Ohio Court Denies Habeas Challenge to Jail-Time Calculation and Double Jeopardy

by Derek Gilna

The Supreme Court of Ohio, in the case of Johnson v. Crutchfield, rejected an Ohio prisoner’s challenge to the calculation of his jail-time credits and his allegation that the aggregation of his sentences violates his protection against double-jeopardy. The court affirmed the decision of the Twelfth District Court of Appeals denying the habeas corpus petition of Ronald Johnson.

While on parole for an offense committed in Montgomery County, Johnson was arrested for several new crimes out of Fayette, Adams, and Highland counties, His parole in Montgomery County was revoked after the later arrests, but the revocation occurred after his newest convictions.

According to the court’s decision, “Johnson alleges that the time he spent incarcerated after his arrest on July 11, 2005, could be attributable only to the Fayette, Adams, and Highland County charges, and therefore he should have received jail-time credit up until the date of his last conviction in those counties.” Johnson also took issue with the Ohio Department of Correction’s aggregation of his “11-year sentence in Fayette, Adams, and Highland County with the 7-to-25 year sentence on the earlier Montgomery County conviction.” Johnson argued that this constituted double jeopardy.

The Ohio Supreme Court held that, “(a) review of the record reveals that several of the details Johnson states in his petition are either wrong or incomplete…,” that there were other convictions in other counties during the same time period, and that “he fails to acknowledge…that many of his sentences were specifically ordered to be served consecutively to the sentences that had previously been imposed.”

Additionally, the court also noted, that “habeas corpus does not lie to challenge the calculation of jail-time credit when the petition has an adequate remedy by appeal,” and that habeas would also not lie since even if the court agreed with his allegations, he would not be entitled to immediate release. See: Johnson v. Crutchfield, 140 Ohio St. 3d 485 (Ohio 2014).

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