State v. Hutton

Citations

• 2022 Ohio 4509

Syllabus

R.C. 2953.21 postconviction petition Crim.R. 33 motion for new trial abuse of discretion capital case successive postconviction petition res judicata direct appeal discovery Evid.R. 606(B). The trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying appellant's successive postconviction petition because it was untimely filed, and appellant was unable to show that he was unavoidably prevented from discovery of facts upon which he relied on in his petition. Appellant also did not show by clear and convincing evidence that but for a constitutional error at trial, he would not have been found to be eligible for the death penalty. Appellant should have known that he spent time at Beech Brook as a child and did not show that his original defense counsel did not have those records. Affidavit executed by trial juror in support of petition was speculative, and Evid.R. 606(B) would have prohibited appellant from using the juror's statement. Moreover, there was no evidence that a Bible passage had improper influence on a juror. The petition was not a valid second-in-time, first postconviction petition successive petitions can rarely be treated as first petitions. Ohio's postconviction statutes are constitutional. The trial court correctly denied appellant's motion for a new trial because appellant failed to provide evidence that the Beech Brook records were recently discovered, or that he was unavoidably prevented from discovering the records or show clear and convincing evidence of juror misconduct.