Brooks v. Gaul

[This opinion has been published in Ohio Official Reports at 

.]




                 BROOKS, APPELLANT, v. GAUL, JUDGE, APPELLEE.
                      [Cite as Brooks v. Gaul, 

.]
Prohibition—Writ sought to prevent common pleas court judge from enforcing
        relator’s conviction of aggravated murder and from sentencing relator to
        life imprisonment—Dismissal of complaint by court of appeals affirmed.
       (No. 99-2136—Submitted April 10, 2000—Decided June 21, 2000.)
       APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Cuyahoga County, No. 76937.
                                  __________________
        {¶ 1} In 1994, the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas convicted
appellant, Charles Brooks, of aggravated murder upon a jury verdict and sentenced
him to life imprisonment. The court of appeals affirmed the judgment. State v.
Brooks (Aug. 31, 1995), Cuyahoga App. No. 67870, unreported, 

.
        {¶ 2} In September 1999, Brooks filed a complaint in the Court of Appeals
for Cuyahoga County for a writ of prohibition to prevent appellee, Cuyahoga
County Common Pleas Court Judge Daniel Gaul, from enforcing Brooks’s
conviction and sentence. Brooks claimed that the trial court lacked jurisdiction to
convict and sentence him because it allowed the jury to consider evidence that had
not been admitted, including a 911 tape, and it instructed the jury to consider only
four verdicts, which did not include a requested self-defense instruction. Judge
Gaul filed a motion to dismiss Brooks’s complaint, and on November 4, 1999, the
court of appeals granted the motion and dismissed the complaint.
        {¶ 3} This cause is now before the court upon an appeal as of right.
                                  __________________
        Charles Brooks, pro se.
                                  __________________
        Per Curiam.
                             SUPREME COURT OF OHIO




        {¶ 4} Brooks claims that the court of appeals erred in dismissing his
prohibition action. For the following reasons, this claim lacks merit.
        {¶ 5} In the absence of a patent and unambiguous lack of jurisdiction, a
court having general subject-matter jurisdiction can determine its own jurisdiction,
and a party challenging that jurisdiction has an adequate remedy at law by appeal.
Page v. Riley (1999), 

, 

. Prohibition
will not issue as a substitute for appeal to review mere errors in judgment. Berthelot
v. Dezso (1999), 

, 

.
        {¶ 6} Therefore, Brooks had an adequate remedy by appeal to raise his
claims on appeal, and he is precluded from raising them by extraordinary writ. See
State ex rel. Poore v. Mayer (1964), 

, 79, 

, 376, 

, 558 (prohibition unavailable to challenge erroneous ruling on the
admissibility of evidence); Smith v. Mitchell (1998), 

, 

 (claims of erroneous jury instructions and verdict forms should
have been raised on direct appeal rather than in action for habeas corpus).
        {¶ 7} In addition, as the court of appeals noted, the partial transcript
attached to Brooks’s complaint established that the 911 tape was admitted into
evidence, so that Judge Gaul did not err in permitting the jury to consider it during
its deliberations.
        {¶ 8} Finally, because it is evident that Brooks seeks release from prison,
he should have raised these claims in a habeas corpus action instead of by way of
prohibition. See State ex rel. Jackson v. Callahan (1999), 

, 

.
        {¶ 9} Based on the foregoing, we affirm the judgment of the court of
appeals.
                                                                 Judgment affirmed.
        MOYER, C.J., DOUGLAS, RESNICK, F.E. SWEENEY, PFEIFER, COOK and
LUNDBERG STRATTON, JJ., concur.




                                          2
January Term, 2000




__________________




        3