Background
Incarcerated litigant Frederick M. Hill sought access to affidavits and warrants sealed in his Stark County criminal case. On November 10, 2025, the Fifth District Court of Appeals received a stand-alone motion asking it to order Judge Frank G. Forchione to submit the records for in camera inspection. The Fifth District treated the filing as an action for mandamus or prohibition and dismissed it because Hill had not filed the affidavits required of inmate litigants by R.C. 2969.25(A) and (C).
Four days later, Hill filed a petition for mandamus or prohibition seeking access to the sealed records or their in camera review. He included an indigency affidavit and an affidavit listing his civil actions from the preceding five years. The Fifth District dismissed that case because the list omitted the November 10 action. Hill appealed both dismissals, arguing in part that he had intended the documents to constitute a single filing.
The Court’s Holding
The Supreme Court of Ohio consolidated the appeals and affirmed the dismissal of the November 10 action, docketed in the Supreme Court as case No. 2025-1686. Based on the record before it, the court held that the Fifth District permissibly construed the unattached motion as a complaint seeking extraordinary relief and properly dismissed it for failure to comply with R.C. 2969.25. The court declined to consider evidence Hill submitted for the first time on appeal concerning how he had mailed the documents.
The court reversed the dismissal of the November 14 action, case No. 2025-1687, and remanded it for further proceedings. Following its precedent, the court held that an affidavit under R.C. 2969.25(A) need list only actions already filed when the affidavit was executed. Hill signed his affidavit on October 30, 11 days before the omitted action was filed, so the omission did not make the affidavit deficient. Justice DeWine, joined by Justices Brunner and Deters, dissented from that part of the judgment, reasoning that the statute measures the required five-year disclosure period as of the date the new action is commenced.
Key Takeaways
- An inmate’s failure to submit the affidavits required by R.C. 2969.25 can require dismissal even when a court liberally construes the inmate’s pro se filing.
- Under the court’s controlling interpretation, an R.C. 2969.25(A) affidavit need not disclose a civil action filed after the affidavit was executed.
- An appellate court cannot decide an appeal using materials that were not part of the record before the lower court.
Why It Matters
The decision clarifies the relevant cutoff date for an Ohio inmate’s disclosure of prior civil litigation under R.C. 2969.25(A): the date the affidavit is executed, rather than the later date on which the accompanying action is filed. That rule saved Hill’s second writ action from dismissal, although the Supreme Court did not decide whether he is entitled to the sealed records or any extraordinary writ.
The divided decision also exposes a statutory-interpretation dispute. The dissent argued that the statute’s text requires the disclosure to be current when the inmate commences the action, potentially inviting future reconsideration of the court’s execution-date rule.