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13 Ohio St. 3d 3

State ex rel. Ferrell v. Clark

Ohio Supreme Court

Decided October 10, 1984

Ohio Supreme Court · decided 1984-10-10

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“R.C. 2953.21 mandates that a judgment denying post-conviction relief include findings of fact and conclusions of law, and that a judgment entry filed without such findings is incomplete and it thus does not commence the running of the time period for filing an appeal therefrom.”

quoted by 2 later decisions, including State v. Harding, State v. Francis, 07ca000023 (6-30-2008)

Relies on State v. Mapson · State, ex rel. Turpin v. Court of Common Pleas of Stark County

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1984-10-10

How this case has been cited

Cited by 47 later decisions — most recently May 2025 · most notably State ex rel. Dehler v. Sutula (1995), State ex rel. Jennings v. Nurre (1995)

47 state decisions

14019841990200020102020decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Per Curiam.

¶1The court of appeals denied the writ, stating, “[a]n adequate remedy at law exists by way of appeal,” without further explanation.

¶2The record before the court of appeals contained no' more than is before this court, namely, a copy of appellee’s entry which contains no findings of fact or conclusions of law.

¶3In State v. Mapson (1982), 1 Ohio St. 3d 217, 218, we held that “ R.C. 2953.21 mandates that a judgment denying post-conviction relief include findings of fact and conclusions of law, and that a judgment entry filed without such findings is incomplete and it thus does not commence the running of the period for filing an appeal therefrom.”

¶4In view of this holding, appellee’s order of June 15, 1983 was not a final, appealable order, and appellant did not have a remedy by way of appeal.

¶5Mandamus will lie to compel a court to proceed to final judgment in an action for post-conviction relief. State, ex rel. Turpin, v. Court of Common Pleas (1966), 8 Ohio St. 2d 1 [37 O.O.2d 40].

¶6Accordingly, the judgment of the court of appeals is reversed and the writ is allowed.

¶7Judgment reversed and .writ allowed.

Celebrezze, C.J., W. Brown, Sweeney, Locher, Holmes, C. Brown and J. P. Celebrezze, JJ., concur.
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