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| Case Caption | Case No. | Topics and Issues | Author | Citation / County | Decided | Posted | WebCite |
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State v. Poe
| C-170506 | SENTENCING – ALLOCUTION: The trial court’s failure to ask defendant if she wished to exercise her right of allocution before sentencing her to more than a minimum sentence was not harmless error where nothing in the record demonstrates that defendant was ever adequately informed of or afforded her right to make a statement to the court with respect to the sentence imposed, even though the court had asked defendant about a part of one victim’s testimony, and defendant had touched on the issue of guilt in response. | Cunningham | Hamilton |
8/17/2018
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8/17/2018
| 2018-Ohio-3279 |
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State v. Hoskins
| C-090710 | Constitutional Law/Criminal - Trial | Hildebrandt | Hamilton |
8/17/2018
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8/17/2018
| 2018-Ohio-3280 |
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State v. Lanter
| C-170385 | BURGLARY – JURY INSTRUCTIONS – LESSER-INCLUDED OFFENSE: The trial court is only required to give a jury instruction on a lesser-included offense where: (1) one offense carries a greater penalty than the other, (2) some element of the greater offense is not required by statute to prove the lesser offense, and (3) the greater offense as defined by statute cannot be committed without the lesser offense being committed; and the jury could reasonably convict defendant of the lesser-included offense. Receiving stolen property is not a lesser-included offense of burglary. | Cunningham | Hamilton |
8/8/2018
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8/8/2018
| 2018-Ohio-3127 |
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State v. Evans
| C-170420 | JUVENILE – BINDOVER – SPEEDY TRIAL: Where the juvenile was bound over by the juvenile court to the court of common pleas, the speedy-trial time began to run on the day after the juvenile court relinquished jurisdiction. Even though a judgment entry stated that defendant was “[n]ot waiving time,” where the continuance was granted at defendant’s request the delay caused by the request was not chargeable to the state. Where defendant waived a substantial amount of time, and a substantial amount of time was tolled due to his actions, defendant was tried within the speedy-trial period. Though defendant was not tried for over a year after his arrest on felony charges, his constitutional right to a speedy trial was not violated because much of the delay was caused by his requests for continuances, he did not assert his speedy-trial right until late in the proceedings, and the pretrial incarceration was not oppressive because the length of the delay was attributable to defendant. The juvenile court did not abuse its discretion in transferring jurisdiction to the common pleas court where the juvenile court considered the statutory factors, and its decision was based on the circumstances of the offense, the harm to the victim, and that defendant was awaiting disposition on another felony charge at the time of the offense and was minimizing his role in the offense. Where the record showed that the juvenile court considered a psychological report stating that defendant was amenable to rehabilitation in the juvenile system the juvenile court did not abuse its discretion in transferring jurisdiction to the common pleas court, because the juvenile court was entitled to disagree with the opinion of a medical expert and take into account the severity of the offenses. | Mock | Hamilton |
8/8/2018
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8/8/2018
| 2018-Ohio-3129 |
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State v. Hill
| C-170507 | BURGLARY – EVIDENCE – CONSTITUTIONAL LAW/CRIMINAL – MIRANDA – CUSTODIAL INTERROGATION – OTHER ACTS – COUNSEL – CUMULATIVE ERROR: In a prosecution for burglary in violation of R.C. 2911.12(A)(2), where the state presented evidence that a home was regularly inhabited, the residents were in and out of the home on the day of the burglary, and the residents were temporarily absent at the time of the offense, the state presented sufficient evidence to prove the likely-to-be-present element. A suspect who voluntarily gives information without being asked questions is not subject to custodial interrogation and is not entitled to Miranda warnings. Where defendant voluntarily submitted into evidence videos that contained other-acts evidence, he waived the right to appeal their admissibility. Defense counsel’s failure to object to the other-acts evidence did not constitute deficient performance where the case was tried to the bench and defendant failed to establish that the court considered the evidence or that there is a reasonable probability that the result of the trial would have been different absent the evidence. The doctrine of cumulative error is inapplicable where there are not multiple instances of harmless error. | Zayas | Hamilton |
8/8/2018
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8/8/2018
| 2018-Ohio-3130 |
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Hoffman v. Hoffman
| C-170640, 641 | DEFAULT JUDGMENT – PROCEDURE/RULES – CIV.R. 5 – CIV.R. 55(A): The trial court erred in denying defendants’ motions to vacate default judgments entered against them where defendants were not served with the motions for a default judgment or sent notices of the hearing on the motions despite having appeared in the action, in violation of Civ.R. 5 and Civ.R. 55(A). | Miller | |
8/1/2018
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8/1/2018
| 2018-Ohio-3029 |
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Banker's Choice, L.L.C. v. Cincinnati Zoning Bd. of Appeals
| C-170280 | ADMINISTRATIVE MISCELLANEOUS – APPELLATE REVIEW/CIVIL – STANDARD OF REVIEW – ZONING: A court of appeals’ review of an administrative appeal under R.C. 2506.04 is a limited one focused on the existence of legal error in the trial court; the appeals court’s authority is limited to reviewing the common pleas court’s decision on questions of law only, does not encompass that court’s power to weigh the evidence, and permits reversal only when the court of common pleas errs in its application or interpretation of the law or its decision is unsupported by a preponderance of the evidence as a matter of law. Pursuant to Civ.R. 53(D)(4)(d), when a trial court rules on objections to a magistrate’s decision, the court must undertake an independent review as to the objected matters, thus when, in exercising its independent review, the trial court’s judgment has modified the magistrate’s decision and conflicts with it to such a degree by rejecting important factual findings that underpin the magistrate’s decision, by employing its new factual findings in its analysis, and by choosing not to reach the magistrate’s legal holding regarding constitutional issues, the magistrate’s decision and the trial court’s judgment cannot be read together as one judgment. [But see DISSENT: Where the trial court cited the proper factors to consider when reviewing the magistrate’s decision and the proper standard of review to apply when considering the decision of the administrative agency and the decision of its magistrate, the trial court’s decision, based in part on its own analysis and in part on its agreement with the substantial analysis already conducted by the magistrate, may be read together to render the trial court’s judgment sufficiently complete to permit this court to affirm under the limited legal-error analysis provided by R.C. 2506.04.] | Cunningham | Hamilton |
8/1/2018
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8/1/2018
| 2018-Ohio-3030 |
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State v. Littlepage
| C-170207, 157 | APPELLATE REVIEW/JURISDICTION—POSTCONVICTION—GRAND JURY: The common pleas court properly declined, because it had no jurisdiction, to grant the relief sought in defendant’s postconviction motions: the trial court’s failure to make sentencing findings was neither reviewable under any postconviction proceeding provided by statute or rule, nor correctable under a court’s jurisdiction to correct a void judgment; and R.C. 2939.19 and Crim.R. 6(E) did not confer upon the common pleas court jurisdiction to order disclosure of grand-jury proceedings, when no proceeding within that court’s jurisdiction was pending. The court of appeals dismissed for lack of jurisdiction the appeals from the common pleas court’s judgments overruling defendant’s postconviction motions challenging the trial court’s failure to make sentencing findings and seeking disclosure of grand-jury proceedings, because those judgments were not reviewable under the jurisdiction conferred upon an intermediate appeals court by R.C. 2953.02 or 2953.08 to review a judgment of conviction entered in a criminal case, by R.C. 2953.23(B) to review an order denying postconviction relief, or by R.C. 2505.03(A) to review, affirm, modify, or reverse a “final order, judgment or decree.” | Per Curiam | Hamilton |
7/27/2018
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7/27/2018
| 2018-Ohio-2959 |
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State v. Thorton
| C-150586, 587 | OVI – PROBABLE CAUSE – SEARCH AND SEIZURE: The trial court erred by granting defendant’s motion to suppress evidence where sufficient indicia of impairment existed to cause an objectively reasonable police officer to conclude that defendant was operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol, including defendant’s (1) erratic driving; (2) slow response, lethargy, confusion, and disorientation; (3) odor of alcohol about him; (4) slurred and slow speech; (5) bloodshot and watery eyes; (6) repeated attempts to open a locked glove compartment with the wrong key; (7) admission to the consumption of alcohol; and (8) demonstrating four out of six clues of impairment on the HGN test, two out of eight clues of impairment on the walk-and-turn test, and two out of four clues of impairment on the one-leg-stand test. | Myers | Hamilton |
7/27/2018
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7/27/2018
| 2018-Ohio-2960 |
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In re C.S.
| C-170624, 653 | CHILDREN – CUSTODY – APPELLATE REVIEW – JURISDICTION – EVIDENCE – PROCEDURE/RULES – JUV.R. 45(B) – CIV.R. 41(B)(2): The juvenile court’s judgment dismissing the Hamilton County Department of Job and Family Services’ complaint for permanent custody was made in a special proceeding and affected a substantial right of the children and the children’s guardian ad litem under R.C. 2505.02(B)(2). Immediate review of the juvenile court’s order is necessary to ensure that, if the trial court did err in returning the children to their parents, the children are protected from physical harm and abuse, because the infliction of harm on the children would obviously be irreparable. Although the children’s siblings remain subjects of the state’s complaint and there was no Civ.R. 54(B) certification, the appellate court has jurisdiction under App.R. 4(B)(5) to hear the appeal: App.R. 4(B)(5) specifically contemplates an immediate appeal where there has been an order that affects a substantial right made in a special proceeding, but there has been no Civ.R. 54(B) certification. The trial court properly converted the parents’ summary-judgment motion to a motion to dismiss the custody complaint under Civ.R. 41(B)(2): the Ohio Rules of Juvenile Procedure do not provide for a motion for summary judgment, and Juv.R. 45(B) allowed the trial court the discretion to recast the motion. The trial court’s judgment determining that the children were not neglected under R.C. 2151.03(A)(2) was not against the manifest weight of the evidence: the trial court did not err in affording little weight to the children’s medical records without expert testimony explaining the significance of the records to the state’s allegation that the children lacked adequate parental care. The trial court erroneously concluded that R.C. 2151.04(C) required evidence of direct harm, and that the mere presence of the children in a home where a sibling had been abused was insufficient as a matter of law to prove dependency under that section. Where there was sufficient evidence that, if believed by the trial court, would support a dependency adjudication under R.C. 2151.04(C), the trial court erred by failing to consider the facts of the case under that section. | Miller | Hamilton |
7/27/2018
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7/27/2018
| 2018-Ohio-2961 |
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