Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Between 1987 and 2007, Appellant was convicted six times for different offenses. In 2007, the Governor granted a pardon for four of those convictions. Appellant subsequently sought to seal the records of three of the pardoned convictions. The lower courts denied Appellant's requests. The court of appeals affirmed, holding that Appellant was not entitled to have her record of conviction sealed solely by virtue of the pardon. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that, in absence of a statutory provision requiring the sealing of a criminal record based on a pardon, a gubernatorial pardon does not automatically entitle the recipient to have the record of the pardoned conviction sealed. View "State v. Boykin" on Justia Law

Appellee was charged with a traffic offense, possession of drugs of abuse, and possession of drug paraphernalia. The drug charges were later dismissed. After Appellee applied to seal the records pertaining to the drug charges, the trial court ordered the records of the dismissed drug charges sealed, concluding that the conviction in the traffic case did not prevent sealing of records in the criminal case involving the drug offenses. The court of appeals affirmed. At issue on appeal was whether records of a dismissed charge may be sealed if the offense arises from or is in connection with the same act that led to a conviction on an unsealable charge. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that a trial court is precluded from sealing the record of a dismissed charge if the dismissed charge arises as the result of or in connection with the same act that supports a conviction that is exempt from sealing. Remanded. View "State v. Pariag" on Justia Law

Defendant was charged with violating Ohio Rev. Code 4301.69(A), which prohibits the sale of beer to an underage person. At Defendant's trial, the State had difficulty proving what Defendant sold to an informant was beer as defined by statute. The court then took judicial notice that Bud Light was, in fact, beer. Defendant was convicted as charged. The court of appeals reversed and ordered a new trial, concluding that the trial court erred in taking judicial notice of a fact - the alcohol content by volume of Bud Light - that was not something that was "generally known." The Supreme Court reversed and vacated Defendant's conviction, holding that because there was no evidence admitted on the statutory element of the alcohol content of the substance sold by Defendant to the informant, there was insufficient evidence for a conviction, and double jeopardy barred a retrial. View "State v. Kareski" on Justia Law

Harper, a known drug dealer, was robbed and murdered in his Sandusky residence. Police learned that immediately before his murder, Harper was to have participated in a drug deal. Cellphone records led them to Gipson, who was in custody in Canton, Michigan for his alleged involvement in another crime. Steckel, a Canton police officer, later testified that during a driving tour of the neighborhood, Gipson identified Ricks, who he knew as “Peanut,” as the other man involved in the murder. The judge instructed the jury that the hearsay testimony was not for the truth of the matter asserted, but to describe the investigation. Neither Gipson nor Ricks testified. Ricks was convicted. The Ohio Supreme Court reversed, holding that admission of the alleged accomplice’s statements through an investigating officer’s testimony violated Ricks’s (the defendant’s) right to confront the witnesses against him under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, and the Ohio Constitution. Gipson’s out-of-court statements connected Ricks to Gipson and to the crime. The danger of unfair prejudice was amplified by further testimony that Gipson was upset and scared by seeing Ricks, which encouraged the jury to misuse the content of the out-of-court statement for its truth. View "State v. Ricks" on Justia Law

In 2006, a jury convicted Appenzeller on18 felony counts. The trial court sentenced him to an aggregate term of 28 years in prison. The appeals court affirmed in part and remanded for merging of certain offenses and resentencing. The trial court again imposed a sentence of an aggregate term of 28 years in prison. The appeals court affirmed. Appenzeller unsuccessfully sought post-conviction relief based primarily on a claim that he was denied due process and equal protection when there was a break in the chain of custody of the trial transcript in his direct appeal. The alleged break occurred when Appenzeller’s own appellate attorney checked out the transcript to prepare his brief. The Ohio Supreme Court dismissed the petition, finding no violation of court rules or of constitutional rights. View "Appenzeller v. Miller" on Justia Law

In 2006, Dzelajlija was convicted of robbery, R.C. 2911.02. The court of appeals granted a new trial, finding that the trial court had admitted inadmissible and prejudicial evidence. In 2008, Dzelajlija was again found guilty and sentenced to concurrent seven-year terms. The appeals court reversed, finding that the indictment was defective for failing to state a culpable mental state for either offense. More than a year later, before a retrial, the Ohio Supreme Court decided State v. Horner, which overruled precedent relevant to the indictment being defective. The trial court determined that the grounds for reversal no longer existed and reimposed the sentence. The appeals court agreed, but nevertheless reversed, finding Dzelajlija’s argument regarding the manifest weight of the evidence, earlier declared moot, had never been resolved. On reconsideration, the appeals court held that the trial court erred in considering the matter as pending under the original indictment and vacated the convictions and sentences. The Ohio Supreme Court reversed and remanded: the sentences could not be reimposed, because there was an outstanding issue of whether Dzelajlija’s convictions were against the manifest weight of the evidence, but the convictions were vacated based on cases that have been repudiated. View "State v. Dzelajlija" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of eleven counts of rape and one count of attempted rape. During Defendant's trial, the acting administrative judge granted the State's motion to depose a witness on videotape. The ruling never made it onto the case docket, but the deposition was held, and the videotaped testimony was admitted into evidence. More than ten years after he was convicted, Defendant filed a motion to vacate the order granting testimony by deposition. The court of common pleas denied the motion. Defendant subsequently filed a petition for a writ of mandamus in the court of appeals requesting that the order be declared void. The court of appeals dismissed the writ, finding that the deposition testimony was proper and that Defendant had an adequate remedy at law by way of appeal after the trial court denied his motion to vacate. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that because Defendant had an adequate remedy at law by way of appeal, he could not establish the elements for a writ of mandamus. View "State ex rel. Ervin v. Court of Common Pleas (Barker)" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to fifth-degree-felony theft of property valued at $500 or more but less than $5,000 for misappropriating intellectual property from his employer (Employer). As part of his sentence, the trial court ordered Defendant to pay restitution to Employer in the amount of $63,121, representing the costs of a company investigation and an accounting. The court of appeals affirmed the order of restitution. The Supreme Court reversed, holding (1) a trial court has discretion to base the amount of restitution in an appropriate case on the amount it orders on a recommendation of the victim, the offender, a presentence investigation report, and other information, but the amount ordered cannot be greater than the amount of economic loss suffered as a direct and proximate result of the commission of the offense; (2) a hearing on restitution is required only if the offender, victim, or survivor disputes the amount of restitution ordered; and (3) the trial court lacked authority in this case to order $63,121 in restitution. Remanded. View "State v. Lalain" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant, a police officer, was convicted of abduction and intimidation, each with an accompanying firearm specification. On appeal, the court of appeals partially reversed and remanded for a new trial on the abduction charges, holding that the trial court's instructions to the jury on the offense of abduction were fatally deficient. The court also reversed the gun specifications. At issue on appeal were the following issues: (1) whether police officers are exempt from prosecution for the offense of intimidation when accused of abusing their power to intimidate; and (2) what instructions a trial court must give to the jury on the definition of the "privilege" exception to the offense of abduction where the defendant is a police officer accused of abusing his privilege to arrest and detain. The Supreme Court partially reversed, holding that the court of appeals (1) correctly upheld Defendant's intimidation conviction; but (2) incorrectly held that the definition of "privilege" provided by the trial court constituted plain error. View "State v. Steele" on Justia Law

In 1979, Appellant pled guilty to felonies and was sentenced to four to twenty-five years. In 1980, Appellant was paroled. In 1982, Appellant pled guilty to several more felonies and was sentenced to five to twenty-five more years. Appellant filed a writ of habeas corpus, arguing that the sentences imposed on him after he violated parole were to be served concurrently with his original 1979 sentence. The court of appeals granted summary judgment in favor of Appellee, warden of the Grafton Correctional Institution, concluding that former Ohio Rev. Code 2929.41(B)(3) required the sentences to be served consecutively. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the statute at the time required that Appellant's sentences be served consecutively, and even if it did not, the judgment entries did not support Appellant's arguments. View "State ex rel. Thompson v. Kelly" on Justia Law