Youngstown Daily Legal News

Man who raped former stepson loses appeal

ANNIE YAMSON
Special to the Legal News
Published: April 5, 2016

The Ohio Supreme Court recently denied a writ of habeas corpus to an inmate who petitioned for immediate release from prison due to his trial court’s lack of jurisdiction.

The appellant, Donald Leyman, challenged the decision of the 5th District Court of Appeals to dismiss his petition for the writ.

“Leyman is not entitled to a writ of habeas corpus because he has not established that the trial court lacked subject matter jurisdiction,” the high court wrote in its per curiam opinion. “We affirm.”

Court documents state that, in 1991, Leyman married a woman who had two children from a previous relationship.

In June 1993, the woman and children moved from New York to Medina and Leyman followed that fall.

In early 1996, the couple separated and Leyman moved out of state. But later that year, the children told their mother that Leyman had assaulted them.

A grand jury indicted Leyman on several counts of rape and gross sexual imposition and, in 1999, he was convicted for the rape of his former stepson and gross sexual imposition upon both children.

The Medina County Court of Common Pleas ultimately sentenced Leyman to prison seven to 25 years for the rape and 18 months for each count of gross sexual imposition.

Several appeals followed. Leyman’s convictions were affirmed in 2000 and the Supreme Court declined review the following year.

In 2013, Leyman filed a petition for postconviction relief and a motion for leave to file a motion for a new trial, both were dismissed by the trial court and its judgment affirmed.

That same year, Leyman filed an application in the 9th District Court of Appeals to reopen his direct appeal.

Again, his application was denied and the Supreme Court declined review.

The subject of Leyman’s most recent appeal was a petition for habeas corpus that he filed and was denied in the 5th District Court of Appeals.

The high court denied oral arguments but this time it did accept review of Leyman’s case, though it did not find in his favor.

“To be entitled to a writ of habeas corpus, Leyman must show that he is being unlawfully restrained of his liberty, R.C. 2725.01, and that he is entitled to an immediate release from prison or some other physical confinement” the Supreme Court wrote. “A writ of habeas corpus is generally available only when the petitioner’s maximum sentence has expired and he if being held unlawfully.”

Habeas corpus is also a remedy when a trial court’s judgment is void because it lacked jurisdiction.

Leyman argued that the jurisdiction argument applied in his case and he cited the state Supreme Court’s ruling in State v. Yarbrough (2004-Ohio-6087) to prove his point.

In that case, the Supreme Court reversed a defendant’s multiple murder convictions based on statutory language which, at the time, required that, with regard to homicide, the act that caused the death must have occurred in Ohio for the trial court to have jurisdiction over the case.

“In Yarbrough, we admonished the prosecutor and the trial court for misconstruing Ohio’s venue statute as applicable to the trial court’s jurisdiction over the homicides,” the high court wrote. “Leyman argues that the 9th District in his direct appeal, the 5th District in this original action and the warden in her brief all make that same mistake.”

The reviewing court held that Leyman’s argument failed for two reasons. The first was that the Yarbrough case involved homicides while Leyman’s case involved rape.

The high court also held that the evidence at Leyman’s trial demonstrated that at least some of his crimes took place in Ohio.

Leyman’s former stepson testified that he was subject to the sexual abuse for several years when he was six to eight years old.

The stepson, who was born in 1985, stated that he could not remember where the family lived during that time period, but his mother testified that Leyman lived with them in Ohio after August or September 1993.

“Therefore, because the former stepson’s testimony supported that the offenses occurred during at least part of the time period that the family lived in Ohio, under R.C. 2901.11(D), the offenses, including the rape, are presumed to have taken place in Ohio,” the Supreme Court wrote.

Since Leyman failed to prove that his trial court lacked jurisdiction, the high court denied him habeas relief.

The decision was unanimous. The case is cited Leyman v. Bradshaw, Slip Opinion No. 2016-Ohio-1093.

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