State v. Carson

Citations

• 2019 Ohio 4550

Syllabus

AGGRAVATED MENACING – EVIDENCE/WITNESS/TRIAL – PREJUDICE : In an aggravated-menacing case, testimony by the victim that defendant had pointed a gun at him and that he had been afraid defendant would shoot him was sufficient to sustain defendant's conviction for aggravated menacing. The trial court abused its discretion in overruling defendant's objections to testimony regarding his mental health but defendant was not prejudiced by the erroneous admission of the testimony where defense counsel was able to rehabilitate defendant's credibility, defendant's wife testified that his mental-health issue had never made him violent, and defendant has not shown that allowing the jury to hear that he suffered from medication-controlled depression stemming from a cancer diagnosis impacted the jury's verdict. The trial court did not err in sustaining the state's objection to a question related to the victim's motive to lie where the question called for the victim to speculate and where defendant was not materially prejudiced by the exclusion of the testimony because he was able to otherwise present in his defense the victim's motive to lie.