Background
Devante Jones drove a stolen ATV on a Cleveland street at night without working headlights, with Valarie Billings riding as a passenger. After an accident injured both riders, Jones left the scene without calling police or emergency services, leaving Billings injured.
Jones pleaded guilty to attempted vehicular assault, a fourth-degree felony, and failure to stop after an accident, a fifth-degree felony. The Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas imposed consecutive prison terms of 18 and 12 months, for an aggregate 30-month sentence. Its sentencing entry also imposed a three-year driver’s license suspension, although the court did not mention a suspension at the sentencing hearing.
The Court’s Holding
The Eighth District rejected Jones’s challenge to his guilty plea. Under the Ohio Supreme Court’s recent decision in State v. Fontanez, a court’s failure to explain that a guilty plea is a complete admission of guilt does not invalidate the plea absent a claim of actual innocence. Jones made no such claim and raised no other Crim.R. 11 deficiency.
The court also upheld the prison sentence. Jones was allowed to allocute before the court actually imposed sentence, even though the court had indicated beforehand that it intended to impose consecutive terms. The trial court acted within its discretion in declining to hear from Jones’s friends and family, and Jones’s challenge to the maximum terms under R.C. 2929.11 and 2929.12 did not provide a basis for relief under the governing appellate sentencing standard. But because the license suspension appeared only in the journal entry and was not imposed orally at sentencing, the court vacated that portion of the sentence and remanded for resentencing limited to the suspension issue under R.C. 4549.02(B)(4).
Key Takeaways
- A guilty plea is not invalid merely because the trial court did not state that it is a complete admission of guilt, absent an assertion of actual innocence.
- A court may state its intended sentence before allocution so long as it affords allocution before actually imposing sentence.
- A driver’s license suspension included in a sentencing entry but not pronounced at sentencing must be vacated and resentenced.
Why It Matters
The decision applies Fontanez to foreclose a standalone Crim.R. 11 challenge based on the omitted “complete admission” explanation. It also reinforces that Ohio appellate courts do not revisit felony sentences simply because a defendant disputes the record support for R.C. 2929.11 and R.C. 2929.12 factors.
For sentencing practice, the case underscores that the trial court must impose a license suspension at the hearing; it cannot first appear in the journalized sentencing entry.