Byrd, 160 Ohio St.3d 141, 2020-Ohio-2766, 154 N.E.3d 57 (”Parker Bey I“), that the court of appeals had erred in applying the Ohio Rules of Superintendence as a basis for denying mandamus relief, id. at ¶ 13. We remanded the case to the court of appeals for it to determine whether Parker Bey was entitled to relief under the Public Records Act,
{¶ 2} On remand, the court of appeals determined that Parker Bey was not entitled to relief under the Public Records Act and again denied the writ. Parker Bey appeals again. This time, we affirm.
I. Factual and Procedural Background
{¶ 3} Parker Bey is an inmate at the Northeast Ohio Corrеctional Center. This case arises from two records requests that Parker Bey sent to Byrd by certified mail in September 2018. In the first, Parker Bey asked for a copy of a journal entry from his 1995 criminal case. In the second, he requested copies of three additional journal entries from the 1995 case as well as a copy of the clerk of courts’ records-retention schedule. Byrd did not respond to the first request and provided only one of the journal entries sought in the second request.
{¶ 5} The court of appeals denied Parker Bey‘s request for mandamus relief. Because the Rules of Superintendence, not the Public Records Act, apply when an inmаte seeks court records, the court concluded that Byrd had no clear legal duty to provide the requested records under
{¶ 6} On appeal, in Parker Bey I, we held that the court of appeals had erred in denying relief in mandamus on the ground that Parker Bey did not invoke the Superintendence Rules. 160 Ohio St.3d 141, 2020-Ohio-2766, 154 N.E.3d 57, at ¶ 13. The Public Records Act, not the Rules of Superintendence, governed the documents that Parker Bey sought in his public-records requests. Id. at ¶ 11. Accordingly, we remanded the case to the court of appeals “to determine whether Parker Bey is entitled to a writ of mandamus to compel Byrd to produce the requested journal entries and whether Parker Bey is entitled to statutory damages and court costs.” Id. at ¶ 13.
{¶ 7} On remand, the court of appeals again denied the writ. Analyzing Parker Bey‘s request for journal entries from his criminal case under the Public Records Act, the court of appeals determined that Parker Bey had failed to comply with
{¶ 8} Parker Bey appealed to this court as of right.
II. Analysis
{¶ 9} Mandamus is the appropriate remedy by which to compel a public officer‘s compliance with the Public Records Act. State ex rel. Physicians Commt. for Responsible Medicine v. Ohio State Univ. Bd. of Trustees, 108 Ohio St.3d 288, 2006-Ohio-903, 843 N.E.2d 174, ¶ 6. The requester must establish by сlear and convincing evidence a clear legal right to the records and a corresponding clear legal
A. R.C. 149.43(B)(8) Was Properly Raised in the Court of Appeals
{¶ 10} As his first proposition of law, Parker Bey argues that the court of appeals erred by “sua sponte” raising
{¶ 11} Parker Bey is mistaken. Byrd raised
{¶ 12} Parker Bey also argues that the res judicata doctrines of claim preclusion and/or collateral estoppel barred the court of appeals from сonsidering
{¶ 13} Parker Bey‘s first proposition of law lacks merit.
B. Affidavit of Laura Black
{¶ 14} As additional grounds for denying the writ, the court оf appeals noted that the three case-related documents sought by Parker Bey had either been provided already or did not exist. 2021-Ohio-1413 at ¶ 5-6.2 For these facts, the court relied on the affidavit of Black, which was submitted in the court-of-appeals proceedings that preceded Parker Bey I. See 2021-Ohio-1413 at ¶ 5. As his seсond proposition of law, Parker Bey argues that Black‘s affidavit is not properly notarized and is therefore invalid. We need not reach this issue, howevеr. The validity of Black‘s affidavit is moot given that Parker Bey‘s failure to comply with
{¶ 15} For these reasons, the court of аppeals did not err in denying the writ.
Judgment affirmed.
O‘CONNOR, C.J., and KENNEDY, FISCHER, DEWINE, DONNELLY, STEWART, and BRUNNER, JJ., concur.
Vincent El Alan Parker Bey, pro se.
Michael C. O‘Malley, Cuyahoga County Prosecuting Attorney, and Kelli K. Perk, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appelleе.