State v. ThompsonState v. Thompson
Appearances:
Michael C. O’Malley, Cuyahoga County Prosecuting Attorney, Michael R. Wajda, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, and Sophie E. Kormos, Certified Legal Intern, for appellee.
Andre D. Thompson, pro se.
SEAN C. GALLAGHER, J.:
{¶ 1} In this consolidated appeal, defendant-appellant Andre D. Thompson challenges the trial court’s decisions that denied his post-sentence motions to
{¶ 2} In December 2000, Thompson was convicted of bribery after pleading guilty in Cuyahoga C.P. No. CR-00-395441-ZA. In April 2002, Thompson was convicted of domestic violence after pleading no contest in Cuyahoga C.P. No. CR-02-421390-ZA. In February 2003, Thompson was convicted of domestic violence after pleading guilty in Cuyahoga C.P. No. CR-02-431638-ZA. Thompson was represented by counsel in each case at the time he entered his plea.
{¶ 3} In 2020, Thompson filed in each case a motion to vacate conviction for lack of a fully knowing and intelligent plea. He argued that he was not advised of potential future adverse legal consequences and that he was facing an enhanced sentence in a subsequent federal case because of a potential classification as a career offender. The State opposed, and the trial court denied those motions.
{¶ 4} Five years later, in 2025, Thompson, acting pro se, filed in each case a post-sentence motion to withdraw plea and vacate conviction pursuant to
{¶ 5} Under his first assignment of error, Thompson claims the trial court abused its discretion and violated his due-process rights by denying his motions without conducting a hearing where no plea transcript or audio recording exists in the record, which he asserts prevented a meaningful review of whether his pleas were knowing, voluntary, and intelligent.
{¶ 6} “A motion to withdraw a plea of guilty or no contest may be made only before sentence is imposed; but to correct manifest injustice the court after sentence may set aside the judgment of conviction and permit the defendant to withdraw his or her plea.”
{¶ 7} In each of the cases involved herein, Thompson did not file a direct appeal, and he previously sought to vacate his pleas.1 However, the trial court did not indicate that it was applying res judicata, and the State has not presented the issue of res judicata on appeal. Therefore, we decline to further discuss the doctrine of res judicata pursuant to the principle of party presentation. See id. at ¶ 39, fn. 4 (8th Dist.), citing Snyder v. Old World Classics, L.L.C., 2025-Ohio-1875, ¶ 4.
{¶ 8} Nonetheless, as argued by the State, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying Thompson’s motions because no manifest injustice was shown. As this court has previously determined, where there is no transcript or audio recording of the underlying proceedings, a presumption of regularity applies to the trial court proceedings. Id. at ¶ 21. Here, Thompson waited over 20 years to file the motions, an undue delay occurred, the transcript or audio recording was not required to be kept beyond the period prescribed by law pursuant to
{¶ 9} Additionally, we do not find any reversible error occurred by the trial court in ruling on Thompson’s motions before he claims he received the State’s brief in opposition or by refusing to reopen briefing in the matter for him to file a reply. Nor do we find any reversible error occurred with regard to Thompson’s assertion that the record was procedurally defective due to a clerical misfiling that pertained to a different matter. Any error in these respects would have been harmless. Thompson’s second and third assignments of error are overruled.
{¶ 10} Judgment affirmed.
It is ordered that appellee recover from appellant the 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.
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SEAN C. GALLAGHER, JUDGE
LISA B. FORBES, P.J., and
MICHAEL JOHN RYAN, J., CONCUR