Opinion
113061
01-10-2025
STATE OF OHIO, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. QUENTIN FIPS, Defendant-Appellant.
Michael C. O'Malley, Cuyahoga County Prosecuting Attorney, and Owen Knapp, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellee. Quentin Fips, pro se.
Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Case No. CR-22-667110-A, Application for Reopening Motion No. 578372
Michael C. O'Malley, Cuyahoga County Prosecuting Attorney, and Owen Knapp, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellee.
Quentin Fips, pro se.
JOURNAL ENTRY AND OPINION
ANITA LASTER MAYS, JUDGE
{¶ 1} On October 2, 2024, the applicant, Quentin Fips, pursuant to App.R. 26(B) and State v. Murnahan, 63 Ohio St.3d 60 (1992), applied to reopen this court's judgment in State v. Fips, 2024-Ohio-1692 (8th Dist.), in which this court affirmed his conviction and sentence for trafficking cocaine. Fips now asserts that his appellate counsel was ineffective for failing to argue the following: (1) trial counsel was ineffective for not calling his codefendant to testify that the drugs were his and that Quentin Fips was just giving him a ride, and (2) the verdict was not supported by sufficient evidence. The State filed its brief in opposition on October 15, 2024.
{¶ 2} App.R. 26(B)(1) and (2) require applications claiming ineffective assistance of appellate counsel to be filed within 90 days from the journalization of the decision unless the applicant shows good cause for filing at a later time. In the present case, this court issued its decision on May 2, 2024, and Fips filed his application on October 2, 2024, over 150 days later. Thus, the application is untimely on its face.
{¶ 3} For good cause, Fips proffers that lockdowns from prison construction and multiple drug overdoses, as well as a security search that destroyed or misplaced his legal papers, caused him to file his application late. The court is not persuaded that these excuses state good cause. The courts have repeatedly rejected the claim that limited access to legal materials states good cause for untimely filing. Prison riots, lockdowns, and other library limitations have been rejected as constituting good cause. State v. Tucker, 1995-Ohio-2; State v. Oden, 1996-Ohio-11; State v. Kaszas, 2000 Ohio App. LEXIS 3755 (8th Dist.); and State v. Porter, 2018-Ohio-1178 (8th Dist.).
{¶ 4} The Supreme Court of Ohio in State v. LaMar, 2004-Ohio-3976, and State v. Gumm, 2004-Ohio-4755, held that the 90-day deadline for filing must be strictly enforced. In those cases, the applicants argued that after the court of appeals decided their cases, their appellate lawyers continued to represent them, and their appellate lawyers could not be expected to raise their own incompetence. Although the Supreme Court agreed with this latter principle, it rejected the argument that continued representation provided good cause. In both cases, the court ruled that the applicants could not ignore the 90-day deadline, even if it meant retaining new counsel or filing the applications themselves. The Court then reaffirmed the principle that lack of effort, lack of imagination, and ignorance of the law do not establish good cause for failure to seek timely relief under App.R.26(B).
{¶ 5} Accordingly, this court denies the application to reopen.
MICHELLE J. SHEEHAN, P.J., and MARY J. BOYLE, J., CONCUR.