State v. Foster

Citations

• 2024 Ohio 2924

Syllabus

Defendant-appellant's conviction for felonious assault was not against the manifest weight of the evidence. The trial court did not clearly lose its way in weighing the credibility of the witness testimony and resolving conflicts in the evidence to conclude that the defendant was the assailant in this case. The trial court did not violate the defendant's constitutional right to confront witnesses by allowing, with the agreement of both the defendant and the state, a single witness to testify via videoconference. Any error in that regard was invited error and did not constitute grounds for reversal. The trial court did, however, err in denying the defendant's timely first petition for postconviction relief based on alleged ineffective assistance of counsel without first conducting an evidentiary hearing. The defendant submitted evidence of his attorney's admitted struggles with her mental and physical health, which she conceded negatively affected her ability to practice law while she was representing defendant, of counsel's demonstrated neglect of other clients' cases, and allegations of specific deficiencies in this case, all of which raised a triable issue of fact whether counsel's representation of the defendant was deficient and whether that deficiency resulted in prejudice to the defendant. Defendant's appeal of the trial court's dismissal of his untimely second petition for postconviction relief is dismissed because the defendant did not assign as error the trial court's determination that it lacked jurisdiction over that petition.