[Cite as State v. Johnson,
2025-Ohio-2691.]
COURT OF APPEALS OF OHIO
EIGHTH APPELLATE DISTRICT
COUNTY OF CUYAHOGA
STATE OF OHIO, :
Plaintiff-Appellee, :
No. 114962
v. :
BOBBY JOHNSON, JR., :
Defendant-Appellant. :
JOURNAL ENTRY AND OPINION
JUDGMENT: AFFIRMED
RELEASED AND JOURNALIZED: July 31, 2025
Criminal Appeal from the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas
Case Nos. CR-99-371189-A and CR-99-376601-ZA
Appearances:
Michael C. O’Malley, Cuyahoga County Prosecuting
Attorney, and Anthony T. Miranda, Assistant Prosecuting
Attorney, for appellee.
Ohio Justice and Policy Center, Matthew Ahn, and Angela
S. Larsen, for appellant.
EILEEN T. GALLAGHER, P.J.:
This cause came to be heard on the accelerated calendar pursuant to
App.R. 11.1 and Loc.App.R. 11.1. Appellant Bobby Johnson, Jr. (“Johnson”) appeals
the judgment of the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas dismissing his
motion for relief from duty to register as a violent offender. Johnson’s sole
assignment of error argues that the trial court erred in its finding that it lacked
jurisdiction to hear his motion. After a thorough review of the applicable law and
facts, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.
I. Factual and Procedural History
Johnson was originally indicted in Cuyahoga C.P. No. CR-99-371189-A
(“CR-99-371189”). That case was subsequently dismissed, and the charge was
refiled in Cuyahoga C.P. No. CR-99-376601-ZA (“CR-99-376601”). Johnson was
ultimately convicted of aggravated murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment
without the possibility of parole for 20 years. Johnson’s conviction and sentence
were affirmed by this court in State v. Johnson, 2001 Ohio App. LEXIS 5750 (8th
Dist. Dec. 20, 2001).
After serving approximately 25 years in prison, Johnson was granted
parole and was released from prison on January 6, 2025. Because Johnson had been
convicted of aggravated murder, he was required to register with Ohio’s violent
offender database (“VOD”) under R.C. 2903.42. Three days before he was released
from prison, Johnson moved for relief from his duty to register as a violent offender,
pursuant to R.C. 2903.42(A)(2)(b). However, he filed the motion in CR-99-371189,
the case that had been dismissed, rather than CR-99-376601, the case in which he
was ultimately convicted and sentenced.
The State opposed Johnson’s motion, asserting that the motion had
been filed under the wrong case number, thus rendering the trial court without
jurisdiction to consider his motion.
Johnson filed a reply brief, arguing that his motion should be decided
on its merits and asking the court to adjust the case number of his filing to reflect
the proper case. In support, Johnson cited State v. Morton, 2022-Ohio-2358
(8th Dist.), where this court reversed the trial court’s decision denying an untimely
petition for postconviction relief when the petition had been docketed under the
incorrect case number in the court of appeals rather than the trial court.
The trial court declined to adjust the case number on Johnson’s motion
and dismissed the motion entirely, finding that it lacked jurisdiction to consider it.
The court specifically found that Morton was inapplicable, explaining:
First, Morton erroneously submitted his motion for postconviction
relief in the appellate case, that was active and pending at the time of
filing. In the instant matter, petitioner filed his motion for relief in a
case that had been closed for approximately 25 years.
In addition, Morton sought leave to file in the correct case number
almost immediately. While the improperly filed motion was filed on
December 23, 2020, Morton promptly sought leave and refiled the
petition under the correct case number on December 26, 2020. Here,
several weeks passed before Johnson recognized the error and to date,
has not refiled his petition in the proper court, Case No. CR 376601.
Most distinguishing though is that Johnson’s petition only contained
the court and case information for Case No. CR 371189 and was clearly
meant to be filed in that court. In light of this fact, there is no
reasonable argument that the clerk erred or should have rejected
Johnson’s filing as intended for another case or court as was the case in
Morton. Therefore, this court is unable to find that a mistake was made
in the electronic filing of Johnson’s Petition and declines to apply the
exception set forth in Morton.
It is well settled that filing requirements, such as those provided in
R.C. 2903.42 and 2953.21, are jurisdictional and thus, filing
jurisdictional documents in the wrong court does not preserve the
claim. See Morton, at [¶] 33 (dissenting opinion), citing Nibert v. Ohio
Dept. Of Rehab. & Corr., 84 Ohio St.3d 100, syllabus; Hartsock v.
Chrysler Corp., 44 Ohio St.3d 171, 174 (1989); Kimble Clay &
Limestone v. McAvoy, 59 Ohio St.2d 94, 99 (1979), citing Am.
Restaurant & Lunch Co. v. Glander, 147 Ohio St. 147, 150 (1946); Orr
v. Harris, 2018-Ohio-4798, [¶] 8 (8th Dist.).
Johnson then filed the instant appeal, arguing that the trial court erred
in dismissing his petition for lack of jurisdiction.
II. Law and Analysis
Sierah’s Law created a statewide VOD that requires those convicted of
certain specified offenses to enroll in a registry that will allow law enforcement to
track their whereabouts for ten years following their release from confinement.
Violent offenders with VOD-registration obligations must appear in person at the
local county sheriff’s office to enroll in the database within ten days following their
release from prison or after receiving notice at the sentencing hearing if the offender
is not sentenced to prison. R.C. 2903.43. Thereafter, the offender must reregister
annually for ten years. Id.
Ohio’s VOD statutes allow a person classified as a violent offender to
file a motion seeking to rebut the presumption that the person must enroll in the
database. See generally R.C. 2903.42. R.C. 2903.42(A)(2)(b), which is applicable
to Johnson, states in relevant part:
A violent offender who wishes to rebut the presumption [of enrollment]
shall file a motion in accordance with [the following] . . . :
[T]he offender shall file the motion with the court that sentenced the
offender for the offense that classifies the person a violent offender.
The motion shall assert that the offender was not the principal offender
in the commission of that offense and request that the court not require
the offender to enroll in the violent offender database and not have all
VOD duties with respect to that offense. The motion shall be filed prior
to the time of the person’s release from confinement in the jail,
workhouse, state correctional institution, or other institution under the
prison term, term of imprisonment, or other term of confinement for
the offense . . . .
(Emphasis added.)
Johnson argues that the trial court misapplied Morton and asserts
that, like the filing in Morton, his motion was timely filed with the clerk of courts
using the electronic filing system. He further maintains that there was no prejudice
to the State, who received the filing and submitted a responsive brief.
The relevant facts of Morton are as follows:
[W]hile his direct appeal was pending, Morton electronically filed a
petition for postconviction relief . . . . The petition was captioned for the
criminal case in the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas, i.e.,
Cuyahoga C.P. Case No. CR-19-636658-A (the “criminal case” or “CR-
19-636658-A”) and was submitted for electronic filing (“e-filing”),
accepted for filing but was docketed under the case number for the
pending appeal in this court — Appeal No. 109200, not the case
number reflected in the caption. The state received a service copy [of
the] petition on December 23, 2020, through the court’s e-filing
system.
Morton at ¶ 3-4.
Morton was advised of the docketing error. He then sought leave to
file his petition on the correct docket and contemporaneously refiled the petition.
The State moved to dismiss the refiled petition, arguing, in part, that it was untimely.
The trial court summarily denied the petition.
On appeal, the Morton panel noted that the timeliness requirement
under the postconviction relief statute was jurisdictional. The court determined that
“under the unique facts and circumstances of [the] case,” the petition was timely
filed. Id. at ¶ 20. The court noted that, upon being notified of the error, Morton
“promptly sought leave and refiled the petition under the correct case number in the
trial court. . . .” Id. at ¶ 22. The court determined that “even though the petition was
initially submitted for e-filing and docketed under the wrong case number in the
wrong court, we find Morton’s petition was timely filed with the clerk of courts for
purposes of R.C. 2953.21(A) and that the trial court had jurisdiction to consider his
petition.” Id.
Like the trial court, we find Morton distinguishable from the instant
case. In Morton, the caption of the filed petition was correct, but the petition was
docketed under the wrong case number when Morton’s counsel filed it in the court’s
electronic filing system. Here, the caption of Johnson’s motion contained the case
number of the dismissed case, and the motion was docketed in the dismissed case.
Moreover, the Morton Court noted that its finding was based upon “the unique facts
and circumstances of [that] case.” As the facts in the instant matter are different,
Morton does not apply.
Moreover, Morton must be narrowly construed in light of the analysis
of the term “sentencing court” in State v. Kennedy, 2024-Ohio-5728, ¶ 19. A
“‘sentencing court’ is the court that imposed the sentence in the case . . . ” at issue.
(Emphasis added.) Id. at ¶ 19. Any continuing impact of Morton must be
questioned in light of the fact that no case law interpreting the phrase “sentencing
court” or “the court that sentenced the offender” existed at the time.
Morton at ¶ 19
(recognizing that neither party presented authority to address whether a petition for
postconviction relief filed in the appellate court constituted “in the court that
imposed sentence”). Since Kennedy, that is no longer the case.
In Kennedy, the defendant pleaded guilty to several offenses in three
separate cases, two of which were jointly handled by the same trial judge. Id. at ¶ 2.
In those two cases, the defendant filed separate motions for judicial release, claiming
to have served the minimum required term of the aggregate term as between cases.
Id. at ¶ 3. In order to be eligible for judicial release, an offender is required to
demonstrate that he or she is serving a stated prison term, which is defined as “‘the
prison term, mandatory prison term, or combination of all prison terms and
mandatory prison terms imposed by the sentencing court.’” (Emphasis added.) Id.
at ¶ 7, quoting R.C. 2929.01(FF)(1).
It was in this context that the Kennedy Court rejected the State’s
argument that, because the same judge had presided over two of the defendant’s
three cases, “there [we]re two sentencing courts in [the] three cases,” finding that
such an interpretation was contrary to the plain and ordinary meaning of the term
“sentencing court.” Id. at ¶ 19. While noting that “sentencing court” was not defined
in the statute, the Court determined that a “sentencing court” is “the court that
imposed the sentence for which the offender is seeking judicial release.” Id. at ¶ 7.
Consequently, the term “sentencing court” refers to each individual case, regardless
of whether the same trial judge was involved. Id. at ¶ 19.
Returning to the instant matter, R.C. 2903.42(A)(2)(b) requires a
defendant to “file the motion with the court that sentenced the offender for the
offense that classifies the person a violent offender.” (Emphasis added.) We find
that “the court that sentenced the offender” is simply a variation of the term
“sentencing court,” and therefore, the Kennedy analysis applies.
For this reason, when a statute requires an individual to file a petition
or motion to invoke the continuing jurisdiction of the “court that sentenced” him or
her, that document must be filed in the applicable case number to satisfy the
jurisdictional prerequisites. It cannot be filed elsewhere.
Here, the State had voluntarily dismissed CR-99-371189 in 1999.
Under Crim.R. 48(A), “[t]he [S]tate may by leave of court and in open court file an
entry of dismissal of an indictment, information, or complaint and the prosecution
shall thereupon terminate.” “When a criminal case is voluntarily dismissed, it is
terminated; i.e., ‘done, finished, over, kaput.’” Gates Mills v. Yomtovian, 2007-
Ohio-6303, ¶ 22 (8th Dist.), quoting State ex rel. Flynt v. Dinkelacker, 2004-Ohio-
1695, ¶ 23 (1st Dist.).
Johnson’s motion was filed in a dismissed case. Consequently, his
motion is considered a nullity. See State v. West, 2018-Ohio-4981, ¶ 6 (4th Dist.).
Because CR-99-371189 had been dismissed and cannot be reinstated, the trial court
lacked jurisdiction to consider Johnson’s motion as filed in the dismissed case.
After the State raised the issue of the incorrect case number in its brief
opposing the motion for relief, Johnson filed a reply brief. In his reply, Johnson
acknowledged that the motion had been filed under the incorrect case number and
moved the court to “adjust” the case number so the motion could be deemed filed
under CR-99-376601, which the court declined to do. The State contends that there
is “no legal authority to ‘adjust a case number.’”
By the time Johnson acknowledged his mistake in his reply brief and
sought to have the case number changed, his motion could no longer be timely filed
under the statute. The statute requires that the motion be filed prior to a
defendant’s release from confinement. Here, Johnson’s reply brief was filed on
January 16, 2025, while Johnson had already been released from prison on January
6, 2025. Consequently, at the point that Johnson acknowledged his mistake and
attempted to have the motion filed under the proper case number, the motion was
untimely.
Without the proper invocation of the court’s continuing jurisdiction
in CR-99-376601, the court lacked authority to do anything but deny the motion in
that case. The trial court could not assert authority by simply “adjusting” the motion
to the correct docket. See State ex rel. McGinty v. Eighth Dist. Court of Appeals,
2015-Ohio-937, ¶ 13 (a court that lacks jurisdiction over a matter lacks authority to
exercise judicial power).
The trial court therefore did not err in finding that it lacked
jurisdiction to consider the motion, and Johnson’s sole assignment of error is
overruled.
Judgment affirmed.
It is ordered that appellee recover from appellant 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.
A certified copy of this entry shall constitute the mandate pursuant to Rule 27
of the Rules of Appellate Procedure.
EILEEN T. GALLAGHER, PRESIDING JUDGE
SEAN C. GALLAGHER, J., CONCURS;
MICHAEL JOHN RYAN, J., DISSENTS (WITH SEPARATE OPINION)
MICHAEL JOHN RYAN, J., DISSENTING:
Respectfully, I dissent and would reverse the trial court’s judgment
dismissing Johnson’s motion for relief from duty to register as a violent offender
and remand to the trial court for further proceedings.
Johnson’s original indictment, filed in January 1999, was dismissed
in March 1999, refiled in a new case in June 1999, and assigned to the same trial
court judge as the original indictment. The judgment of conviction in the new case
was rendered in September 1999.
On January 3, 2025, days prior to being released from prison on
parole, counsel for Johnson filed a motion for relief from duty to register as a violent
offender; the attorney filed it under the case number of the dismissed case, however.
The mistake was called to the defense’s attention by the State’s brief in opposition
filed on January 14, 2025. On January 16, 2025, counsel for Johnson filed a reply
to the State’s opposition and sought to adjust the case number of its motion.
Johnson relied on this court’s decision in State v. Morton, 2022-Ohio-2358
(8th Dist.), in support of its request that the motion not be dismissed per the State’s
request but, rather, for the trial court to adjust the case number. The trial court
dismissed Johnson’s motion for relief on the ground that because he filed it under
the wrong case number it was without jurisdiction to consider it.
R.C. 2903.42(A)(2)(b), the statute under which Johnson filed his
motion for relief from duty to register as a violent offender, required him to “file the
motion with the court that sentenced” him. The State maintains that, because he
had the wrong case number on his motion, Johnson failed to file it in the court that
sentenced him. I disagree. Johnson did file his motion with the court that sentenced
him — the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas — on the docket of the same
trial court judge of the original case.
In Morton, which Johnson relied on in support of his request to adjust
the case number of his motion, this court considered the issue of whether a petition
for postconviction relief was timely filed when it was initially (and with time to do
so) filed in the wrong court. Specifically, the defendant filed his petition, which was
captioned for the trial court and had the correct trial court case number, in this
appellate court (he had a direct appeal pending) rather than in the trial court. Three
days after the filing, the defendant, after being notified by the clerk of courts of his
mistake, requested leave to file the petition in the trial court and contemporaneously
electronically refiled it in the trial court; at that time, the time to file a timely petition
had expired. The State opposed the defendant’s petition, stating that the subsequent
filing of it in the trial court made it untimely and therefore it should be dismissed.
The trial court granted the defendant’s motion for leave. The trial court summarily
denied the defendant’s petition.
On appeal, this court found that, “under the unique facts and
circumstances of this case, Morton’s petition for postconviction relief was timely
filed and the trial court, therefore, had jurisdiction to consider his petition.”
Morton, 2022-Ohio-2358, at ¶ 20 (8th Dist.). I believe this case, like Morton,
presents “unique facts and circumstances.”
However, the trial court distinguished Morton, first stating that the
defendant in Morton filed his petition in an active case, while Johnson filed his
motion “in a case that had been closed for approximately 25 years.” February 28,
2025 judgment. Both of Johnson’s cases — the originally indicted case and the
refiled case with the judgment of conviction — had been closed for approximately
25 years, however. Therefore, I do not find the trial court’s first purported
distinction to be a real one.
Second, the trial court found that the defendant in Morton acted
“almost immediately,” while “several weeks passed before Johnson recognized the
error and to date, has not refiled his [motion] in the proper court . . . .” February 28,
2025 judgment. Again, I do not find this case to be distinguishable from Morton in
regard to the timing of the defendants’ action to correct course. In Morton, the
defendant sought to correct his error three days after he was notified by the clerk of
courts of his error. See Morton at ¶ 5. Here, Johnson filed his request to adjust the
case number two days after being notified by the State (through its brief in
opposition) of his error, which was less than two weeks from when he originally filed
his motion for relief. The bottom line is that both defendants were alerted of their
errors (they did not find them on their own) and took what I would consider to be
immediate action to correct course.
Regarding Johnson not refiling his motion in the “proper court,” he
did file in the proper court and on the docket of the same trial court judge who
handled the dismissed case. And obviously his request to “adjust the case number”
was so that he would not have to refile the motion and it could be deemed timely
filed. I would find that Johnson’s request was reasonable and in the spirit of
Crim.R. 36, which provides that “[c]lerical mistakes in judgments, orders, or other
parts of the record, and errors in the record arising from oversight or omission,
may be corrected by the court at any time.” (Emphasis added.)
I also disagree with the trial court’s opinion that the “most
distinguishing” factor between this case and Morton is that Johnson’s motion “only
contained the court and case information for [the dismissed case] and was clearly
meant to be filed in that court.” The trial court reasoned that “there is no reasonable
argument that the clerk erred or should have rejected Johnson’s filing as intended
for another case or court as was the case in Morton.”
First, the trial court deemed “court” and “case number” as
interchangeable. They are not the same thing. Court is the tribunal with authority
to preside over a case, while the case number identifies a particular case before a
court. Johnson filed in the correct court — the Cuyahoga County Court of Common
Pleas — and even on the correct trial judge’s docket; he merely had the wrong case
number. This case, in my opinion, presents an even stronger argument for
correction than that in Morton, where the defendant filed his petition in the wrong
court — a court without jurisdiction to rule on a petition for postconviction relief.
Second, as to any argument that the clerk of courts had a
responsibility to reject either defendants’ filing, I would think it would have been
greater in Morton, where all the pertinent information (case number and caption)
indicated that it should have been filed in the trial court, not the appellate court.
Here, both of Johnson’s cases had been closed for years and I am not sure that we
require the clerk’s office to comb through records with the level of detail that the
trial court seems to think they should when accepting filings.
I am not persuaded by the majority’s reliance on State v. Kennedy,
2024-Ohio-5728. In Kennedy, the defendant was indicted, pled guilty, and
sentenced on three completely different cases (not refiled cases after dismissal of
the originally indicted cases). Two of the cases were handled by the same judge and
one case was handled by a different judge. The sentences in the cases involved the
imposition of the base time on two of the cases being ordered to be served
consecutively to the base time on another case.
After serving a period of time, the defendant filed motions for judicial
release in each of the three cases. At issue in the appeal was whether the defendant
had served the requisite period of time to be eligible for judicial release. It was the
State’s position that the defendant’s “eligibility for judicial release should be
separately determined by ‘two sentencing courts,’ the one that imposed her sentence
in [the one case before that judge] and the one that imposed her sentence in [the two
cases before that judge].” Id. at ¶ 3.
The trial court judge who oversaw the one case denied the motion for
judicial release as to that case. The trial court judge who handled two cases granted
the motion for judicial release as to those two cases, reasoning that the defendant
was an eligible offender because the sentences in those two cases were the “sentence
of a single ‘sentencing court.’” Id. at ¶ 4, quoting R.C. 2929.20(C).
The State appealed the judgments granting the defendant’s motions
for judicial release, the court of appeals affirmed the trial court’s decision,1 and the
Supreme Court of Ohio accepted the State’s discretionary appeal on the following
proposition of law: “Judicial-release eligibility is determined separately for each
1 State v. Kennedy, 2023-Ohio-3078 (10th Dist.).
stated prison term, and a sentencing court can grant judicial release only on the
stated prison term imposed by that court.” Id. at ¶ 5.
In its analysis of the proposition of law, the Supreme Court of Ohio
stated that the meaning of “stated prison term” depended on the meaning of
“sentencing court.” Id. at ¶ 19. The Court recognized that there is no statutory
definition of “sentencing court,” but based on the plain and ordinary meaning of the
words concluded that “a ‘sentencing court’ is the court that imposed the sentence in
the case for which the offender has moved for judicial release.” Id. Thus, because
both of the two cases at issue had its own stated prison term, the Supreme Court of
Ohio held that the cases “must be treated separately when calculating whether
Kennedy has waited the required time to file for judicial release.” Id. The Court
noted that separate treatment was appropriate especially “given that the sentence in
[one case] includes a mandatory one-year prison term for a firearm specification
and may be subject to a waiting period different from the waiting period required
for the sentence imposed in [the other case], which did not contain a firearm
specification.” Id.
I believe Kennedy is wholly distinguishable from the issue presented
here. The salient issue here is whether the trial court had jurisdiction to entertain
Johnson’s motion for relief from registration as a violent offender. Although I
recognize that a case may be relied on to support a sub-issue of a main issue, I note
that the word jurisdiction does not appear even once in the Kennedy decision. To
the extent that any of the Kennedy decision can be applied here, I believe it would
inure to Johnson’s benefit. Specifically, as the Kennedy Court stated, the
“‘sentencing court’ is the court that imposed the sentence in the case for which the
offender has moved for,” in this case, relief from duty to register as a violent
offender. Id. For the reasons already discussed, I believe Johnson filed his motion
with the sentencing court. I do not believe Kennedy waters down Morton, 2022-
Ohio-2358 (8th Dist.), as suggested by the majority.
Thus, in light of all of the above and relying on the age-old principle
that cases are best decided on their merits, I respectfully dissent.
