STATE OF OHIO, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. MICHAEL GOODWIN, Defendant-Appellant.
No. 109352
COURT OF APPEALS OF OHIO EIGHTH APPELLATE DISTRICT COUNTY OF CUYAHOGA
November 5, 2020
2020-Ohio-5187
KATHLEEN ANN KEOUGH, J.
Civil Appeal from the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Case No. CR-94-314527-A
JUDGMENT: AFFIRMED
RELEASED AND JOURNALIZED: November 5, 2020
Appearances:
Michael C. O’Malley, Cuyahoga County Prosecuting Attorney, and Jennifer M. Meyer, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellee.
Web Norman Law, Inc., and William B. Norman, for appellant.
KATHLEEN ANN KEOUGH, J.:
{¶ 1} Defendant-appellant Michael Goodwin appeals his sentence. Finding no merit to the appeal, we affirm.
{¶ 2} On September 28, 1994, Goodwin was indicted on four counts. Count 1 charged aggravated murder with prior calculation and design in violation of
{¶ 3} The charges arose after Goodwin recruited two friends to help him rob the Big Star Market in Cleveland. Upon entering the store with his friends, Goodwin pulled his gun, put its muzzle to store clerk Mustafa Sammour’s forehead, and shot him, killing him instantly. After killing Sammour, Goodwin put his gun to the head of another clerk and demanded he open the store’s safe. As the clerk was opening the safe and handing its contents to Goodwin, Goodwin fired another gunshot, this time into the floor of the market. Upon learning that a milk truck had pulled up to the store, Goodwin and his friends exited the market. As he was leaving the market, Goodwin leaned over the lifeless body of Sammour to retrieve more cash from the open register.
{¶ 4} Goodwin was found guilty of all counts and specifications. After the penalty phase of the trial, the jury unanimously recommended that he be sentenced to death. The trial court accepted the jury’s recommendation and imposed the death
{¶ 5} This court affirmed Goodwin’s conviction and sentence on appeal. State v. Goodwin, 8th Dist. Cuyahoga No. 68531, 1997 Ohio App. LEXIS 1528 (Apr. 17, 1997). Subsequently, this court also affirmed the trial court’s judgment dismissing Goodwin’s petition for postconviction relief without a hearing. State v. Goodwin, 8th Dist. Cuyahoga No. 72043, 1999 Ohio App. LEXIS 2436 (May 27, 1999).
{¶ 6} In June 2000, Goodwin filed a habeas petition in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. The district court held an evidentiary hearing on Goodwin’s claim of ineffective assistance of counsel at sentencing and granted habeas relief on that claim, remanding for a mitigation phase retrial. It denied Goodwin’s remaining claims. Goodwin v. Johnson, N.D. Ohio No. 1:99CV2963, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11915 (Mar. 22, 2006). After the Sixth Circuit affirmed the district court’s decision, Goodwin v. Johnson, 632 F.3d 301 (6th Cir.2006), the state of Ohio commenced new sentencing proceedings in the trial court.
{¶ 7} Prior to resentencing, Goodwin waived his right to a jury trial for the mitigation phase retrial, conditioned upon an agreed-upon sentence for the four counts of life in prison with the possibility of parole after 42 years. In his written
{¶ 8} Goodwin was resentenced by a three-judge panel on August 3, 2011. The panel agreed that Counts 1 and 2, aggravated murder, merged for sentencing, with the state electing to proceed on Count 1. As pertinent to this appeal, Goodwin was sentenced on Count 1 to “life with parole eligibility after serving 30 years consecutive to the mandatory 3-year firearm specification
{¶ 9} In October 2019, Goodwin filed a pro se “motion to correct illegal/void sentence,” in which he argued that his sentence was void because the version of
II. Law and Analysis
{¶ 10} In his first assignment of error, Goodwin argues that the trial court erred in denying his motion because the sentencing panel imposed a sentence not authorized by the version of
{¶ 11} In his second assignment of error, Goodwin contends that the trial court erred in denying his motion without conducting an evidentiary hearing because his motion alleged sufficient operative facts to show substantive grounds for relief.
{¶ 12} It is well settled that a void sentence can be attacked anytime. State v. Williams, 148 Ohio St.3d 403, 2016-Ohio-7658, 71 N.E.3d 234, ¶ 22; State v. Fischer, 128 Ohio St.3d 92, 2010-Ohio-6238, 942 N.E.2d 332, ¶ 25. Nevertheless, we find no merit to either of Goodwin’s arguments.
{¶ 14} “It is well-settled law that issues not raised in the trial court may not be raised for the first time on appeal because such issues are deemed waived.” State v. Geiger, 10th Dist. Franklin No. 15AP-1120, 2016-Ohio-7571, ¶ 12; Miller v. Cardinal Care Mgmt., 8th Dist. Cuyahoga No. 107730, 2019-Ohio-2826, ¶ 23 (a party cannot raise new arguments and legal issues for the first time on appeal, and failure to raise an issue before the trial court waives that issue for appellate purposes); Kalish v. TransWorld Airlines, Inc., 50 Ohio St.2d 73, 79, 362 N.E.2d 994 (1977) (appellate courts “will not consider a question not presented, considered, or decided by a lower court). Accordingly, we will not consider this argument.
{¶ 15} And even if we were to consider the argument, we would find it has no merit. In State v. Rembert, 8th Dist. Cuyahoga No. 99707, 2014-Ohio-300, this court considered a sentencing entry in which the trial court had sentenced a defendant convicted of aggravated murder to life imprisonment with parole eligibility after 30 years, without qualifying the 30-year sentence with the word “full.” This court stated that pursuant to the aggravated murder sentencing statute, “when a defendant is sentenced to life imprisonment with parole eligibility after either 25 or 30 years, the years are necessarily ‘full’ years, because ‘full’ years are the
{¶ 16} But even if we did not apply Rembert and found that the sentencing panel’s omission of the word “full” from the sentencing entry was contrary to former
A sentence is void when a sentencing court lacks jurisdiction over the subject-matter of the case or personal jurisdiction over the accused. When the sentencing court has jurisdiction to act, sentencing errors in the imposition of postrelease control render the sentence voidable, not void, and the sentence may be set aside if successfully challenged on direct appeal.
Id. at ¶ 42. The court explicitly overruled its “precedent to the extent that it holds that the failure to properly impose postrelease control in the sentence renders that portion of a defendant’s sentence void.” Id. at ¶ 40. See also State v. Henderson, 2020-Ohio-4784.
{¶ 18} As in Brooks, the trial court in this case had subject-matter jurisdiction over Goodwin’s case and personal jurisdiction over him.
{¶ 19} But even if the sentence were voidable, the trial court properly denied Goodwin’s motion without an evidentiary hearing. Goodwin did not appeal from the trial court’s resentencing in 2011; he waited until 2019, more than eight years after he was resentenced, to file his “motion to correct void/illegal sentence.” It is well settled that the doctrine of res judicata bars claims that were raised or could have been raised on direct appeal. State v. Davis, 119 Ohio St.3d 422, 2008-Ohio-4608, 894 N.E.2d 1221. Because Goodwin could have, but did not, raise any issue
{¶ 20} Furthermore, Goodwin’s motion sought the correction of his sentence on the ground that the sentence is void. This is a due process argument. State v. Brooks, 8th Dist. Cuyahoga No. 98380, 2012-Ohio-5292, ¶ 9 (defendant’s argument that his sentence was void due to a mistake in the sentencing journal entry was a violation-of-due-process argument). Indeed, in his appellate brief, Goodwin asserts that he “was deprived of his constitutional Fifth Amendment right to due process at his sentencing hearing.” (Appellant’s Brief, p. 9.) He contends that “the due process violation at [his] resentencing hearing was derived from the trial court’s disregard of the mandatory statutory sentencing language required by the Ohio Legislature in sentencing a defendant pursuant to the offense convicted herein.” Id.
{¶ 21} “Where a criminal defendant, subsequent to his or her direct appeal, files a motion seeking vacation or correction of his or her sentence on the basis that his or her constitutional rights have been violated, such a motion is a petition for postconviction relief as defined in
{¶ 22} This is not Goodwin’s first petition for postconviction relief in this case; as noted above, he filed an earlier petition that was dismissed. Successive petitions for postconviction relief are governed by
{¶ 23} In his “motion to correct void/illegal sentence,” Goodwin did not claim that he was unavoidably prevented from discovering facts upon which he relied in his petition. Nor has the United States Supreme Court recognized a new federal or state right that applies retroactively to Goodwin. The trial court therefore had no authority to consider his motion and properly denied it without an evidentiary hearing.
{¶ 24} Furthermore, even if the trial court had authority to consider Goodwin’s motion, the court properly denied it. Prior to resentencing in 2011, Goodwin acknowledged in his written jury waiver that there were three possible statutory sentencing options for his aggravated murder conviction: life in prison with parole eligibility after 20 full years, life in prison with parole eligibility after 30 full years, or death. Accordingly, Goodwin’s motion asserting that his sentence was void because
{¶ 25} The assignments of error are overruled.
It is ordered that appellee recover from 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 common pleas court to carry this judgment into execution.
A certified copy of this entry shall constitute the mandate pursuant to Rule 27 of the Rules of Appellate Procedure.
KATHLEEN ANN KEOUGH, JUDGE
MARY J. BOYLE, P.J., and
ANITA LASTER MAYS, J., CONCUR