State v. Pennington

Citations

• 2018 Ohio 3640

Syllabus

COUNSEL – EVIDENCE/WITNESS/TRIAL – HOMICIDE – INVITED ERROR – EVID.R. 404(B) – EVID.R. 405 – EVID.R. 609: Trial counsel's decision not to call a forensic pathology expert and instead rely on cross-examination of the state's forensic pathology expert fell within the wide range of reasonable professional assistance and did not constitute ineffective assistance of counsel. Defendant failed to establish that prejudice resulted from trial counsel's decision not to call a forensic pathology expert where nothing in the record indicated that testimony from another forensic pathologist would have been favorable to defendant and would have altered the outcome of the trial. Defendant could not establish that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to discover that the model of handgun used in a murder offense was the subject of a class-action lawsuit that had alleged defects with the handgun's firing, because defendant's allegations of ineffectiveness were based on facts not appearing in the record. The appellate court will not second-guess trial counsel's decision not to call a witness, because that is a matter of trial strategy. In defendant's trial for murder and having weapons while under a disability, the trial court properly admitted into evidence a weapon and ammunition not used in the shooting of the victim where the evidence was relevant to the question of whether defendant knowingly possessed any firearm, for purposes of the weapons-under-disability charge, and the admission of the evidence did not contravene Evid.R. 404(B). Defendant cannot challenge testimony elicited during his cross-examination of a state's witness on hearsay and confrontation grounds, because any error in the admission of the testimony was invited or induced by the defendant. The appellate court engages in the presumption that, in a bench trial, even where defense counsel has failed to object to a prosecutor's question to a witness, the trial court is able to distinguish between what the prose