[Cite as State v. Hill, 2011-Ohio-3920.]
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS
FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT OF OHIO
HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO
STATE OF OHIO, : APPEAL NO. C-100554
TRIAL NO. B-9103654
Respondent-Appellee, :
D E C I S I O N.
vs. :
GENESIS L. HILL, :
Petitioner-Appellant. :
Criminal Appeal From: Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas
Judgment Appealed From Is: Affirmed
Date of Judgment Entry on Appeal: August 10, 2011
Joseph T. Deters, Hamilton County Prosecuting Attorney, and Ronald W.
Springman, Jr., Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for Respondent-Appellee,
Ravert J. Clark, for Petitioner-Appellant.
OHIO FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS
Per Curiam.
{¶1} Petitioner-appellant Genesis L. Hill appeals from the Hamilton County
Common Pleas Court’s judgment dismissing his postconviction petition seeking relief
from his death sentence on the ground of mental retardation or, in the alternative,
“diminished intellectual capacity.” We affirm the court’s judgment.
{¶2} In 1991, a Hamilton County jury found Hill guilty of aggravated murder,
aggravated burglary, and kidnapping in connection with the death of his infant
daughter. For the aggravated murder, the trial court imposed a sentence of death. Hill
unsuccessfully challenged his convictions in direct appeals to this court, the Ohio
Supreme Court, and the United States Supreme Court,1 and in postconviction petitions
filed in 19962 and 2000.3 His petition for a writ of habeas corpus remains pending
before the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio.
{¶3} On October 21, 2009, Hill filed with the common pleas court a third
postconviction petition. In his petition, Hill cited the United States Supreme Court’s
decision in Atkins v. Virginia4 in support of his claim seeking relief from his death
sentence on the ground that he is mentally retarded. He later amended his petition to
seek, in the alternative, a new sentencing hearing for the purpose of determining
whether, in light of “the change[d] national consensus against imposing the death
penalty on mentally retarded offenders identified in Atkins[,] * * * [his] diminished
intellectual capacity is sufficiently mitigating to outweigh the aggravating
1 See State v. Hill (Dec. 22, 1994), 1st Dist. Nos. C-910916 and C-940487, affirmed, 75 Ohio St.3d
195, 1996-Ohio-222, 661 N.E.2d 1068, certiorari denied sub nom. Hill v. Ohio (1996), 519 U.S.
895, 117 S.Ct. 241.
2 See State v. Hill (Nov. 21, 1997), 1st Dist. No. C-961052, discretionary appeal not allowed (1998),
81 Ohio St.3d 1468, 690 N.E.2d 1288.
3 See State v. Hill (Dec. 24, 2003), 1st Dist. No. C-030384, appeal not accepted for review, 102
Ohio St.3d 1448, 2004-Ohio-2263, 808 N.E.2d 398.
4 (2002), 536 U.S. 304, 122 S.Ct. 2242.
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OHIO FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS
circumstances and justify imposition of a [life] sentence.” The common pleas court
dismissed the petition as amended. This appeal followed.
{¶4} Hill presents on appeal five assignments of error. He contends that the
common pleas court erred in (1) failing to make findings of fact and conclusions of law
concerning his alternative claim for relief, (2) failing to “address” his alternative claim,
(3) dismissing his postconviction petition on the ground that it was late, (4) applying to
his Atkins claim a “heightened burden of proof,” and (5) failing to conduct an
evidentiary hearing on his postconviction claims.
I. Hill’s Atkins Claim
{¶5} We address first Hill’s third and fifth assignments of error to the extent
that they challenge the dismissal of his postconviction Atkins claim without an
evidentiary hearing, and his fourth assignment of error, challenging the
constitutionality of the court’s “application of a heightened burden of proof” in
reviewing this claim. These challenges are untenable.
{¶6} In June 2002, the Supreme Court ruled in Atkins that executing a
mentally retarded offender violates the proscription against cruel and unusual
punishment contained in the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution.5
The Supreme Court in Atkins left to the states the task of establishing procedures and
substantive standards for adjudicating an Atkins claim. In December 2002, the Ohio
Supreme Court in State v. Lott6 determined that R.C. 2953.21 et seq., governing the
proceedings on a petition for postconviction relief, provided “a suitable statutory
framework for reviewing [an] Atkins claim” advanced by an offender who had been
sentenced to death before the Lott decision.7
5 Id.
6 97 Ohio St.3d 303, 2002-Ohio-6625, 779 N.E.2d 1011.
7 Id. at ¶13.
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{¶7} The postconviction statutes confer upon a common pleas court
jurisdiction to entertain a collateral challenge to a judgment of conviction based on a
state or federal constitutional violation that occurred during the proceedings resulting
in the conviction, if the petitioner satisfies either R.C. 2953.21’s time limits or R.C.
2953.23’s jurisdictional requirements.8 R.C. 2953.21, in relevant part, requires that a
postconviction petition be filed within 180 days after the trial transcript was filed in the
direct appeal to the court of appeals.9 R.C. 2953.23 closely circumscribes the common
pleas court’s jurisdiction to entertain a late or successive postconviction petition: the
petitioner must show either that he was unavoidably prevented from discovering the
facts upon which his claim depends, or that his claim is predicated upon a new,
retrospectively applicable federal or state right recognized by the United States
Supreme Court since the period prescribed by R.C. 2953.21 expired;10 and when the
claim challenges a death sentence, the petitioner must “show[] by clear and convincing
evidence that, * * * but for constitutional error at the sentencing hearing, no reasonable
factfinder would have found the petitioner eligible for the death sentence.”11
A. “Heightened burden of proof”?
{¶8} As a preliminary matter, we note that the supreme court in Lott excused
from R.C. 2953.23(A)(1)(b)’s clear-and-convincing-evidence jurisdictional standard any
petitioner who had been sentenced to death before the Atkins decision, and who filed a
8 See R.C. 2953.21(A)(1)(a) and 2953.23(A).
9 See R.C. 2953.21(A)(2).
10 See R.C. 2953.23(A)(1)(a). The citations in this case are to the postconviction statutes as
amended effective October 29, 2003. In December 2002, when Lott was decided, R.C.
2953.23(A)(1) and 2953.23(A)(2) similarly permitted a common pleas court to entertain a late or
successive postconviction challenge to a death sentence if “(a) The petitioner shows that the
petitioner was unavoidably prevented from discovery of the facts upon which the petitioner must
rely to present the claim for relief,” or “(b) Subsequent to the period prescribed in [R.C.
2953.21](A)(2) * * * or to the filing of an earlier petition, the United States Supreme Court
recognized a new federal or state right that applies retroactively to persons in the petitioner’s
situation, and the petition asserts a claim based on that right,” and “[t]he petitioner shows by
clear and convincing evidence that, * * * but for constitutional error at the sentencing hearing, no
reasonable factfinder would have found the petitioner eligible for the death sentence.”
11 R.C. 2953.23(A)(1)(b).
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OHIO FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS
postconviction Atkins claim within 180 days of the Lott decision. For those petitioners,
the court declared, the common pleas court “shall decide whether the petitioner is
mentally retarded by using the preponderance-of-the-evidence standard.”12 But the
court held that a petitioner who files a postconviction Atkins claim “more than 180 days
after [the Lott] decision must meet the statutory [jurisdictional] standards for untimely
and successive petitions for postconviction relief.”13
{¶9} Hill was sentenced to death before Atkins was decided, but he filed his
Atkins claim nearly seven years after Lott was decided. Thus, the common pleas court
had jurisdiction to entertain Hill’s postconviction Atkins claim only upon his
satisfaction of the R.C. 2953.23 jurisdictional requirements, including R.C.
2953.23(A)(1)(b)’s requirement that he prove by clear and convincing evidence
outcome-determinative constitutional error in the imposition of his death sentence.
{¶10} In his fourth assignment of error, Hill challenges the common pleas
court’s review of his postconviction Atkins claim under R.C. 2953.23(A)(1)(b)’s clear-
and-convincing-evidence jurisdictional standard. He argues that the court’s review of
his claim under the “heightened” standard applicable to Atkins claims filed more than
180 days after the Lott decision, rather than the preponderance-of-the-evidence
standard applicable to Atkins claims filed within 180 days after the Lott decision,
violated the rights guaranteed to him under the Equal Protection Clauses of the United
States and Ohio Constitutions, because no rational basis supports the underlying
distinction.
12 Lott, 97 Ohio St.3d at ¶17 and 24.
13 Id. at ¶24.
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OHIO FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS
{¶11} But an inferior court must follow the controlling authority of a higher
court, leaving to the higher court the prerogative of overruling its own decision.14 The
supreme court in Lott held that a postconviction Atkins claim filed more than 180 days
after the Lott decision must satisfy the R.C. 2953.23 jurisdictional standards.15 The
common pleas court was not free to proceed, nor is this court free to decide, otherwise.
Accordingly, we overrule Hill’s fourth assignment of error.
B. No jurisdiction to entertain Hill’s Atkins claim.
{¶12} Hill’s postconviction Atkins claim satisfied the first R.C. 2953.23
jurisdictional requirement. R.C. 2953.23(A)(1)(a) requires a late or successive
postconviction petitioner to show either (1) that he was unavoidably prevented from
discovering the facts upon which his claim depends, or (2) that his claim is predicated
upon a new, retrospectively applicable federal or state right recognized by the United
States Supreme Court since the R.C. 2953.21 filing time expired. Hill was sentenced to
death before the 2002 decision in Atkins. And the supreme court in Lott held that a
postconviction Atkins claim filed by an offender sentenced to death before the Atkins
decision satisfies the R.C. 2953.23(A)(1)(a) jurisdictional requirement because the
Supreme Court in Atkins “ha[d] recognized a new federal right applying retroactively to
convicted defendants facing the death penalty.”16
{¶13} But Hill failed to satisfy the second R.C. 2953.23 jurisdictional
requirement. R.C. 2953.23(A)(1)(b) required that he also “show[] by clear and
convincing evidence that, * * * but for constitutional error at the sentencing hearing, no
reasonable factfinder would have found [him] eligible for the death sentence.” Thus,
14
See Johnson v. Microsoft Corp., 156 Ohio App.3d 249, 2004-Ohio-761, 805 N.E.2d 179, ¶11,
following Rodriguez de Quijas v. Shearson/Am. Exp. Inc. (1989), 490 U.S. 477, 484, 109 S.Ct.
1917.
15 See Lott, 97 Ohio St.3d at ¶24.
16 Id. at ¶17.
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OHIO FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS
Hill bore the burden of demonstrating the claimed Eighth Amendment violation by
offering in support of his claim clear and convincing evidence demonstrating that he is,
in the words of the Supreme Court in Atkins, “so impaired as to fall within the range of
mentally retarded offenders [against] who[se] [execution] there [had emerged] a
national consensus.”17 This he failed to do.
1. The mental-retardation criteria.
{¶14} The supreme court in Lott provided three criteria for evaluating a death-
eligible defendant’s claim that he is mentally retarded.18 The defendant must
demonstrate (1) that he suffers from “significantly subaverage intellectual functioning,”
(2) that he has experienced “significant limitations in two or more adaptive skills, such
as communication, self-care, and self-direction,” and (3) that his intellectual and
adaptive-skills limitations had manifested themselves before the age of 18.19
{¶15} Hill offered in support of his postconviction petition the 2001 affidavit of
clinical psychologist Michael M. Gelbort. Hill’s counsel had engaged Dr. Gelbort in
1999 to conduct a neuropsychological evaluation of Hill to determine if he
demonstrated brain or neurocognitive deficits or dysfunction. Dr. Gelbort interviewed
and tested Hill, examined records, and compiled a social history. Dr. Gelbort also
reviewed a “comprehensive mitigation report” provided in 1998 by Dr. Robert L. Smith.
The report “synthesized [Hill’s] long history of mental illness, drug dependency, and
detailed physical and sexual abuse.” Dr. Gelbort concluded that, at the time of his
offense, Hill had suffered from “long standing” “organic brain impairment” and had
“lacked the substantial capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct.”20
17 See Atkins, 536 U.S. at 317.
18 See Lott, 97 Ohio St.3d at ¶18; see, also, Atkins, 536 U.S. at 309, fn. 3.
19 Lott, 97 Ohio St.3d at ¶12; accord State v. Were, 118 Ohio St.3d 448, 2008-Ohio-2762, 890
N.E.2d 263, ¶176.
20 See State v. Bedford, 1st Dist. No. C-100735, 2011-Ohio-2054, ¶24 (citing State v. Carter, 157
Ohio App.3d 689, 2004-Ohio-3372, 813 N.E.2d 78, ¶22, to hold that the determination of a
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OHIO FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS
{¶16} Hill also supported his petition with the February 2010 affidavit of
clinical psychologist Karen Salekin. Dr. Salekin did not examine Hill, and she expressly
declined to provide an opinion concerning Hill’s intellectual disability. But based upon
the affidavits of Drs. Gelbort and Smith, Dr. Salekin concluded that “Hill * * *
require[d] a comprehensive evaluation of intellectual disability.”
{¶17} In March 2010, the common pleas court, at Hill’s request, appointed
clinical psychologist David A. Ott to evaluate Hill for purposes of his Atkins claim. Dr.
Ott evaluated Hill based on clinical interviews with Hill and his family members,
available records, and the affidavits of Drs. Gelbort, Smith, and Salekin. Dr. Ott’s
report was admitted as a joint exhibit at the hearing on Hill’s postconviction petition.
{¶18} The supreme court in Lott had formulated its mental-retardation criteria
based upon the clinical definitions of mental retardation cited with approval by the
Supreme Court in Atkins21 and provided in a 1992 manual published by the American
Association of Mental Retardation (“AMMR”)22 and in the 2000 Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders published by the American Psychiatric
Association (“DSM”).23 Dr. Ott evaluated Hill under the diagnostic standards set forth
in the 2000 DSM and in a manual published in 2010 by the AMMR’s successor, the
American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (“AAIDD”). In its
2010 manual, the AAIDD defined what is now known as “intellectual disability” as
“characterized by significant limitations both in intellectual functioning and in adaptive
behavior as expressed in conceptual, social, and practical adaptive skills, * * *
postconviction Atkins claim may be informed by expert testimony offered at trial for other
purposes).
21 See Atkins, 536 U.S. at 308, fn. 3; Lott, 97 Ohio St.3d at ¶12.
22 American Association of Mental Retardation, Mental Retardation: Definition, Classification,
and Systems of Supports (9 Ed.1992)
23 American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4
Ed.2000).
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OHIO FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS
originat[ing] before age 18.”24 In Dr. Ott’s opinion, Hill did not meet either the DSM or
the AAIDD criteria for a diagnosis of intellectual disability.
{¶19} Over-70 presumption. The court in Lott cautioned that an IQ test score
is merely one measure of intellectual functioning that “alone [is] not sufficient to make
a final determination on [the mental-retardation] issue.”25 Nevertheless, the court held
that an IQ score above 70 gives rise to “a rebuttable presumption that [the] defendant is
not mentally retarded.”26
{¶20} IQ tests administered in 1985 (when Hill was 13 years old), in 1988
(when he was 17), in 1998 (when he was 27), and in 1999 (when he was 28) yielded full-
scale scores of 85, 84, 77, and 75, respectively. Thus, Hill is presumptively not mentally
retarded.
{¶21} Intellectual functioning. Concerning Hill’s intellectual functioning, Dr.
Gelbort concluded, based on the full-scale score of 75 on the test he administered in
1999, that Hill operated in the “borderline mentally deficient range.” Dr. Ott found that
Hill’s 85 and 84 IQ scores on tests administered before age 18 “were consistent with
intellectual functioning within the borderline range of abilities,” but that his 77 and 75
IQ scores on tests administered after age 18 “were consistent with intellectual
functioning within the range of intellectual disability.”
{¶22} Adaptive functioning. With respect to Hill’s conceptual adaptive
behavior, Dr. Ott found “important deficits” in Hill’s self-direction skills, as reflected in
his willingness as a teenager to give away money or belongings to develop or maintain
friendships. Dr. Ott also found a significant functional academic deficit in arithmetic,
24 American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, Intellectual Disability:
Definition, Classification, and Systems of Supports 1 (11 Ed.2010).
25 Lott, 97 Ohio St.3d at ¶12.
26 Id.
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OHIO FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS
but otherwise found Hill’s academic achievement, along with his communication skills,
to be “consistent with his intellectual abilities as assessed.” Dr. Ott found no deficits in
Hill’s money-concepts skills. And although he found Hill’s safety skills to be “variable,”
Dr. Ott concluded that Hill’s unsafe behaviors were unrelated to an intellectual or
developmental disability.
{¶23} Concerning Hill’s social adaptive behavior, Dr. Ott found that, as a boy,
Hill had exhibited age-appropriate interpersonal skills and peer relationships. But Dr.
Ott found that Hill’s later relationships with older women possibly “reflect[ed] a
continuation of [the] sexual exploitation” involved in his sexual abuse as a teenager and
in a relationship in which he had provided sexual favors in exchange for drugs or
alcohol. Dr. Ott characterized as “conflicting” the available information concerning the
social skills of gullibility, naivete, and avoiding victimization: reports of sexual
exploitation, bullying, and victimization were tempered by Hill’s assertion that he had
endured being taken advantage of by his peers to avoid “circumstances in his home.”
This willingness to endure exploitation to develop and maintain friendships, along with
Hill’s feelings concerning his family’s limited resources and his academic difficulties,
suggested to Dr. Ott that Hill had also experienced “difficulties” concerning his self-
esteem. But Dr. Ott noted that Hill’s “difficulties” with the social skills of responsibility,
following rules and directions, and obeying laws, including his absenteeism from school
and work and his contact with the juvenile-justice system, had not emerged until he
entered adolescence and began to use substances.
{¶24} With respect to Hill’s practical adaptive behavior, Dr. Ott discerned no
significant deficits concerning Hill’s daily-living and self-care activities, his
instrumental activities of daily living, his transportation and community-use skills, or
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OHIO FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS
his home-living skills. But Dr. Ott found Hill’s occupational skills “rather limited,”
because tardiness and absenteeism had precluded Hill from holding a job long enough
to support himself.
{¶25} Onset before age 18. Finally, concerning Hill’s functioning before the
age of 18, Dr. Ott found no significant deficits in Hill’s intellectual functioning and
“early difficulties” only in Hill’s conceptual adaptive skills, as shown by his retention in
multiple primary grades. In Dr. Ott’s assessment, “more significant adaptive problems
* * * developed as * * * Hill entered adolescence.”
2. Over-70 presumption not rebutted.
{¶26} Dr. Ott based his evaluation of Hill upon clinical interviews and available
records, including the affidavits of Drs. Gelbort, Smith, and Salekin upon which Hill’s
postconviction Atkins claim depended. Dr. Ott found significant deficits in Hill’s
intellectual functioning after age 18, but not before. Dr. Ott also found that Hill had
exhibited deficits in his practical-adaptive occupational skills and in the conceptual
adaptive skills of avoiding victimization, functional academics (i.e., arithmetic), and
following rules/obeying laws. But because many of these deficits had emerged as Hill
entered adolescence and began to engage in “significant use of substances and
delinquent activity,” Dr. Ott concluded that the “available information [did] not support
the presence of substantial deficits in adaptive functioning to the degree required to
meet this prong of the diagnostic criteria.” And in the absence of significant deficits in
intellectual functioning before age 18, Dr. Ott concluded that Hill did not meet either
the DSM or the AAIDD criteria for a diagnosis of intellectual disability.
{¶27} Thus, the record before us does not demonstrate significant limitations
in Hill’s intellectual or adaptive functioning. We, therefore, hold that Hill has failed to
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OHIO FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS
rebut the presumption, arising from his over-70 IQ scores, that he is not mentally
retarded.
3. Atkins claim subject to dismissal without a hearing.
{¶28} R.C. 2953.21(C) authorizes an evidentiary hearing on a postconviction
petition. But a postconviction claim is subject to dismissal without a hearing, when the
petitioner has failed to submit with his petition evidentiary material setting forth
sufficient operative facts to demonstrate substantive grounds for relief.27 Thus, the
purpose of an R.C. 2953.21(C) hearing is to aid the court in deciding a postconviction
claim on its merits. And the statute cannot be read to mandate a hearing on a
postconviction claim that the court is without jurisdiction to entertain on its merits.
{¶29} The determination that a defendant is not, by the Lott court’s definition,
mentally retarded will not be disturbed on appeal if it was supported by some
competent and credible evidence.28 The court below had before it competent and
credible evidence to support a finding that Hill is not mentally retarded. Thus, Hill
failed to show by clear and convincing evidence the claimed Eighth Amendment
violation. In turn, he failed to satisfy the R.C. 2953.23 jurisdictional requirement of
outcome-determinative constitutional error in the execution of his death sentence.
{¶30} Because the common pleas court had no jurisdiction to entertain Hill’s
late postconviction Atkins claim, the court properly declined to conduct an evidentiary
hearing on the claim, and the claim was subject to dismissal. Therefore, we overrule
the third and fifth assignments of error as they pertain to the dismissal of Hill’s Atkins
claim without an evidentiary hearing.
27 See R.C. 2953.21(C); State v. Pankey (1981), 68 Ohio St.2d 58, 428 N.E.2d 413; State v.
Jackson (1980), 64 Ohio St.2d 107, 413 N.E.2d 819.
28 See State v. White, 118 Ohio St.3d 12, 2008-Ohio-1623, 885 N.E.2d 905, ¶45.
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II. Non-Atkins Claim
{¶31} The balance of Hill’s assignments of error challenge the common pleas
court’s disposition of his alternative postconviction claim. In his amended petition,
Hill asserted that “even if [he] * * * does not meet the legal definition of mentally
retarded so as to bar the death penalty entirely,” the Supreme Court’s recognition in
Atkins of an evolved national consensus concerning executing the mentally retarded
required consideration of his “diminished intellectual capacity” as a mitigating factor in
a new penalty-phase hearing. His first and second assignments of error challenge the
court’s failure to “address” or to make findings of fact and conclusions of law
concerning this claim, and his third and fifth assignments of error challenge the
dismissal of the claim without an evidentiary hearing. We are not persuaded.
A. No jurisdiction to entertain Hill’s non-Atkins claim.
{¶32} By the terms of the postconviction statute, “the violation upon which the
petitioner relies to establish his right to relief must be of constitutional dimension.”29
Hill did not specify the constitutional fundament for his alternative claim. But the
claim is expressly alternative to, and thus not predicated upon, the constitutional
principle declared in Atkins that executing the mentally retarded violates the Eighth
Amendment’s proscription against cruel and unusual punishment.
{¶33} Like his Atkins claim, Hill advanced his non-Atkins claim in his third
postconviction petition and well after the prescribed time. Hill failed to demonstrate
either that he had been unavoidably prevented from discovering the facts upon which
his non-Atkins claim depended, or that the claim was predicated upon a new,
retrospectively applicable federal or state right recognized by the United States
Supreme Court since the time for filing the claim expired. Thus, because Hill’s non-
29 State v. Powell (1993), 90 Ohio App.3d 260, 264, 629 N.E.2d 13; see R.C. 2953.21(A)(1)(a).
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OHIO FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS
Atkins claim did not satisfy either R.C. 2953.21’s time restrictions or R.C. 2953.23’s
jurisdictional requirements, the common pleas court had no jurisdiction to entertain
the claim, and the claim was subject to dismissal30 without an evidentiary hearing.31
We, therefore, overrule the third and fifth assignments of error to the extent of their
challenge to the dismissal of that claim without a hearing.
B. No duty to make findings of fact and conclusions of law
{¶34} In his first assignment of error, Hill contends that the common pleas
court erred in failing to make and file findings of fact and conclusions of law concerning
his non-Atkins claim. In his second assignment of error, he contends that the court
erred in failing to “address” the claim. Our conclusion that the common pleas court had
no jurisdiction to entertain Hill’s non-Atkins claim is dispositive of these challenges.
{¶35} R.C. 2953.21(G) requires a common pleas court to journalize findings of
fact and conclusions of law when it denies a petition for postconviction relief. But when
a court has no jurisdiction to entertain a late or successive petition, the court’s
disposition of the petition need not include findings of fact and conclusions of law.32
{¶36} Hill’s non-Atkins claim did not satisfy either R.C. 2953.21’s time
restrictions or R.C. 2953.23’s jurisdictional requirements. Therefore, the common
pleas court had no jurisdiction to “address” the claim on its merits. And R.C.
2953.21(G) did not require the court to journalize findings of fact and conclusions of
law concerning the claim.
{¶37} Nevertheless, the court below made and filed findings of fact and
conclusions of law. In its findings of fact and conclusions of law, the court “overruled”
30 See R.C. 2953.21(C), 2953.23(A), and 2953.23(B).
31 R.C. 2953.21(C) and 2953.21(E).
32 See State ex rel. Carroll v. Corrigan (1999), 84 Ohio St.3d 529, 705 N.E.2d 1330; State v. Byrd
(2001), 145 Ohio App.3d 318, 762 N.E.2d 1043.
14
OHIO FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS
Hill’s “petition[] and amended petition[]” because Hill had “failed to meet the statutory
standards for an untimely and successive petition” and had “failed to demonstrate that
he is mentally retarded under the standards set forth in State v. Lott.” Then, by
separate entry, and “for the reasons set forth in” its findings of fact and conclusions of
law, the court “dismissed” “the [p]etition.” Thus, the court must be said to have
“address[ed]” (albeit other than on the merits) Hill’s non-Atkins claim.
{¶38} Accordingly, we overrule the first assignment of error, because R.C.
2953.21(G) did not require the court to journalize findings of fact and conclusions of
law concerning Hill’s non-Atkins claim. And we overrule the second assignment of
error because the common pleas court had no jurisdiction to “address” the claim on its
merits, and because the court, in fact, “address[ed]” the claim in its findings of fact and
conclusions of law and, by reference, in its entry dismissing Hill’s petition.
III. Conclusion
To summarize, the common pleas court had no jurisdiction to entertain Hill’s
late and successive postconviction Atkins claim because Hill failed to satisfy the R.C.
2953.23 jurisdictional requirement of outcome-determinative constitutional error in
the imposition of his death sentence. Therefore, the petition was subject to dismissal
without an evidentiary hearing.
The court also had no jurisdiction to entertain Hill’s late and successive non-
Atkins claim because Hill failed to satisfy the R.C. 2953.23 jurisdictional requirement
of demonstrating either that he had been unavoidably prevented from discovering
the facts upon which the claim depended, or that the claim was predicated upon a
new, retrospectively applicable federal or state right recognized by the United States
Supreme Court since the time for filing the claim expired. Therefore, the claim was
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OHIO FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS
subject to dismissal without an evidentiary hearing and without findings of fact and
conclusions of law.
Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the common pleas court.
Judgment affirmed.
DINKELACKER, P.J., SUNDERMANN and CUNNINGHAM, JJ.
Please Note:
The court has recorded its own entry on the date of the release of this
decision.
16