State v. Blevins

2023 Ohio 1824

• Court: Ohio Court of Appeals
• Decided: June 1, 2023
• Docket: 112028
• Status: Published

Opinion

[Cite as State v. Blevins, 2023-Ohio-1824.]

COURT OF APPEALS OF OHIO

EIGHTH APPELLATE DISTRICT COUNTY OF CUYAHOGA

STATE OF OHIO, :

Plaintiff-Appellee, : No. 112028 v. :

KARLOS BLEVINS, :

Defendant-Appellant. :

JOURNAL ENTRY AND OPINION

JUDGMENT: AFFIRMED RELEASED AND JOURNALIZED: June 1, 2023

Criminal Appeal from the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Case No. CR-14-586423-A

Appearances:

Michael C. O’Malley, Cuyahoga County Prosecuting Attorney, and Gregory Ochocki, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellee.

Timothy Young, Ohio Public Defender, and Lauren Hammersmith, Assistant State Public Defender, for appellant.

SEAN C. GALLAGHER, J.:

Appellant Karlos Blevins appeals the trial court’s denial of his motion

to vacate his convictions. Upon review, we affirm the trial court’s decision. On March 31, 2014, Blevins, then 17 years old, was charged in a seven-

count complaint filed in the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas, Juvenile

Division (“the juvenile court”).1 The charges stemmed from the March 15, 2014

shooting death of a 15-year-old victim. The state filed a mandatory bindover

request. Following a probable-cause hearing, the juvenile court issued a journal

entry finding probable cause to believe that Blevins committed the acts charged,

which would be crimes if committed by adults, and the case was transferred to the

Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas, General Division (“the adult court”)

pursuant to the mandatory bindover provisions of R.C. 2152.10(A)(2)(b) and

2152.12(A)(1)(b).

On July 1, 2014, Blevins was indicted by the grand jury under a multi-

count indictment.2 The indictment included additional charges against Blevins that

were not brought in juvenile court. On September 14, 2015, pursuant to a plea

agreement with the state, Blevins pleaded guilty to Count 1, aggravated murder (R.C.

2903.01(A)), an unclassified felony, with one- and three-year firearm specifications

and a criminal gang-activity specification; and to Count 8, tampering with evidence

(R.C. 2921.12(A)(1)), a felony of the third degree. The remaining charges against

Blevins were nolled, and the gang-activity specification was deleted from Count 1 at

1 Co-delinquents were also named in the complaint.

2 Codefendants were also named in the indictment. sentencing. Relative hereto, tampering with evidence was not among the charges in

the complaint filed in the juvenile court.

The trial court sentenced Blevins on Count 1 to a prison term of 20

years to life on the base charge, plus 3 years on the firearm specification to be served

prior to and consecutive therewith, and on Count 8 to a concurrent prison term of 3

years, for a total of 23 years to life.

In the first appeal to this court, Blevins challenged the trial court’s

mandatory transfer of his case from the Juvenile Division to the General Division of

the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas to be tried as an adult. State v.

Blevins, 8th Dist. Cuyahoga No. 104704, 2017-Ohio-8225. This court found the

challenge to be without merit on the authority of State v. Aalim, 150 Ohio St.3d 489,

2017-Ohio-2956, 83 N.E.3d 883 (holding “the mandatory bindover of certain

juvenile offenders under R.C. 2152.10(A)(2)(b) and 2152.12(A)(1)(b) complies with

due process and equal protection as guaranteed by the Ohio and United States

Constitutions”). Blevins at ¶ 7.

On May 24, 2022, Blevins filed a motion to vacate his convictions.

Relying on the Supreme Court of Ohio decision of State v. Smith, 167 Ohio St.3d

423, 2022-Ohio-274, 194 N.E.3d 297, Blevins argued the trial court lacked subject-

matter jurisdiction over charges for which probable cause was not found in the

juvenile court. The trial court denied this motion, and Blevins now appeals that

ruling. Under his sole assignment of error, Blevins claims that the trial court

violated his statutory and constitutional rights when it denied his motion to vacate

the conviction for tampering with evidence. He maintains the conviction is void

because it was not transferred from the exclusive jurisdiction of the juvenile court to

the adult court. Blevins primarily relies upon Smith to support his argument.

In Smith, the Supreme Court of Ohio held that “[a] finding of

probable cause is a jurisdictional prerequisite under R.C. 2152.12 to transferring a

child to adult court for prosecution for an act charged.” (Emphasis added.) Smith

at ¶ 44. In that case, the state brought criminal charges against a juvenile in adult

court for acts that the juvenile court had found to be supported by probable cause,

as well as for acts the juvenile court found to be unsupported by probable cause.

Smith at ¶ 11-12. The Supreme Court recognized that “the adult court’s jurisdiction

is over only the specific act or acts transferred, i.e., those acts supported by probable

cause.” Id. at ¶ 32. Thus, “[i]n the absence of a juvenile court’s finding probable

cause or making a finding that the child is unamenable to care or rehabilitation

within the juvenile system, no adult court has jurisdiction over acts that were

charged in but not bound over by the juvenile court.” (Emphasis added.) Id. at

¶ 44. As the Supreme Court held, “a transfer of the acts charged to adult court

confers jurisdiction to adjudicate only the acts charged for which probable cause has

been found by the juvenile court.” Id. at ¶ 26. This is not to say that the juvenile cannot be convicted of any other

offense different from the offenses brought in the juvenile court. The Supreme Court

of Ohio recognized in Smith as follows:

When the case is finally adjudicated by the adult court, under R.C. 2151.23(H) there are three situations in which a child may be convicted of a crime that is different from the offense transferred by the juvenile court: the child may be convicted (1) of an offense that is the same degree or a lesser degree of the offense that was the basis of the transfer, (2) of an offense that is a lesser included offense of the offense that was the basis of the transfer, or (3) “for the commission of another offense that is different from the offense charged.”

(Emphasis sic.) Smith, 167 Ohio St.3d 423, 2022-Ohio-274, 194 N.E.3d 297, at ¶ 33,

quoting R.C. 2151.23(H).3

In State v. Burns, Slip Opinion No. 2022-Ohio-4606 (Dec. 23, 2022),

decided subsequent to Smith, the Supreme Court recognized that a case transferred

from a juvenile court may result in new indicted charges in the adult court,

explaining as follows:

We agree that an adult court is not necessarily limited to considering only the specific acts bound over from the juvenile court. After a case has been transferred from a juvenile court to an adult court, the adult court “has jurisdiction subsequent to the transfer to hear and determine the case in the same manner as if the case originally had been commenced in that court * * *.” R.C. 2151.23(H). In Smith, we explained that the “the case” before the adult court is composed of the acts that were transferred to that court. Id. at ¶ 28.

3 Although not applicable in this matter, R.C. 2151.23(H) was recently amended to include a last line referring to the application of recently enacted R.C. 2152.022, which refers to the “transfer of the ‘case’” to adult court, which acquires “jurisdiction over all of the counts so transferred” as provided in R.C. 2151.23(H), while the juvenile court retains jurisdiction over count(s) in the complaint(s) that are not transferred. See R.C. 2151.23(H) and 2152.022(B), effective April 4, 2023. We acknowledge that generally, a grand jury is empowered to return an indictment on any charges supported by the facts submitted to it. See State v. Adams, 69 Ohio St.2d 120, 431 N.E.2d 326 (1982), paragraph two of the syllabus, superseded by statute on other grounds as stated in State v. D.W., 133 Ohio St.3d 434, 2012-Ohio-4544, 978 N.E.2d 894. But a grand jury may not consider additional charges arising from a different course of conduct or events that have not been properly bound over by the juvenile court. State v. Weaver, 6th Dist. Lucas No. L-18-1078, 2019-Ohio-2477, ¶ 14 (citing cases from several Ohio appellate districts). This means that a case transferred from a juvenile court may result in new indicted charges in the adult court when the new charges are rooted in the acts that were the subject of the juvenile complaint but were not specifically named in the individual acts transferred. Id.; Smith, 167 Ohio St.3d 423, 2022- Ohio-274, 194 N.E.3d 297, at ¶ 35. Here, Counts 45 and 46 pertained to attempted-murder offenses that were not charged in the juvenile- court complaint; they were charged in the grand-jury indictment and were based on conduct that occurred on or about February 7, 2018— conduct that was in the juvenile complaint against Burns. See Smith at ¶ 35; see also R.C. 2151.23(H). Accordingly, we affirm the portion of the court of appeals’ judgment affirming Burns’s convictions on Counts 45 and 46.

(Emphasis added.) Burns at ¶ 12-13.

Although counsel for Blevins advocated against following Burns at

the oral argument before this court, we are bound to adhere to the Supreme Court

of Ohio’s decision in Burns. Consistent with Burns and R.C. 2151.23(H), subsequent

to the transfer from the juvenile court, the adult court herein had jurisdiction over

the case, which was composed of the acts that were transferred to that court. As was

the case in Burns, here Blevins was charged in the grand-jury indictment with new

charges that were rooted in the acts that were the basis of the transfer. The charge

for tampering with evidence was based on conduct that occurred on or about March 15, 2014 — conduct that was in the juvenile complaint against Blevins.

Pursuant to R.C. 2151.23(H), Blevins could be convicted for the offense.4

Accordingly, this case does not involve the jurisdictional defects

identified in Smith, 167 Ohio St.3d 423, 2022-Ohio-274, 194 N.E.3d 297, and the

trial court did not err in denying Blevins’s motion to vacate convictions. Other

districts have reached similar conclusions. See State v. Strickland, 10th Dist.

Franklin No. 22AP-329, 2023-Ohio-1252, ¶ 40-42; State v. Taylor, 2d Dist.

Montgomery Nos. 29422 and 29423, 2022-Ohio-3579, ¶ 13-14, appeal not allowed,

168 Ohio St.3d 1531, 2023-Ohio-86.

Finally, we recognize there are two cases pending before the Supreme

Court of Ohio that involve issues related to the transfer of jurisdiction of the case to

an adult court following a juvenile bindover. Those cases were decided after Smith,

but prior to Burns, Slip Opinion No. 2022-Ohio-4606. See State v. Williams, 1st

Dist. Hamilton No. C-210384, 2022-Ohio-2022, discretionary appeal allowed, 168

Ohio St.3d 1447, 2022-Ohio-3909, 197 N.E.3d 587;5 State v. Taylor, 2022-Ohio-

2877, 194 N.E.3d 867 (10th Dist.), discretionary appeal allowed, 168 Ohio St.3d

4 We note that State v. Macklin, 8th Dist. Cuyahoga No. 111117, 2022-Ohio-4400, is distinguishable from this case and was decided prior to Burns.

5 The First District decision in Williams also was distinguished by the Tenth District in Strickland, which recognized that Williams “contains no discussion as to the applicability of the provision of R.C. 2151.23(H) (including whether, under the particular facts of that case, the tampering with evidence charge was ‘rooted in’ the underlying murder offense at issue in the juvenile complaint, i.e., the subject of the bindover).” Strickland at ¶ 30. 1479, 2022-Ohio-4617, 200 N.E.3d 261.6 We also note that although not applicable

in this matter, there have been recent changes to statutory provisions relating to a

juvenile court’s transfer of the case to adult court and the jurisdiction that is

acquired. See R.C. 2151.23(H), effective April 4, 2023; R.C. 2152.022(B), effective

April 4, 2023; R.C. 2152.12(F)(2), effective April 4, 2023.

Although counsel for Blevins advocated against following Burns at

the oral argument before this court, until and unless the Supreme Court of Ohio

decides otherwise, we are bound to adhere to the Burns decision as did the Tenth

District in Strickland. We are not persuaded by any other argument made by

Blevins, and we need not address further issues raised by the state.7 The assignment

of error is overruled.

Judgment affirmed.

It is ordered that appellee recover from appellant costs herein taxed.

The court finds there were reasonable grounds for this appeal.

It is ordered that a special mandate issue out of this court directing the

common pleas court to carry this judgment into execution.

6 Among the propositions of law presented by the state in the Taylor case from the Tenth District is whether “[t]he jurisdiction referenced in R.C. 2151.23(H) implicates jurisdiction over the case, not subject-matter jurisdiction.”

7 At oral argument, the state indicated that this court need not reach the issue of the retroactive application of Smith presented in its brief. A certified copy of this entry shall constitute the mandate pursuant to Rule 27

of the Rules of Appellate Procedure.

_____ SEAN C. GALLAGHER, JUDGE

EILEEN T. GALLAGHER, J., CONCURS; KATHLEEN ANN KEOUGH, P.J., CONCURS IN JUDGMENT ONLY (WITH SEPARATE OPINION)

KATHLEEN ANN KEOUGH, P.J., CONCURS IN JUDGMENT ONLY WITH SEPARATE OPINION:

Whether an offense is “rooted in the acts” that were subject of the

juvenile complaint is fact specific and requires looking at the conduct of the juvenile

at the time of the offense. In fact, the Ohio Supreme Court stated, “[A] grand jury

may not consider additional charges arising from a different course of conduct or

events that have not been properly bound over by the juvenile court.” Burns, Slip

Opinion No. 2022-Ohio-4606, at ¶ 13, citing State v. Weaver, 6th Dist. Lucas No. L-

18-1078, 2019-Ohio-2477, ¶ 14.

I find this “rooted in the acts” language or analysis similar to a court’s

determination whether offenses are allied. In determining whether offenses are

allied offenses of similar import within the meaning of R.C. 2941.25, courts must

evaluate three separate factors—the conduct, the animus, and the import. State v.

Ruff, 143 Ohio St.3d 114, 2015-Ohio-995, 34 N.E.3d 892, paragraph one of the

syllabus. If the conduct involves separate victims or harm, then the offenses are

separate and identifiable. Id. at paragraph two of the syllabus. In this case, the tampering with evidence offense was a new charge as

a result of the grand jury’s indictment. Count 8 of the indictment merely tracks the

language of R.C. 2921.12(A)(1) with no additional information, specification, or

forfeiture clauses revealing what the evidence Blevins was alleged to have tampered

with, concealed, or destroyed. Granted, the date of the offense — “on or about March

15, 2014,” is the same date corresponding to the murder charges, which were in the

juvenile complaint against Blevins.8 The state’s bill of particulars sheds no

additional light on the factual basis for this offense. Even though the offense

occurred “on or about the same” date as the murder offenses, the juvenile’s conduct

may have been separate and distinct from the conduct that was in the juvenile

complaint. Is it sufficient to establish that an offense is “rooted in the acts” by merely

including a date that is “on or about” the same date as the acts that were the subject

of the juvenile complaint? Unfortunately based on the record before this court, I am

unable to make this determination.

In my opinion, the state’s ability to secure new and separate charges,

including gang related offenses, in adult court that were not presented to the juvenile

court potentially undermines the juvenile court’s authority. The concept of “rooted

in the acts” is subject to an overbroad interpretation and application, as this case

could very well represent. The record, however, is insufficient to determine whether

8 Compare Count 15 of the indictment charging Blevins’s codefendant with tampering with evidence, but also seeking forfeiture of a firearm. It could be gleaned that the codefendant’s tampering offense involved a firearm that was associated with crimes of violence. the tampering charge was “rooted in the acts” that were the subject of the juvenile

complaint. Accordingly, the defendant has failed to withstand his appellate burden

demonstrating the error.

For these reasons, I respectfully concur in judgment only.