State v. Barker

Citations

• 2023 Ohio 453

Syllabus

Murder R.C. 2903.02(A) and (B) felonious assault R.C. 2903.11(A)(1) improper discharge into a habitation R.C. 2923.161(A)(1) jury instruction self-defense defense of another sufficient evidence manifest weight of the evidence Reagan Tokes Law. The trial court did not commit plain error in failing to instruct the jury on defense of another. Appellant's convictions for murder, felonious assault, and improper discharge into a habitation were not against the manifest weight of the evidence and were therefore supported by sufficient evidence. The appellant did not prove his affirmative defense of self-defense when the evidence showed that the appellant arrived on scene after a fight between two families had already ended and the appellant used his shotgun to shoot the victims through a closed second-floor window. The jury did not believe appellant's argument that one of the people in the apartment was armed when several witnesses testified that the allegedly armed person was in the kitchen on the phone with police and the two people standing in the window were not armed. The jury also did not believe that the appellant threw a metal pipe into the second-story window. The Reagan Tokes Law is constitutional so the trial court did not err in sentencing the appellant to an indefinite sentence under the law.