State v. Glenn

Citations

• 2018 Ohio 2326

Syllabus

In pretrial motions, the defendant alleged that the person he was charged with murdering had raped his young daughter. He sought to obtain (and presumably admit) extrinsic evidence to substantiate the alleged rape and to show that he had committed voluntary manslaughter, rather than murder, because the rape had caused him to act in sudden passion or fit of rage. He also sought an expert's evaluation of his state of mind at the time of the shooting. The trial court did not err or abuse its discretion in concluding that, because defendant had learned of the alleged rape four months prior to the shooting, and because he had had a \cooling off\ period of more than eight minutes between the time of his first altercation with the victim and the shooting of the victim, he was not entitled to argue that he had committed voluntary manslaughter rather than murder and was not entitled to a jury instruction on voluntary manslaughter. Based on this record, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that an expert's report regarding defendant's subjective state of mind (which was not made a part of the record) was inadmissible because defendant's actions were not objectively and/or subjectively reasonable. Judgment affirmed.