State v. English

Citations

• 2020 Ohio 4682

Syllabus

MURDER — WEAPONS — EVIDENCE — OTHER ACTS — COUNSEL — PROSECUTOR — AUTHENTICATION — PROCEDURE/RULES — BATSON CHALLENGE — CUMULATIVE ERROR : Defendant's convictions for murder and having weapons under a disability were based upon sufficient evidence and were not against the manifest weight of the evidence, where an eyewitness familiar with defendant testified that he saw defendant shoot the victim, and that testimony was corroborated by testimony from a bystander and the evidence collected by the police, and by defendant's actions after the shooting, including indisputable evidence of flight. The trial court's admission of propensity evidence did not rise to the level of plain error affecting defendant's substantial rights where the properly admitted evidence of guilt was overwhelming. The defendant failed to show that misconduct by the prosecutor warranted a reversal of his convictions because the improper remarks by the prosecutor did not prejudicially affect defendant's substantial rights. The trial court did not abuse its discretion by admitting into evidence Facebook posting that were attributed to defendant, where the state presented detailed testimony from a witness with knowledge authenticating the postings from the account she had opened for the defendant. Defendant was not denied a fair trial on the ground that the jury saw him in handcuffs because the record is devoid of evidence demonstrating any juror actually observed him and any prejudice resulted, and defense counsel's failure to move for a mistrial on this basis did not result in a denial of the effective assistance of counsel because any inadvertent and brief sighting of defendant in restraints by the jury outside the courtroom did not affect the outcome of the trial. Defendant's claim of structural error based on an alleged irregularity with the receipt and sharing of the verdicts was not supported by the record. The trial court's determination that the striking of an African-American potential juro