Court Filings

The Sixth District Court of Appeals affirmed Andrew Symington’s 11-month prison sentence for a fifth-degree felony theft after a guilty plea. The trial court considered but rejected community control, citing factors including economic harm, that the offense was for hire, and Symington’s prior felony conviction and prior prison term. The appellate court found those findings supported by the record and concluded that even if the court erred in labeling the conduct organized crime or “for hire,” other valid statutory findings (notably Symington’s prior felony and prison term) independently authorized a prison sentence, making any error harmless.

The Sixth District Court of Appeals affirmed the Wood County Common Pleas Court’s June 27, 2024 judgments denying John E. Gebrosky’s consolidated petitions for post-conviction relief in two criminal cases. Gebrosky argued his trial lawyers were ineffective and that the trial court erred by applying res judicata, denying counsel appointment, and refusing an evidentiary hearing. The court held some claims were barred by res judicata because they could have been raised on direct appeal, but acknowledged other ineffective-assistance claims relied on evidence outside the trial record. After reviewing the affidavits, reports, and trial record, the court concluded the remaining claims did not raise substantive grounds for relief and that no hearing or appointed counsel was required.

The Ohio Fifth District Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court's denial of Jody Jones's petitions for postconviction relief in six consolidated Richland County felony cases. Jones had pleaded guilty in multiple indictments and later claimed ineffective assistance of counsel, failure to share discovery, unlawful stops/searches, and unreliable drug testing. The appellate court held most claims were forfeited or barred by res judicata because they could have been raised earlier or were contradicted by the record (including the guilty pleas and provided discovery). The court found no abuse of discretion in denying an evidentiary hearing.

The Fifth District Court of Appeals affirmed the Richland County Common Pleas Court's convictions and sentence of Charles R. Feagin. Police initiated a traffic stop after officers observed a lane violation while conducting surveillance; subsequent events led to a 12-count indictment for drug and related offenses. The trial court denied Feagin’s motion to suppress, he pleaded no contest to all counts, and received an aggregate sentence of 37 to 42.5 years. The appeals court held the trial court reasonably credited officer testimony, found the suppression and sentencing rulings supported by the record, and rejected ineffective-assistance claims for lack of record support.

The Court of Appeals affirmed Matthew Pajestka’s conviction for operating a vehicle with a prohibited blood alcohol concentration. After two prior remands and appointment of a visiting judge, Pajestka sought a continuance shortly before a November 21, 2024 jury trial because his defense expert was unavailable; the municipal court denied the requests and proceeded. The appellate court held that denial of the continuance was not an abuse of discretion, declined to review ineffective-assistance claims raised on direct appeal because the same firm represented him at trial and on appeal, and found the breath-test evidence sufficient and not against the manifest weight of the evidence.

The Ohio Ninth District Court of Appeals affirmed Todd A. Dunlap’s convictions for multiple sexual offenses based on abuse of his niece between about ages 12–14. Dunlap waived a jury; the trial court found him guilty on eight counts and sentenced him to consecutive terms on rape counts, finding him a sexual predator. On appeal he raised ten assignments of error challenging sufficiency and weight of evidence, pre-indictment delay, destroyed evidence, other-acts evidence, indictment specificity, chain of custody, cumulative error, and ineffective assistance. The appellate court found the evidence credible, no actual prejudice from delay or destroyed items, no bad-faith destruction, proper handling of other-acts and chain-of-custody issues, and no ineffective assistance.

The Eleventh District Court of Appeals affirmed the Trumbull County Common Pleas Court’s sentence of an aggregate 7-to-10½ year prison term for David Lucero, who pleaded guilty to ten second-degree felony counts involving creation and distribution of sexual material depicting minors. The appellate court reviewed Lucero’s claim that the trial court failed to properly consider sentencing statutes and alternatives to prison but found the trial court expressly stated it considered R.C. 2929.11 and 2929.12, and the imposed sentences fall within the statutory range. Because the record shows consideration of the required factors, the court found no reversible error and affirmed.

The Court of Appeals reversed a Trumbull County Central District Court order that had prohibited a surety, Chuck Brown II Bail Bonds, from posting any future bonds until a $1,000 forfeited bond for defendant Breonne F. Davis was paid. The trial court revoked Davis’s bond after she failed to appear, declared the bond forfeited, and imposed the prohibition without following the statutory notice-and-hearing procedures. The appellate court held the trial court abused its discretion by not providing ordinary-mail notice and a 45–60 day period to show cause under Ohio law, and remanded for compliance with the statute.

The Fifth District Court of Appeals vacated and remanded the defendant Carl S. Williams Jr.’s aggregate eight-year prison sentence because the trial court imposed consecutive terms without making all statutory findings required by R.C. 2929.14(C). Williams had pled guilty to multiple theft-related felonies while on post-release control and received consecutive eight-month terms plus two years for post-release-control violation. The appellate court found the trial court failed on the record to state that consecutive sentences were necessary to protect the public or to punish the offender, so the sentence was contrary to law and must be vacated for resentencing. The court upheld the post-release-control prison term itself.

The Ohio Fifth District Court of Appeals affirmed the Fairfield County Common Pleas Court's judgment denying relief to Robert Phelps. Phelps had pleaded guilty in 2020 and was sentenced to 15 years under a plea agreement. He later sought recusal of the trial judge; an entry labeled as denying judicial release appeared in filings but was not in the record. Appellate counsel filed an Anders brief concluding the appeal was frivolous. The appellate court found no arguable appealable error, held it lacked authority to review recusal under R.C. 2701.03, granted counsel's motion to withdraw, and affirmed the trial court judgment.

The Ohio Court of Appeals affirmed Kelsey Amos’s conviction for Theft (R.C. 2913.02(A)(1)) after a bench trial. The court reviewed sufficiency and manifest-weight challenges to evidence that Amos aided or abetted a co-defendant (K.B.) who took the victim’s e-bike. The court concluded the record supports a finding that Amos spoke with K.B., positioned the vehicle next to the bike, followed him after the bike was taken, and associated with K.B. before and after the offense; the trial court reasonably credited the prosecution’s theory of complicity and did not err in finding Amos guilty.

The Ohio Second District Court of Appeals affirmed the Montgomery County Common Pleas Court's denial of Raymond Warren’s application for postconviction DNA testing of three shell casings. Warren had sought testing for touch DNA after his 1995 murder conviction; the trial court initially denied testing, this court remanded for further factfinding about whether the casings remained suitable for testing, and on remand the trial court again denied the application. The appeals court found no abuse of discretion because testing authorities concluded the casings were at substantial risk of contamination and the record did not show the parent samples remained scientifically suitable for testing.

The Second District Court of Appeals affirmed the Greene County Common Pleas judgment. William J. Sawyer, bound over from juvenile court, pleaded guilty to rape and related sexual-offense charges and received a four-to-six year prison term and Tier III sex-offender classification. On appeal he argued the juvenile court erred by transferring him for adult prosecution and the trial court erred by denying suppression motions. The court held Sawyer waived suppression challenges by pleading guilty and concluded the juvenile court did not abuse its discretion in finding him not amenable to juvenile rehabilitation based on the statutory factors and expert testimony.

The Second District Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s restitution order requiring Jermaine Reynolds to pay $3,067 to his domestic-violence victim for medical expenses. Reynolds had pleaded guilty to misdemeanor domestic violence; the felony strangulation count was dismissed. The trial court relied on the presentence investigation report (which included the victim’s impact statement and three medical bills showing $3,067.54 owed) when ordering restitution. Because Reynolds did not object below, the appeals court reviewed only for plain error and concluded the PSI provided competent, sufficient evidence to support the restitution award.

The Court of Appeals reversed the trial court’s dismissal of a misdemeanor charge against Nathan Hake for illegally disposing of construction and demolition debris and remanded the case for further proceedings. The trial court had dismissed the charge as unconstitutionally vague, focusing on terms like “disposal,” “storage,” “temporary period,” and “substantially unchanged.” The appellate court held that the statutory and regulatory definitions give fair notice and are not impermissibly vague as applied to Hake’s alleged conduct (digging a pit, burying construction debris and household waste), so the dismissal was improper.

The Ohio Fifth District Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court's denial of Dennis Crowley's motion to suppress evidence found during a traffic stop. Officer Webb stopped Crowley on May 7, 2025 for a loud muffler in violation of Ohio law, and an inventory search of the towed vehicle uncovered powdered cocaine. The appellate court held the stop was supported by reasonable, articulable suspicion because Officer Webb observed and the body-camera recorded an audible rumble from the exhaust consistent with R.C. 4513.22(A). The conviction (no contest plea) and community-control sentence were left intact.

The State of Ohio appealed two Lucas County trial-court judgments that allowed cash seized in investigations to be applied toward fines imposed on defendant Shakur Ishmail Shabaa. The appellate court reversed and remanded. It held that (1) $122 forfeited through a civil forfeiture consent judgment could not be used to pay criminal fines because R.C. 2981.12(G) expressly forbids using forfeited property to pay fines; and (2) $4,460 that Shabaa forfeited by plea agreement could not be applied to his fines because the trial court lacked authority to alter the parties’ negotiated plea terms that specified disbursement to the State and Sylvania Township Police.

The Seventh District Court of Appeals denied Frederick Mundt’s application for reconsideration and request for en banc review of its prior opinion affirming the trial court’s dismissal of his postconviction petition under Ohio’s serious mental illness (SMI) statute. The court reaffirmed that Mundt had clinical diagnoses of Bipolar Disorder and Schizoaffective Disorder but found the record lacked sufficient evidence that those conditions significantly impaired his capacity to make rational judgments at the time of the offense. Because the trial court reasonably credited the state expert’s interpretation of Mundt’s conduct, the panel found no basis to overturn or rehear the decision.

The Eighth District Court of Appeals affirmed Tyler Stafford’s convictions and sentences after he pleaded guilty in three Cuyahoga County cases, including a third-degree count for having weapons while under disability under R.C. 2923.13(A)(2). Stafford argued the statute was facially unconstitutional based on this court’s prior Philpotts decision and that counsel was ineffective for advising the plea. The court held Philpotts had been stayed by the Ohio Supreme Court when Stafford pled, so the statute remained valid; and the record did not show counsel was deficient or that Stafford suffered prejudice. The convictions and aggregate sentence were affirmed.

The Ohio Court of Appeals affirmed Lorinzo Sampson’s total 36-month prison sentence after he pled guilty to attempted having weapons while under disability in two separate cases. The court rejected Sampson’s claims that the trial judge was biased, that the sentence was unlawful, and that he was improperly denied the right to hire counsel. The court found the judge’s courtroom comments and scheduling decisions did not demonstrate bias, that the record shows the court considered sentencing statutes and explained its reasons, and that the denial of a last-minute continuance to hire new counsel was a permissible exercise of discretion.

The Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court's grant of Marlon Lewis’s motion to suppress evidence seized from his vehicle after a traffic stop. Police smelled burnt marijuana, Lewis admitted he had smoked in the car earlier, and an officer then searched the reachable area and found used blunts and a bag containing a firearm. The appellate court concluded that, given Ohio law at the time, smoking marijuana in a vehicle did not constitute a statutory criminal offense for a driver, so there was no probable cause to justify the warrantless search under the automobile exception.

The Eighth District Court of Appeals reversed and remanded Kenneth Humphries Jr.’s 2025 misdemeanor domestic-violence conviction. Humphries had been indicted in 2025 for offenses arising from an August 2020 incident; his trial counsel moved to dismiss for preindictment delay but did not argue the two-year statute of limitations for misdemeanors. The State conceded counsel’s failure to raise the statute-of-limitations defense was ineffective assistance. The appellate court agreed with the concession, found the conviction must be reversed, and remanded for further proceedings, rendering the weight-of-evidence claim moot.

The Tenth District Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s November 20, 2025 denial of Letwan E. Cherry’s motion to vacate his six-to-nine year prison sentence for trafficking in a fentanyl-related compound. Cherry argued his sentence was void under Apprendi/Alleyne and Ohio authorities, but the appellate court held his sentence was an authorized indefinite term within the statutory range and that judicial factfinding to select a minimum within that range does not violate the Sixth Amendment. Several other challenges raised on appeal were tied to a later post-sentencing motion and thus were not properly before the court.

The Fifth District Court of Appeals reviewed Joseph Toth’s guilty pleas and sentence for two first-degree drug felonies. The court affirmed Toth’s prison terms but reversed the trial court’s orders imposing mandatory fines and directing sale of his 2018 Cadillac to pay those fines. The appellate court held the trial court lacked statutory authority to order forfeiture/sale because no forfeiture specification or civil forfeiture proceeding was invoked, and the court failed to give the required oral Reagan Tokes advisements at sentencing. The case is remanded for re-sentencing limited to providing the required advisements and correcting the fines/vehicle order.

The Ohio Fourth District Court of Appeals affirmed Walter Jackson’s convictions and sentence following his March 2023 jury trial and May 15, 2023 sentencing in Scioto County Common Pleas Court. Jackson was convicted on a 12-count indictment (drug trafficking/possession, weapons offenses, and related counts with firearm specifications). He raised five assignments of error including ineffective assistance, absence from trial, failure to merge allied offenses, improper consecutive sentences, and insufficiency/manifest-weight challenges. The court found the record supported the convictions and the consecutive sentences, and that the evidence (including circumstantial evidence and forensic lab results) was sufficient and not against the manifest weight.

The Ninth District Court of Appeals reversed and remanded Kaelyn Smith’s felony-murder judgment because the trial court failed to complete statutorily required notice and form under Ohio’s violent-offender law (Sierah’s Law, R.C. 2903.41 et seq.) before sentencing. Smith had pleaded guilty to felony murder with a firearm specification; the parties and judge discussed the violent-offender form and defense counsel waived reading the paperwork, but the record does not contain an executed form or an affirmative on-the-record advisement. Because the trial court did not provide the required pre-sentencing notice, the appellate court found plain error and ordered further proceedings for proper notice and signature.

The First District Court of Appeals reversed the municipal court's denial of a victim's request for restitution and remanded for a restitution hearing. Defendant Adam Winkle had pleaded guilty/no contest to several driving-related offenses after side‑swiping multiple cars while intoxicated. Victim M.L. submitted a victim impact statement with documentation that she paid a $500 insurance deductible for damage to her vehicle. The appellate court held the trial court erred in refusing restitution based on the existence of insurance and directed a hearing to determine restitution for the deductible.

The court reviewed Cierra Snow’s appeal of her domestic-violence conviction for punching her ten-year-old daughter after an argument. The appeals court held that Snow’s use of force was not reasonable parental discipline because she presented no evidence to meet her burden and the video showed a harmful blow. The court affirmed the conviction and rejected Snow’s argument that she should have been charged only under the child-endangering statute. However, the court found the trial court failed to credit Snow for one day of jail time and remanded solely to correct that sentencing credit.

The First District Court of Appeals reversed Patricia Hauser’s municipal-court conviction for theft and discharged her. Hauser pleaded no contest after the State recited facts that she left a bar without paying a $69.33 tab when her credit card was declined. The appellate court held the State’s explanation of circumstances affirmatively showed the bar owner consented to her possession of the drinks when he served them, which negated an essential element of the charged theft offense. Because the explanation could not support the conviction under R.C. 2913.02(A)(1), the court reversed and discharged Hauser.

The Seventh District Court of Appeals denied Alan Harris Jr.’s App.R. 26(B) application to reopen his 2025 direct appeal. Harris argued appellate counsel was ineffective for not raising challenges to his sentence and plea, and he filed a late supplemental claim that his plea was involuntary because of alleged deficiencies outside the record. The court found the supplement untimely, held that the plea waived many challenges (including failure to file a suppression motion), and determined the plea colloquy and sentencing record did not show reversible error. The application to reopen was denied for lack of merit and timeliness.