State v. Grubbs

Citations

• 2025 Ohio 1384

Syllabus

EVID.R. 404 — MURDER — SELF-DEFENSE — COUNSEL — PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT — EVIDENCE — MANIFEST WEIGHT: While the admission of the still shot of a Facebook video portraying defendant and codefendant holding guns was admissible for impeachment purposes, the trial court abused its discretion by allowing the still shot to be published to the jury bearing a caption containing both violent and racially pejorative language, however, the admission of the still shot was harmless error as defendant failed to show he was prejudiced by its admission and, if it were excised, overwhelming evidence of defendant's guilt remained to support defendant's conviction. The trial court did not plainly err by admitting evidence of other guns and drugs where defendant cannot show, if the evidence were excised, the outcome of his trial would have been different. Defendant received the effective assistance of counsel as he cannot show that, had counsel objected to the evidence of other guns and drugs, there was a reasonable probability that the outcome of his trial would have been different. While counsel's statements regarding defendant's initial burden of production were unnecessary since it is the trial court's duty to instruct the jury on self-defense, it did not amount to a deficient performance nor was it so prejudicial to defendant as to constitute the ineffective assistance of counsel; further, counsel did not misstate the law as to a defendant's initial burden of proof. The State's calling defendant a \liar\ on the record did not constitute prosecutorial misconduct where the statement was made based on defendant's inconsistent testimony, and there was no prosecutorial misconduct where the State did not mischaracterize the forensic expert's testimony that the decedent was not holding his gun when defendant used deadly force against him. Defendant's conviction was not against the manifest weight of the evidence where the State's evidence to refute defendant's self-defense claim showed