State ex rel. Peoples v. O'Shaughnessy (Slip Opinion)State ex rel. Peoples v. O'Shaughnessy (Slip Opinion)
Per Curiam.
{¶ 1} Appellant, David A. Peoples, appeals the judgment of the Seventh
Background
{¶ 2} In June 2002, Peoples was convicted in the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas of aggravated murder and two accompanying firearm specifications. See State v. Peoples, 10th Dist. Franklin No. 02AP-945, 2003-Ohio-4680, ¶ 1. He received an aggregate prison sentence of 34 years to life, whiсh included a six-year term for an
{¶ 3} In 2017, Peoples filed a motion to vacate his sentence. The trial court denied the motiоn, but on May 30, 2019, the Tenth District reversed because the maximum term for the drive-by specification was five years, not six years as the trial court had imposed. State v. Peoples, 10th Dist. Franklin No. 18AP-850, 2019-Ohio-2141, ¶ 8, 11-13. The court of appeals remanded the case to the trial court “with instructions to vacate Peoples’ six-year sentence on the
{¶ 4}
{¶ 5} Here, however, on June 10, 2019, before the clerk of courts certified the Tenth District’s remand order to the warden, the trial court issued an amended
{¶ 6} In July 2019, Peoples commenced this original action in the Seventh District Court of Appeals against appellees, Franklin County Clerk of Courts Maryellen O’Shaughnessy, NEOCC Warden Christopher LaRose, and Ohio Dеpartment of Rehabilitation and Correction Director Annette Chambers-Smith. Peoples sought writs of mandamus to compel their compliance with
{¶ 7} O’Shaughnessy, LaRose, and Chambers-Smith each filed motions to dismiss Peoples’s complaint pursuant to
{¶ 8} The Seventh District dismissed Peoples’s complaint in its entirety as moot. 2020-Ohio-4432, ¶ 9, 15, 18-19. First, the court noted that O’Shaughnessy had already fulfilled her statutory duty by sending a certified copy of the Tenth District’s decision to the aрpropriate parties, and thus there was no further action to compel from her. Id. at ¶ 9. Further, the court observed that (1) the Tenth District’s remand order cоntained specific instructions to the trial court to amend the judgment entry regarding Peoples’s sentence, but the order did not include any referencе to a resentencing hearing or any other proceeding that would have required Peoples’s transfer to the Franklin County jail, and (2) the trial court had entered an amended judgment entry as instructed. Id. at ¶ 10-13. The Seventh
{¶ 9} Peoples appealed.
Legal analysis
{¶ 10} To be entitled to a writ of mandamus, a party must establish, by clear and convincing evidence, (1) a clear legal right to the requested relief, (2) a clear legal duty on the part of the respondents to provide it, and (3) the lack of an adequate remedy in the ordinary course of the law. State ex rel. Waters v. Spaeth, 131 Ohio St.3d 55, 2012-Ohio-69, 960 N.E.2d 452, ¶ 6, 13. For a court to dismiss a mandamus complaint pursuant to
{¶ 11} On appeal, Peoples no longer appears to be asserting a claim for relief against O’Shaughnessy and does not dispute the Seventh District’s dismissal of his claim against her. His merit brief seeks relief against only LaRose and Chambers-Smith. The court of appeals corrеctly concluded that LaRose and Chambers-Smith had no duty to convey Peoples to the Franklin County jail, because returning Peoples to the sheriff’s custоdy to await resentencing would have been a vain act. Id. at ¶ 15. “[M]andamus will not issue to compel a vain act.” State ex rel. Strothers v. Turner, 79 Ohio St.3d 272, 274, 680 N.E.2d 1238 (1997); see also State ex rel. Thomas v. Ghee, 81 Ohio St.3d 191, 192, 690 N.E.2d 6 (1998). An act is in vain when the underlying dispute has become moot, such that relief in
{¶ 12} On June 10, 2019, Franklin County Common Pleas Court Judge Daniel Hawkins issued an amеnded judgment entry in Peoples’s criminal case, imposing the correct five-year term for the firearm specification. Granting the writ of mandamus Peoples sought in July 2019 to compel his transfer to the Franklin County jail would therefore do nothing more than require a vain act; because there will not be a sentencing hearing, he would be immediately returned to NEOCC. See State ex rel. Ellis v. Burnside, 8th Dist. Cuyahoga No. 103469, 2015-Ohio-5432, ¶ 7 (holding that it would be a vain act to transport an inmate to the county jail when the court of appeals has already determined that he is not entitled to a new sentencing hearing).
{¶ 13} For this reason, we affirm the judgment of the court of appeals.
Judgment affirmed.
O’CONNOR, C.J., and KENNEDY, FISCHER, DEWINE, DONNELLY, STEWART, and BRUNNER, JJ., concur.