State v. Jury

2024 Ohio 3342
CourtOhio Court of Appeals
DecidedAugust 30, 2024
DocketE-23-058
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 2024 Ohio 3342 (State v. Jury) 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. Jury, 2024 Ohio 3342 (Ohio Ct. App. 2024).

Opinion

[Cite as State v. Jury, 2024-Ohio-3342.]

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF OHIO SIXTH APPELLATE DISTRICT ERIE COUNTY

State of Ohio Court of Appeals No. E-23-058

Appellee Trial Court No. 2013-CR-0472

v.

Brian Jury DECISION AND JUDGMENT

Appellant Decided: August 30, 2024

*****

Kevin J. Baxter, Erie County Prosecuting Attorney, and Kristin R. Palmer, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellee.

Brian Jury, Pro se.

DUHART, J.

{¶ 1} Appellant Brian Jury, pro se, brings this appeal from the judgment of the

Erie County Court of Common Pleas denying appellant’s (1) motion for leave to file a

delayed motion for a new trial pursuant to Crim.R. 33(B), (2) motion for appointment of

counsel, and (3) motion for an extension of time pursuant to Crim.R. 33(A)(6) and/or (B).

For the reasons that follow, the trial court’s judgment is affirmed. Statement of the Case and the Facts

{¶ 2} This case arises out of the November 1, 2013, abduction and rape of the

victim in Erie County, Ohio. Following an 8-day trial in 2014, a jury found Jury guilty of

two counts of rape, one count of felonious assault, two counts of abduction, and three gun

specifications. Appellant was sentenced to a total of 36 years in prison.

{¶ 3} Jury appealed, claiming that (1) the verdict was against the manifest weight

of the evidence; (2) the trial court erred by failing to give a lesser included charge of

sexual battery; (3) the trial court erred by denying Jury’s motion for mistrial; (4) the

victim’s testimony was wrongfully bolstered by inadmissible hearsay; (5) the trial court

failed to make the necessary findings of fact before imposing consecutive sentences; and

(6) Jury’s sentence was excessive, unreasonable, and contrary to law. This court affirmed

Jury’s conviction and sentence on April 22, 2016. The Ohio Supreme Court declined to

accept jurisdiction over the appeal.

{¶ 4} In August 2015, while his direct appeal was pending, Jury filed a

postconviction petition for relief claiming (1) the trial court lacked subject matter

jurisdiction; (2) his conviction was based on illegally obtained evidence; (3) his trial

counsel was ineffective for a number of reasons, both before and during trial; (4) the

State violated Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963) by failing to turn over emails and

witnesses that could have provided Jury with an alibi; (5) the trial court relied on

inaccurate information to justify imposing consecutive sentences; and (6) he was

2. prejudiced by the trial court’s failure to sua sponte change the trial’s venue due to pretrial

publicity. The trial court denied Jury’s petition, and Jury did not appeal that decision.

{¶ 5} On June 20, 2016, Jury filed an application to reopen his direct appeal

pursuant to App.R. 26(B), raising eight assignments of error relating to jurisdictional

error, ineffective assistance of counsel, and prosecutorial misconduct. This court denied

the application, and the Ohio Supreme Court declined to accept jurisdiction over the

appeal.

{¶ 6} Beginning in July 2018, Jury filed numerous documents in the trial court,

including (1) a July 10, 2018 motion for relief from judgment pursuant to Civ.R. 60(B),

alleging that the State had violated its obligations under Brady by withholding cell phone

records of Jury and the victim, including “cell-site location information” (“CSLI”), which

is data from a cellphone that is maintained by the wireless carrier and that gives time-

stamped information regarding the phone’s physical location; (2) an August 13, 2018

document that he styled a “subpoena,” asking the court to assist him in acquiring CSLI

and text messages from Verizon Wireless; (3) a November 28, 2018 emergency

injunction to order the wireless carriers to preserve any CSLI and text messages; (4) a

January 7, 2019 request for records, seeking cellphone records that the State provided to

defense counsel in discovery; (5) a July 12, 2021, motion to “renew” his Civ.R. 60(B)

motion; (6) a December 15, 2021 motion for leave to file a delayed motion for a new trial

under Crim.R. 33(B), claiming that he was unavoidably prevented from discovering CSLI

from November 1, 2013; and (7) a January 10, 2022 delayed motion for new trial under

3. Crim.R. 33(A)(6), alleging that the CSLI data and text messages -- which Jury did not

actually have -- was newly-discovered evidence. On January 20, 2022, the trial court

denied Jury’s many filings, concluding that they were, in effect, successive petitions for

postconviction relief.

{¶ 7} Jury appealed to this court, which affirmed the trial court’s decision on

December 9, 2022, and held as follows. First, the court held that the State had not

committed any Brady violations in not subpoenaing CSLI data and text messages from

the cellular providers for Jury’s and the victim’s cell phones. State v. Jury, 2022-Ohio-

4419, ¶ 10 (6th Dist.). As the court explained, “[e]verything that Jury is claiming about

CSLI – from the availability of CSLI data for his and the victim’s phones, to the state’s

knowledge of CSLI, to the usefulness of the information for Jury’s case – is based on

varying degrees of speculation.” Id. at ¶ 15. The court found that “[m]ere speculation,

without more, is insufficient to support a claimed Brady violation. Id. (citations omitted).

In addition, regarding the test messages, the court found that “it appears from the record

(and Jury has not provided any evidence to the contrary) that the state provided the

defense with all of the information that the prosecutor and his agents had.” Id. at ¶ 16. As

stated by the court, “the state cannot suppress records that it does not have – and that

have never been in the possession of a state agent.” Id. at ¶ 17 (citations omitted).

{¶ 8} Second, the court held that the trial court had correctly recast Jury’s motion

for relief from judgment as a successive petition for postconviction relief and had

4. properly dismissed it. Id. at ¶ 25, 38. In reaching this conclusion, the court found: Taken together, this all shows that Jury was not unavoidably prevented from discovering the facts underlying his postconviction relief petition. First and foremost, he has not presented any new evidence for us to review. He is merely speculating—without producing any type of proof—that new evidence exists and that the evidence would have changed the result of his trial. Second, Jury has not demonstrated that the state committed Brady violations by failing to obtain CSLI and text messages from an entity that is not a state agent or under the state's control. Nor has he shown that he was unavoidably prevented from discovering the information. Although Jury was clearly unaware of what CSLI was until June 2018, his filings show that he was aware that some of the text messages between him and the victim were not in the records turned over by the state, and nothing indicates that the defense could not have discovered this information through some simple investigation—i.e., reasonable diligence.

Id. at ¶ 37. Addressing, and ultimately dismissing, Jury’s “primary argument regarding

the [never produced] text messages” – namely, that the texts would show that Jury and

the victim were involved in a sex-for-hire relationship that the victim primarily initiated –

the appellate court stated:

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Related

State v. Jury
2024 Ohio 6049 (Ohio Court of Appeals, 2024)

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Bluebook (online)
2024 Ohio 3342, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-jury-ohioctapp-2024.