State v. SmithState v. Smith
- Reporters:
- ,
- Before:
- Mock, Bergeron, Winkler
{¶1} Petitioner-appellant William Antonio Smith appeals the Hamilton County Common Pleas Court‘s judgment denying his petition under
{¶2} In 2017, Smith was convicted of having weapons while under a disability and two counts of murder in connection with the deaths of his friends Alma Jean Owens and MacArthur Jackson, Sr., during an altercation in Jackson‘s apartment. Owens was 57 years old and 5‘1‘’ tall. Smith shot her three times: one shot shattered her right leg; a close-range shot struck her on the right side of her jaw; and the fаtal shot struck her under her right eye. Jackson was 72 years old, 5‘4” tall, and suffered from chronic lung disease, hypertension, and arteriosclerosis. He sustained three gunshots to the head and multiplе cuts on his hands and head, including the fatal 6½-inch-long cut to his neck, found by the coroner to have required up to a dozen strokes. Then-27-year-old Smith gave police multiple conflicting аccounts of his role in their deaths, then admitted killing them, but claimed that he had acted in self-defense after Owens attacked him with a sharp object and Jackson physically assaulted him.
{¶3} Evidence was also adduced at trial showing that Smith had sustained substantial cuts to his hand, neck, face, and side. At Smith‘s request, the trial court instructed the jury on the affirmative defense of self-defense and on voluntary manslaughter as an offense of inferior degree to murder. But the jury returned verdicts finding Smith guilty of murder. And this court, in affirming those convictions on direct appeal, overruled Smith‘s challenges to the weight and sufficiency of the evidence to support those verdicts. See State v. Smith, 1st Dist. Hamilton No. C-170028, 2018-Ohio-2504, appeals not accepted, 154 Ohio St.3d 1444, 2018-Ohio-4962, 113 N.E.3d 553 (affirming convictions, but remanding for consecutive-sentences findings). In
The Postconviction Petition
{¶4} In 2018, Smith filed a postconviction petition seeking relief from his convictions on the grounds that (1) his trial counsel had been ineffective in failing to support his self-defense claim with witnesses and hospital records showing the “defensive” nature of his injuries, and (2) he had been denied due process because he was “not afforded the presentation of evidentiary documentation or witnesses to refute [the state‘s] evidence and witnesses.” He supported the petition with a report generated by the University of Cincinnati Medical Center concerning a follow-up surgical procedure required for the injuries to his hand. He also offered his own affidavit attesting to his pretrial requests that trial counsel subpoena that report, a physician, two character witnesses, and records generated by the emergenсy room at Good Samaritan Hospital, where his injuries had first been treated. In two subsequent motions, he unsuccessfully sought “leave to supplement” the petition with “newly obtained evidence” in the form of the Good Samaritan Hospital emergency-room records.
{¶5} Smith here appeals from the common pleas court‘s judgment denying his postconviction petition. On appeal, he presents three assignments of error.
Amendment Improperly Denied
{¶6} We address first the second assignment of error, challenging the overruling of Smith‘s motions for leave to supplement his postconviсtion petition
{¶7}
{¶8} This holding does not, however, compel reversal of the common pleas court‘s judgment denying Smith‘s postconviction petition. The common pleas court did not reaсh the merits of Smith‘s late postconviction claims because it determined that it had no jurisdiction to do so. Because we conclude, for the following reasons, that those claims were subject to dismissal for lack of jurisdiction, the denial of Smith‘s right to amend his petition with evidentiary material supportive of the claims cannot be said to have been prejudicial. Aсcordingly, we overrule the second assignment of error.
No Jurisdiction to Entertain the Petition
{¶9} Smith‘s first and third assignments of error may fairly be read together to challenge the denial of his postconviction petition without an еvidentiary hearing. That challenge is untenable.
{¶10} No prison-mailbox rule.
{¶11} Smith asserts on appeal that he satisfied the time restrictions of
{¶12} No jurisdiction under postconviction statutes. Because the petition was not timely filed, the postconviction statutes conferred upon the common pleas court jurisdiction to entertain Smith‘s late postconviction claims only upon
{¶13} Smith‘s ineffective-counsel and due-process claims were not predicated upon a new retrospectively applicable right recognized by the United States Supreme Court since the time for filing those claims had expired. On appeal, he argues that he was unavoidably prevented from timely filing his postconviction pеtition, because his request for the Good Samaritan emergency-room records had been delayed by the county public defender‘s delay in notifying him that it was declining his case. But his postсonviction petition and its supporting evidentiary material did not speak to, much less demonstrate, the matter of unavoidable prevention. Nor does the record otherwise rеflect efforts on his part or on his behalf to secure the evidence upon which his ineffective-counsel and due-process claims depended. Because he failed to satisfy the
{¶14} Not void. Finally, a court always has jurisdiction to correct a void judgment. State ex rel. Cruzado v. Zaleski, 111 Ohio St.3d 353, 2006-Ohio-5795, 856 N.E.2d 263, ¶ 18-19. But neither his due-process claim nor his ineffective-counsel claim, even if demonstrated, would have rendered his convictions void. See State v. Wurzelbacher, 1st Dist. Hamilton No. C-130011, 2013-Ohio-4009, ¶ 8; State v. Grant, 1st Dist. Hamilton No. C-120695, 2013-Ohio-3421, ¶ 9-16 (holding that a judgment of conviction is void only to the extent that a sentence is unauthorized by statute or does not include a statutorily mandated tеrm or if the trial court lacks subject-matter jurisdiction or the authority to act); see also State v. Hayes, 1st Dist. Hamilton No. C-130450, 2014-Ohio-1263, ¶ 5 (holding that the ineffective assistance of counsel does not render a conviction void).
We Affirm
{¶15} Becausе the common pleas court had no jurisdiction to entertain Smith‘s postconviction petition, the petition was subject to dismissal without an evidentiary hearing. See
Judgment affirmed as modified.
BERGERON and WINKLER, JJ., concur.
Please note:
The court has recorded its own entry on the date of the release of this opinion.