The Akron Legal News

Ten years of appeals results in little success for Lake County man

ANNIE YAMSON
Special to the Legal News
Published: September 3, 2013

The 11th District Court of Appeals recently affirmed the judgment of the Lake County Court of Common Pleas in a criminal case with a lengthy history of appeals.

Michael Stalnaker sought reversal of the trials court’s denial of his motion to correct an unlawful sentence. Specifically, he maintained that the Lake County court should have declared his sentence void because, during his sentencing, the trial court failed to merge certain offenses as allied offenses of similar import.

Stalnaker was indicted in December 2003 on five counts of rape, six counts of gross sexual imposition and six counts of furnishing alcohol to a minor.

In the trial that followed, a jury found him guilty of all 17 counts and he was sentenced to an aggregate 33 year prison term.

Stalnaker appealed directly to the 11th District, which affirmed his convictions and the imposed sentences in all respects.

“In regard to his sentence, although appellant contended that the trial court failed to follow the correct procedure for imposing prison terms longer than the statutory minimum, he never asserted any arguments concerning the ‘merger’ issue,” wrote Judge Thomas Wright on behalf of the 11th District’s three-judge panel.

Following the issuance of the appellate court’s opinion, the court certified a conflict to the Ohio Supreme Court as to the constitutionality of judicial fact-finding during the imposition of sentence.

Meanwhile, Stalnaker submitted a separate notice of appeal to the Supreme Court.

However, after ruling on the issue of judicial fact-finding in a separate case, the high court dismissed both the certified question and Stalnaker’s separate appeal.

One year after the end of the Supreme Court proceedings, Stalnaker filed a federal habeus corpus action.

In that case, the district court remanded Stalnaker’s case to the trial court for resentencing, finding that it had engaged in improper judicial fact-finding as part of its determination to impose prison terms longer than the statutory minimum.

The Lake County court subsequently conducted a new hearing and rendered a new final judgment, again sentencing Stalnaker to a 33-year prison term.

Stalnaker appealed again, but to no avail and, over the next three years, he filed a series of unsuccessful post-judgment motions.

In his last post-judgment motion, Stalnaker finally argued that the trial court should have merged the multiple offenses of rape and gross sexual imposition.

The trial court, however, denied the motion, concluding that Stalnaker was barred from asserting the issue under res judicata because it could have been, but was not, raised on direct appeal.

Upon his most recent appeal, Stalnaker argued that the trial judge acted “beyond the scope of his power” by denying his motion, thereby rendering his sentence void.

According to Stalnaker, the doctrine of res judicata is inapplicable to the trial court’s sentencing judgment, thus, he was free to contest the legality of his sentence at any time after its issuance.

Stalnaker also claimed that the merits of his “merger” argument were properly before the trial court in his post-judgment motion to correct his sentence.

“The issue of when a criminal defendant can assert an ‘allied offenses’ argument has been before this court on multiple occasions over the past few years,” wrote Judge Wright. “In each case, we have expressly held that the doctrine of res judicata bars a defendant from asserting the ‘merger’ issue in a post-judgment motion for resentencing.”

In other words, the appellate panel held that the lack of merger must be contested in a direct appeal from the final sentencing judgment.

Judge Wright stated that when a trial court fails to properly merge allied offenses of similar import, such an error only renders the final sentencing judgment voidable, not void.

“In turn, this means that when a defendant does not raise the issue of allied offenses of similar import in a timely direct appeal, the challenge is barred by the doctrine of res judicata.”

Judge Wright proceeded to offer Stalnaker a possible remedy, stating that he could file a petition for post-conviction relief and argue that he was denied his constitutional right to effective assistance of counsel as a result of the failure to raise the merger issue.

If his petition is denied, Judge Wright stated that Stalnaker could then receive proper appellate review of the issue.

However, the advice proved to be more theoretical in nature when Judge Wright clarified that a post-conviction petition must be filed in the trial court within 180 days of the filing of the trial transcript during the first direct appeal from the conviction.

“The ‘merger’ issue must be asserted almost immediately after the issuance of the sentencing judgment, either in a direct appeal or a timely post-conviction petition,” stated Judge Wright.

The appeals court found, despite the fact that Stalnaker brought an immediate appeal of his conviction in 2004, he never argued that any of the 17 counts should have been merged for purposes of sentencing.

“Additionally, he never filed a timely petition for post-conviction relief,” concluded Judge Wright. “Therefore, the doctrine of res judicata bars his ability to litigate the issue in any further proceeding.”

Presiding Judge Timothy Cannon and Judge Colleen O’Toole joined Judge Wright in affirming the judgment of the Lake County court.

The case is cited State v. Stalnaker, 2013-Ohio-3479.

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