State v. Spradlin

Citations

• 2017 Ohio 630

Syllabus

Defendant convicted of felonious assault of his wife. Wife did not testify at trial and asserted Fifth Amendment right. However, wife identified defendant as her attacker to multiple witnesses and had injuries consistent with a violent attack. Defendant's conviction was thus supported by the manifest weight of the evidence. Wife's out-of-court statements were admissible as nonhearsay or excited utterances. Trial court failed to conduct proper colloquy to determine if wife's assertion of Fifth Amendment privilege was proper, but error did not rise to level of plain error. Court properly gave jury who announced they were deadlocked an instruction designed to encourage additional deliberations. Ineffective assistance of counsel claims lacked merit where counsel did not object to admissible evidence and counsel did not object for strategic purposes.