State v. Hurt

Citations

• 2024 Ohio 3115

Syllabus

SUBPOENA — COMPULSORY PROCESS — SELF INCRIMINATION — CONFRONTATION CLAUSE — RIGHT TO BE PRESENT —VOLUNTARY ABSENCE — JOINDER — SEVERANCE — SIMPLE AND DIRECT — EVIDENCE — SUFFICIENCY — MANIFEST WEIGHT —ATTEMPTED MURDER — COMPLICITY — CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE — AGGRAVATED MURDER — IDENTITY: The trial court did not err in quashing defendant's subpoena of his codefendant where defendant intended to call his codefendant to testify at defendant's murder trial regarding a confession purportedly authored by the codefendant, the codefendant's attorneys appeared before the court and stated that the codefendant did not wish to testify on behalf of defendant and intended to invoke his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, and defendant did not state that he would question the codefendant about any other nonincriminating matter. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in finding defendant was voluntarily absent from two days of trial where defendant initially refused to come to court, was ordered down to court, gave ambiguous responses to the trial court's question of whether defendant wanted to be present, and repeatedly refused to answer trial court's direct \yes or no\ question as to whether he wanted to be present. The trial court did not commit plain error in failing to sua sponte sever counts in the indictment related to two separate shootings as defendant could not show prejudice by the joinder of the counts where the evidence was simple and direct because the shootings occurred on two separate dates at different locations and were observed by different eyewitnesses. Defendant did not receive ineffective assistance of counsel where his second set of appointed attorneys failed to renew defendant's prior attorney's motion to sever counts in the indictment related to two separate shootings where defendant could not establish prejudice from the joinder, because the evidence in both counts was simple and direct and therefore the result would not have been d