State ex rel. Mayes v. Holman

[This opinion has been published in Ohio Official Reports at 

76 Ohio St.3d 147

.]




THE STATE EX REL. MAYES, APPELLANT, v. HOLMAN, PROS. ATTY., APPELLEE.
             [Cite as State ex rel. Mayes v. Holman, 

1996-Ohio-420

.]
Public records—Mandamus to compel prosecuting attorney to mail to relator the
        remaining page of sheriff’s department supplemental report omitted from
        previous mailing dealing with incarcerated relator’s criminal case—Writ
        denied, when.
          (No. 96-395—Submitted June 4, 1996—Decided July 24, 1996.)
   APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Medina County, No. 95 CA 2506-M.
                                  __________________
        {¶ 1} Appellant, Darryl Mayes, Sr., was convicted of aggravated burglary
and theft with a violence specification. The Court of Appeals for Medina County
affirmed his convictions and sentence, and we denied Mayes’s discretionary appeal.
State v. Mayes (July 26, 1995), Medina App. No. 2393-M, unreported, 

1995 WL 446682

; State v. Mayes (1995), 

74 Ohio St.3d 1476

, 

657 N.E.2d 783

.
        {¶ 2} During his criminal trial, Mayes received pages two through five of a
Medina County Sheriff’s Department supplemental report and certain pages of a
Hinckley Police Department supplemental report. By letter dated October 20, 1995,
Mayes requested that appellee, Medina County Prosecuting Attorney Dean
Holman, mail copies of the remaining pages of these police reports to him. The
Hinckley Police Department subsequently mailed a complete copy of its
supplemental police report to Mayes, who is incarcerated at the Mansfield
Correctional Institution. However, Holman failed to mail a copy of the requested
first page of the Medina County Sheriff’s Department supplemental report.
        {¶ 3} In November 1995, Mayes filed a complaint in the court of appeals
for a writ of mandamus to compel the release of the requested page under Ohio’s
Public Records Act, R.C. 149.43. Holman filed a motion to dismiss or, in the
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alternative, for summary judgment. Holman also filed an affidavit of Medina
County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Robert A. Campbell, who had prosecuted
Mayes’s criminal case. Campbell stated that the requested information was part of
the sheriff’s file, but was not discoverable under Crim.R. 16(B).
       {¶ 4} In January 1996, the court of appeals granted Holman’s motion for
summary judgment and denied the writ. The court of appeals concluded that the
subject record was not discoverable under Crim.R. 16(B) and constituted an exempt
trial preparation record under R.C. 149.43(A)(4).
       {¶ 5} The cause is now before this court upon an appeal as of right.
                              __________________
       Darryl Mayes, Sr., pro se.
       Dean Holman, Medina County Prosecuting Attorney, and William L.
Thorne, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellee.
                              __________________
       Per Curiam.
       {¶ 6} Mayes claims that the court of appeals erred in entering summary
judgment in favor of Holman and that he is entitled to a writ of mandamus
compelling the release of the requested record. Civ.R. 56(C) provides that before
summary judgment may be granted, it must be determined that (1) no genuine issue
as to any material fact remains to be litigated, (2) the moving party is entitled to
judgment as a matter of law, and (3) it appears from the evidence that reasonable
minds can come to but one conclusion, and viewing such evidence most strongly
in favor of the nonmoving party, that conclusion is adverse to the party against
whom the motion for summary judgment is made. State ex rel. Parsons v. Fleming
(1994), 

68 Ohio St.3d 509, 511

, 

628 N.E.2d 1377, 1379

.
       {¶ 7} Mandamus is appropriate to compel compliance with R.C. 149.43.
State ex rel. Master v. Cleveland (1996), 

75 Ohio St.3d 23, 28

, 

661 N.E.2d 180, 184

. “Information, not subject to discovery pursuant to Crim.R. 16(B), contained



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                                January Term, 1996




in the file of a prosecutor who is prosecuting a criminal matter, is not subject to
release as a public record pursuant to R.C. 149.43 and is specifically exempt from
release as a trial preparation record in accordance with R.C. 149.43(A)(4).” State
ex rel. Steckman v. Jackson (1994), 

70 Ohio St.3d 420

, 

639 N.E.2d 83

, paragraph
three of the syllabus.
       {¶ 8} Mayes asserts that once a record is released pursuant to Crim.R. 16(B)
in criminal discovery, it is a public record which must be released on request in
compliance with R.C. 149.43. However, Mayes did not support this assertion with
Civ.R. 56 evidence in the court of appeals. Instead, the only appropriate summary
judgment evidence was Campbell’s affidavit, which established that the requested
record was not discoverable under Crim.R. 16(B) and that Mayes had already been
given all information to which he was entitled under Crim.R. 16(B). When a
motion for summary judgment is made and supported as provided in Civ.R. 56, the
nonmoving party may not rest on the mere allegations of his pleading, but his
response, by affidavit or as otherwise provided in Civ.R. 56, must set forth specific
facts showing that there is a genuine triable issue. State ex rel. Zimmerman v.
Tompkins (1996), 

75 Ohio St.3d 447, 449

, 

663 N.E.2d 639, 641

; Civ.R. 56(E).
Therefore, Mayes’s claim that he is entitled to the requested record because it was
subject to discovery under Crim.R. 16(B) is not supported by the record and is
meritless.
       {¶ 9} In addition, Mayes appears to contend that despite its inclusion in the
prosecutor’s file, the requested record does not constitute a trial preparation record
under R.C. 149.43(A)(4), whether or not it was discoverable under Crim.R. 16(B).
See, e.g., State ex rel. Carpenter v. Tubbs Jones (1995), 

72 Ohio St.3d 579, 580

,

651 N.E.2d 993, 994

 (“Not every record contained within a prosecutor’s file is an
exempt ‘trial preparation record.’ Documents discoverable under Crim.R. 16(B) or
other records, such as routine office and indictment reports, fall outside the
definition of ‘trial preparation record’ and are always subject to disclosure upon




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request by the criminal defendant.”); 

Steckman, supra,

 at paragraph five of the
syllabus (“Routine offense and incident reports are subject to immediate release
upon request.”).
       {¶ 10} Nevertheless, even if Mayes’s latter contention has merit, he is still
not entitled to extraordinary relief in mandamus. As Mayes acknowledged in his
complaint in the court of appeals, Holman possesses no clear legal duty to transmit
copies of public records by mail. State ex rel. Nelson v. Tubbs Jones (1993), 

67 Ohio St.3d 438

, 

619 N.E.2d 287

; State ex rel. Nelson v. Fuerst (1993), 

66 Ohio St.3d 47

, 

607 N.E.2d 836

.
       {¶ 11} Accordingly, for the foregoing reasons, the court of appeals did not
err in granting Holman’s motion for summary judgment and denying the writ. The
judgment of the court of appeals is affirmed.
                                                                Judgment affirmed.
       MOYER, C.J., DOUGLAS, RESNICK, F.E. SWEENEY, PFEIFER, COOK and
STRATTON, JJ., concur.
                              __________________




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