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Inmate who sought shorter sentence loses appeal
ANNIE YAMSON
Special to the Legal News
Published: December 2, 2016
A divided Ohio Supreme Court recently affirmed the dismissal of a petition for habeas corpus filed by an inmate who claimed that the Ohio Parole Board unlawfully extended his incarceration.
The per curiam majority decision affirmed the 7th District Court of Appeals’ decision to dismiss the habeas petition filed by Damon Robinson.
The district court dismissed on the ground that Robinson did not attach all of his commitment papers to his petition.
The state’s high court affirmed that dismissal based on the fact that Robinson failed to attach a statement of his inmate account balance along with his affidavit of indigence.
In his dissent, Justice William O’Neill wrote that the majority refused to answer a “high stakes” petition due to a filing mistake.
“We are talking about a person’s liberty,” O’Neill wrote. “Courts simply cannot be permitted to say, ‘You have not crossed your t’s and dotted your i’s, so we are not required to listen to you.”
Court documents state that Robinson was sentenced to a 7-to-25-year prison term for assault on a police officer in 1995.
After being released on parole, he pleaded guilty in 2011 to resisting arrest and was given a three-year suspended sentence and placed on community control.
In February 2013, after completing a community-based-correctional-program, Robinson claims that he was told by his attorney that he was “done with” his 1995 case.
Violations of community control in 2013 resulted in a prison sentence for Robinson’s 2011 conviction.
Two years later, Robinson argued that the Ohio Parole Board unlawfully found that he had violated his parole for the 1995 sentence and imposed an additional three-year term of confinement before holding a hearing.
Because he had already completed his 1995 sentence, Robinson argued in his habeas petition that his incarceration could not be extended.
While paperwork issues caused the majority to dismiss the appeal as moot, O’Neill wrote in his dissent that habeas corpus petitions concerned the authority of the government to hold someone.
“As he did in the court of appeals, Robinson is raising a significant constitutional question here, and like the court of appeals, this court is refusing to answer it because of a filing mistake,” O’Neill wrote. “We should not dismiss habeas petitions so readily and neither should the court of appeals.”
O’Neill argued that existing caselaw requires courts to give notice and an opportunity to correct errors before dismissing a case.
“Somewhere along the line, this court decided not to require notice and an opportunity to correct errors before dismissals in habeas corpus cases,” O’Neill wrote.
O’Neill was joined by Justice Paul Pfeifer to recommend the reversal of the judgment of the court of appeals and a remand in order to allow Robinson the opportunity to cure any errors in his filing.
Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor also dissented without a separate opinion.
Justices Terrence O’Donnell, Sharon Kennedy, Judith Lanzinger and Judith French formed the majority.
The case is cited Robinson v. Miller, Slip Opinion No. 2016-Ohio-7828.