After the Appeal
ORC 2953.21 — the year that starts before anybody mentions it
A direct appeal argues about what is in the record. It reads the transcript and says the court got something wrong on the page. A petition for postconviction relief is the other thing: a separate civil proceeding about a constitutional violation that the record does not show, filed in the trial court rather than the appeals court. The two are not stages of one process, they are different remedies with different clocks, and the second one is easy to lose by not knowing it exists.
Who handles this in Ohio: Ohio State Bar Association lawyer referral; and legal aid programs and the state offices, listed in the Ohio directory.
The clock runs from a filing nobody tells the defendant about. The petition has to be filed no later than three hundred and sixty five days after the date the trial transcript is filed in the court of appeals on the direct appeal. Not from the conviction, not from the sentence, and not from the day the appeal is decided. Where no appeal is taken, it runs from the expiry of the time for filing one. A person waiting to see how the appeal turns out can be out of time before the appeal is even argued.
That deadline is treated as jurisdictional rather than as a rule a court can be persuaded to overlook. A late petition may be entertained only where the separate section allows it, and that section is narrow on purpose.
| A late or second petition needs | What that means |
|---|---|
| A late or second petition needsOne of two gateways | What that meansEither the petitioner was unavoidably prevented from discovering the facts the claim rests on, or the United States Supreme Court has since recognized a new right that applies retroactively to people in that situation |
| A late or second petition needsAnd a showing on the merits | What that meansClear and convincing evidence that but for constitutional error at trial, no reasonable factfinder would have found the petitioner guilty |
| A late or second petition needsBoth, not either | What that meansThe gateway alone does not open it, and neither does the showing alone |
It is for what the record cannot show, and that is not a technicality. Anything a transcript reveals had to be raised on direct appeal, and res judicata bars relitigating it here. What is left is what happened off the page: an investigation a trial lawyer never did, a witness nobody called, evidence that was not disclosed, facts that surfaced afterwards. A petition that re-argues the trial from the transcript is the most common way one of these is dismissed without ever being heard.
A hearing is also not automatic. The court reads the petition alongside the files and the record of the case, and where those show the petitioner is not entitled to relief it can be dismissed without one. What gets a hearing is a petition whose supporting material points at something outside the record, which is why what is attached to it does more work than what is argued in it.
“What date was the trial transcript filed in the court of appeals.”
There is no automatic right to appointed counsel on a postconviction petition the way there is at trial, which is part of why so many are filed by people representing themselves and dismissed on procedure rather than on merit. A motion for a new trial, an application to reopen an appeal, and a federal habeas petition are each separate remedies with separate deadlines that interact with this one. Cases involving a sentence of death run on their own provisions. The Ohio Public Defender has a wrongful conviction project and the state's law school innocence projects take these, and a licensed Ohio attorney is who reads a record to work out whether there is a claim here at all.
Sources for this section (5)
- ORC 2953.21 — The petition for postconviction relief, and the year it has to be filed in
- ORC 2953.23 — When a late or a second postconviction petition may be entertained at all
- Ohio App.R. 4 — Appeal as of right, and the thirty days it has to be filed in
- Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963) — Suppressing evidence favorable to the accused and material to guilt or punishment violates due process, good faith aside
- Ohio App.R. 5 — Appeals by leave of court in criminal cases, after the thirty days have run
Legal information, not legal advice. Verified as of September 2026. Applying it to a particular situation is the work of a licensed Ohio attorney.