Background
Darius Carlos Burks pleaded guilty to two amended first-degree felony drug offenses and a fourth-degree felony offense under an agreement for an eight-year prison term, with the indefinite sentencing range required by Ohio’s Reagan Tokes Law. The state dismissed certain specifications and remaining counts; Burks agreed to forfeiture of property specifically identified in the indictment.
Before sentencing, Burks filed pro se motions to withdraw his plea and vacate the convictions, while counsel moved to withdraw. At sentencing, however, Burks told the court he was withdrawing his plea-withdrawal motions, would live with his guilty pleas, and wanted counsel to continue representing him. The court imposed the agreed eight-year minimum term, with a 12-year maximum, plus mandatory $10,000 fines on each first-degree drug count.
The Court’s Holding
The Eighth District overruled Burks’s challenges to the plea proceedings and mandatory fines. Because Burks expressly withdrew his motions to withdraw his plea and retained counsel, he waived, forfeited, or invited the claimed errors concerning conflict-free counsel and a hearing on those motions. The court also held that counsel’s failure to file a pre-sentencing indigency affidavit did not establish ineffective assistance because the record did not show a reasonable probability that Burks would have been found unable to pay the mandatory fines.
The court sustained Burks’s challenge to errors in the written judgment entry. It struck the entry’s unauthorized catch-all forfeiture language, “and all other items seized,” because the forfeiture was limited to items specified in the indictment and plea. It also remanded for a nunc pro tunc entry to state the correct 12-year maximum Reagan Tokes term, rather than eight years, and to correct Burks’s name. No new sentencing hearing was required because the trial court correctly announced those matters in open court.
Key Takeaways
- A defendant who expressly withdraws a presentence plea-withdrawal motion generally cannot later challenge the court’s handling of that motion.
- Failure to file an indigency affidavit supports an ineffective-assistance claim only when the record shows a reasonable probability that the mandatory fine would have been waived.
- A sentencing entry may be corrected nunc pro tunc when it conflicts with the sentence properly imposed in open court.
Why It Matters
The decision distinguishes between valid oral sentencing pronouncements and clerical errors in the written entry. It confirms that an appellate court may preserve convictions and prison terms while narrowly modifying an overbroad forfeiture order and requiring a corrected judgment entry.