State v. Hoffman

717 N.E.2d 1149, 129 Ohio App. 3d 403
CourtOhio Court of Appeals
DecidedAugust 14, 1998
DocketNo. H-97-052.
StatusPublished
Cited by58 cases

This text of 717 N.E.2d 1149 (State v. Hoffman) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Hoffman, 717 N.E.2d 1149, 129 Ohio App. 3d 403 (Ohio Ct. App. 1998).

Opinion

*405 Glasser, Judge.

This is an appeal from a judgment of the Huron County Court of Common Pleas that granted appellee’s motion for summary judgment and dismissed appellant’s petition for postconviction relief.

On appeal appellant, Michael A. Hoffman, sets forth the following assignment of error:

“The trial court erred in denying appellant an evidentiary hearing on his petition for post conviction.relief.”

The facts that are relevant to the issues raised on appeal are as follows. On September 23, 1995, an automobile that appellant was driving had a head-on collision with another vehicle containing four college students. As a result of the accident, appellant’s girlfriend, who was a passenger in appellant’s car, and two of the college students were killed. Appellant and the two other college students were seriously injured.

On November 21, 1995, appellant was indicted on three counts of aggravated vehicular homicide, in violation of R.C. 2903.06(A); three counts of involuntary manslaughter, in violation of R.C. 2903.04(B); and two counts of aggravated vehicular assault, in violation of R.C. 2903.08(A). All eight of the charges carried specifications that at the time of the accident, appellant had been driving with a suspended operator’s license and was under the influence of alcohol and/or illegal drugs.

On February 1, 1996, after consulting with his court-appointed attorney, appellant entered a plea of guilty to three counts of aggravated vehicular homicide and two counts of aggravated vehicular assault as charged in the indictment. In exchange for appellant’s plea, appellee, the state of Ohio, agreed to dismiss the three charges of involuntary manslaughter.

At the plea hearing, the trial court first inquired of appellant’s attorney whether he had explained the plea agreement to appellant. Appellant’s attorney replied that he and appellant had gone over the terms of the plea in detail and that appellant is “better informed about this as [sic ] a non-lawyer could be about this sort of offense.” The' prosecutor then recited the facts of the case and indicated that the three charges of involuntary manslaughter that were to be dropped as part of the plea and the three charges of aggravated vehicular homicide were allied offenses of similar import.

The trial court then inquired of appellant whether he understood the nature of the proceedings and charges against him, and explained to appellant the specifications of driving while under suspension and driving while under the influence of *406 alcohol and/or drugs. The trial court also outlined the maximum limits of any sentence that could be imposed as a result of appellant’s guilty plea.

The trial court further stated to appellant that the offenses to which he was pleading guilty were not probationable and that his driver’s license would be revoked for life. Appellant was then advised of his constitutional rights, including the right to a jury trial, an attorney, confrontation and cross-examination of witnesses against him, to subpoena witnesses to testify on his behalf, to be presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and to testify or not testify at trial. The trial court also told appellant that his rights on appeal would be substantially curtailed as a result of entering a guilty plea.

At the conclusion of the trial court’s remarks, appellant stated that he was satisfied with his legal representation and the terms of the plea agreement, and stated that no one had threatened him in any way or promised him anything in order to induce him to plead guilty. Appellant then indicated that he still wanted to enter the plea. The trial court accepted appellant’s plea and found him guilty of three counts of aggravated vehicular homicide and two counts of aggravated vehicular assault.

On March 1, 1996, after considering the record in the case, appellant’s presentence report, the statutory factors provided in R.C. 2929.12 and R.C. 2951.02, statements by the surviving victims, and statements by all the victims’ families, the trial court sentenced appellant to serve maximum terms of imprisonment of five to ten years in the custody of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections for each of the counts of aggravated vehicular homicide, and terms of three to five years for each of the two counts of aggravated vehicular assault. All of the sentences were ordered to run consecutively, for a total of fifteen to forty years of incarceration, with a minimum term of fifteen years of actual incarceration. Appellant did not file a direct appeal from his conviction and sentence.

On July 30, 1996, appellant, acting pro se, filed a petition for postconviction relief, in which he asserted that he had received ineffective assistance of counsel at the time his plea was entered, and that his plea was not knowingly, voluntarily and intelligently made. In support thereof, appellant argued that his trial attorney used various “scare tactics” to coerce him into pleading guilty, and that he was in a fragile emotional and mental state at the time of the plea, which made him less able to resist his trial counsel’s demands.

Appellant further alleged in his petition that his actions at the time of the accident were not “reckless but merely ‘neglegent’ [sic ]” and that he could have been “convicted of a lesser charge as [sic ] ‘vehicular homicide’ ” if he had insisted on a jury trial instead of entering a guilty plea. Appellant’s petition and the *407 allegations made therein were supported by the affidavit of his wife, Deborah Hoffman. Appellee did not file a response to appellant’s petition.

On August 19,1996, the trial court denied appellant’s petition for postconviction relief without reviewing the transcript of appellant’s plea hearing or holding an evidentiary hearing. On September 18,1996, appellant appealed, and on June 27, 1997, this court reversed and remanded the case, finding that the trial court had committed plain error by denying appellant’s petition without reviewing the transcript of his plea. State v. Hoffman (June 27, 1997), Huron App. No. H-96-051, unreported, 1997 WL 362481.

On remand, the Huron County Court of Common Pleas ordered the transcript of the plea hearing to be made a part of the record. On September 23, 1997, appellee filed a motion for summary judgment, and on November 17, 1997, appellant, represented by retained counsel, filed a response thereto.

Attached to appellant’s response was the affidavit of William O’Brien, Ph.D., a psychologist, who stated that he had treated appellant in late 1995 and early 1996 for “depression and distressing emotions, which occurred as a result of the automobile accident.” Hoffman further stated that when he saw appellant on November 22, 1995, appellant was experiencing “severe conflict between a personal and social requirement, that he be punished,” and appellant’s “medical condition and negative affect and depression would have [ajffected his participation and judgement” in the legal proceedings facing him at that point in time.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
717 N.E.2d 1149, 129 Ohio App. 3d 403, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-hoffman-ohioctapp-1998.