Appeals court upholds sentencing of man who pleaded guilty to manslaughter

The Ohio Fourth District Court of Appeals has upheld a judgment from the Highland County Common Pleas Court regarding a re-sentencing hearing an post-release control for a man who pleaded guilty to manslaughter. 

According to the decision posted online Friday by the court of appeals, Timothy J. Taylor represented himself during the appeal, in which he "attack(ed) various aspects of the length of his sentence, including the court’s ability to impose consecutive and non-minimum sentences.

The court of appeals rejected a similar appeal from Taylor in April 2010, but noted in the ruling the appeal was "not without cause."

"The court held a resentencing hearing after it became apparent that it failed to advise Taylor of mandatory postrelease control sanctions in his original 1997 sentence," according to the appeal. "After properly advising Taylor of post-release control sanctions, the court imposed the same 16-year sentence it had in 1997."

According to court documents, "The state indicted Taylor in 1996 on charges of murder, abuse of a corpse, tampering with evidence, and theft. Under a plea agreement, Taylor pleaded guilty in 1997 to involuntary manslaughter, gross abuse of a corpse, tampering with evidence, and theft. His agreed sentence included prison terms of ten years for involuntary manslaughter, one year for gross abuse of a corpse, four years for tampering with evidence, and one year for theft. The court ordered his sentences to run consecutively, for an aggregate prison term of sixteen years. In April of 2009, Taylor filed a motion to have his sentence vacated on the basis that the court failed to advise him of mandatory postrelease control sanctions."

The state was represented by Jim Grandey and Anneka Collins of the Highland County Prosecutor's Office. 

Taylor submitted three assignments of error in the appeal, including that the court erred by imposing more than the minimum sentence and consecutive sentences;  that the trial court "erred by enhancing the Appellant’s sentence beyond the ‘Statutory Maximum;'" and it erred "by not imposing the Appellant’s sentence within the statutory mandates ... creating a unnecessary delay, thereby divesting itself of the requisite jurisdiction to impose any sentence in relation to this matter."

In the appeal, Taylor argued that, "he suffered an unreasonable nine-month delay in sentencing, which divested the trial court of jurisdiction to resentence him. The court promptly resentenced Taylor after he notified the court about the omission of a post-release control notification in his original sentence. The delay in Taylor’s resentencing is the result of our determination that the trial court mistakenly issued a judgment entry that lacked the necessary elements to constitute a final appealable order. After we dismissed that appeal, the court promptly issued a revised judgment entry. Thus, the nine-month period of delay in obtaining a valid final sentence was reasonable." 

The court stated that, "in his first two assignments of error, Taylor presents various arguments challenging the length and nature of his sentence. However, this appeal is limited to what occurred at the resentencing. Under the present state of felony sentencing law in Ohio, the court was limited to adding the proper postrelease control terms to Taylor’s original sentence. It did that. Therefore, the only aspect of Taylor’s new sentence that he can challenge in this direct appeal is the addition of postrelease control."

The court noted that due to recent Ohio Supreme Court rulings, had the appeal come before the court a few months earlier, "we would have held that Taylor’s first sentence was void."

"The Supreme Court of Ohio recently reassessed its previous line of cases involving postrelease control sentencing errors. Most notably, the Court overruled its holding in [State v. Bezak] concerning void judgments and the failure of a court to notify the offender of postrelease control sanctions ... the court held that a sentence that failed to include statutorily required postrelease control provisions is only partially void, i.e., the only 'void' portion of the sentence is the failure to impose the proper sanction and notice. Therefore, 'when a judge fails to impose statutorily mandated postrelease control as part of a defendant’s sentence, that part of the sentence ... is void and must be set aside.' ... "it is now clear that the trial court was limited at Taylor’s resentencing to the addition of statutorily required notice of postrelease control sanctions. Taylor cannot appeal an aspect of his sentence that the court did not, and in fact could not, revisit at resentencing."

The court overruled the first and second assignments of error. 

Regarding the third assignment of error, the court examined the timeline of a sentencing hearing and alleged delays. 

"In the present case, the court conducted a resentencing hearing on July 14, 2009. The same day, the court issued a judgment entry of confinement. Taylor filed a notice of appeal on Aug. 12, 2009. We reviewed Taylor’s sentencing entry and

subsequently ordered the parties to submit supplemental briefs addressing our jurisdiction over the appeal. After the parties filed briefs, we issued our decision April 7, 2010, holding that the trial court’s entry did not constitute a final, appealable order Accordingly, we dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction. Subsequently, on April 22, 2010, the trial court issued a revised entry which satisfied the requirements for a final appealable order. From this timeline, at best we can discern a fifteen-day “delay” from April 7, 2010 through April 22, 2010. Such a delay is not unreasonable. Nor do we believe the nine-month 'delay' between his resentencing in July 2009 and the entry of a final appealable order in April 2000 was unreasonable given the circuitous appellate.

"Regarding the third assignment of error, the court . Given the total lack of any evidence of purposeful or grossly negligent delay on the part of the state or the trial court, the period required to resentence Taylor was well within reasonable timelines."