The Akron Legal News

Man who harassed woman with 3,000 phone calls loses appeal

ANNIE YAMSON
Special to the Legal News
Published: November 3, 2014

The Champaign County Court of Common Pleas’ decision denying a man’s petition to vacate his convictions was recently affirmed by a panel of three judges in the Second District Court of Appeals.

The defendant, James Cline, was convicted in 2003 of numerous counts of unauthorized use of a computer, menacing by stalking, conspiracy to commit aggravated arson, criminal mischief, intimidation of a crime witness and telecommunications harassment.

In all, Cline was convicted of 76 counts, but those were reversed on appeal due to problems with Cline’s waiver of his right to counsel.

Before he was retried, the state issued a supplemental indictment, charging Cline with an additional 255 counts of telecommunications harassment.

In 2006, a second jury trial ended with guilty verdicts on four counts of unauthorized use of a computer, two counts of conspiracy to commit aggravated arson, one count each of menacing by stalking, criminal mischief and intimidation of a crime victim and 176 counts of telecommunications harassment.

Cline was ordered to serve a total of 58 and a half years in prison.

The charges against Cline stemmed from his harassment of several women whom he met online.

Case summary states that Cline “used his knowledge of computers and the Internet, along with the women’s personal information, to create havoc in their personal lives.”

In one case, Cline plotted to burn down the house of a woman named Sonja.

A friend of Cline’s informed Sonja of a plan to sabotage her car and a mechanic found a mothball in the car’s gas tank.

Cline called Sonja and other women repeatedly, sent them vulgar messages, locked them out of their Internet accounts, attempted to sell their homes, arranged to have their cars towed and had prison inmates write them letters.

Cline made over 3,000 phone calls to Sonja alone during a two-month period.

Cline’s convictions were affirmed upon direct appeal in 2008 but while that appeal was pending, he filed a petition for postconviction relief.

The trial court granted summary judgment to the state, ruling that Cline’s claims for relief were barred by res judicata.

In 2013, Cline filed a pro se motion to vacate his sentence and the judgment of the trial court due to a lack of subject-matter jurisdiction and a lack of a charging instrument.

According to Cline, the indictments on which his convictions were based were fraudulent.

Specifically, Cline alleged that the charges had never been presented to a grand jury.

Instead, he claimed the grand jury foreperson signed a blank piece of paper and the prosecutor added the charges later.

The trial court denied Cline’s motion and he appealed that decision.

“Cline did not offer any evidence in support of this claim,” wrote Presiding Judge Jeffrey Froelich on behalf of the court of appeals. “Rather, he apparently relied on the state’s inability to disprove this claim.”

The appellate panel ruled that Cline’s motion was untimely, but proceeded to address his claims that the grand jury foreperson’s signatures were not properly attained and that the prosecutor’s signatures on the indictments were “improperly attached by lithographic means.”

According to Cline, his indictments did not confer jurisdiction because they contained the prosecutor’s lithographic signatures.

He argued that any person with the proper equipment could print such a signature.

He also stated that the indictments were “simply a group of papers with a pre-printed signature purporting to be that of the prosecutor and a purported signature of a grand jury foreperson.”

“There is absolutely nothing in the purported indictments that would distinguish it from other papers filed in Champaign County purporting to be the indictments,” Cline wrote in his appellate brief.

The appellate panel held that defects in the indictment would not render a judgment void.

Additionally, it ruled that Cline failed to prove that there were any flaws in the indictments.

“Cline has presented no evidence to support his speculation and ‘hypotheticals’ about the circumstances surrounding the execution of the indictments,” wrote Froelich. “In the absence of such evidence, we will not presume that his indictments were the product of a conspiracy on the part of the foreman, prosecutor or others.”

Concluding that the indictments were properly signed and that there was no evidence of Cline’s suggested subterfuge, the court of appeals affirmed the judgment of the trial court.

Judges Mike Fain and Mary Donovan concurred.

The case is cited State v. Cline, 2014-Ohio-4503.

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