State v. Matthews

938 N.E.2d 1099, 189 Ohio App. 3d 446
CourtOhio Court of Appeals
DecidedSeptember 3, 2010
DocketNo. 08-CA-43
StatusPublished
Cited by20 cases

This text of 938 N.E.2d 1099 (State v. Matthews) 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. Matthews, 938 N.E.2d 1099, 189 Ohio App. 3d 446 (Ohio Ct. App. 2010).

Opinion

Fain, Judge.

{¶ 1} Defendant-appellant, Sandra Matthews, a.k.a. Sandy Johnson, appeals from her conviction and sentence on one count of aggravated murder. Matthews argues that the trial court erred in denying her motion in limine to exclude testimony regarding statements made by the victim to various police and medical personnel. She maintains that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to object to this testimony at trial. She also contends that her conviction is against the manifest weight of the evidence and that it is not supported by sufficient evidence. We conclude that although some of the testimony should have been excluded, its admission is harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, because the same information was properly admitted through other witnesses. We conclude that trial counsel was not ineffective for failing to object to the testimony at trial. We also conclude that Matthews’s conviction is supported by sufficient evidence and that it is not against the manifest weight of the evidence. Accordingly, the judgment of the trial court is affirmed.

I

{¶ 2} In September, 2007, Ottie Marie Tomlinson died as a result of an extensive injury to her brainstem, which had been inflicted the previous month by an ice pick driven into her left ear and passing through her brain to her right ear. The coroner ruled the death a homicide because it would have been impossible for anyone to inflict that kind of wound on herself.

{¶ 3} In August, 2007, Tomlinson shared her home with two boarders, Frank Moss and Matthews. Although Moss paid monthly rent, Matthews was unemployed and did not pay rent. Instead, she was supposed to cook and clean while she looked for work.

{¶ 4} After Tomlinson came home from work one afternoon, she and Matthews sat on the porch drinking beer. Tomlinson was angry with Matthews for not helping enough around the house and for not looking for a job. Matthews [451]*451insisted that she was looking for work and thought that she would soon have a job at Family Video. However, the store manager testified that he did not even have an application on file from her.

{¶ 5} Both Matthews and Moss explained that Tomlinson drank to excess in the evenings and that she would often become angry and argumentative as a result. When Tomlinson got that way, Matthews claimed that she would usually take her dog for a walk and stay away until Tomlinson went to bed. She claimed that this is what happened on the night of the attack. Matthews returned as Tomlinson was heading upstairs to bed, so Matthews sat in the living room to watch television.

{¶ 6} In the meantime, Moss went to his first-floor bedroom, took some pain medication, and lay down to watch television. Shortly after Moss lay down, Matthews came to his room and told him that he had a phone call. Moss had a brief conversation with the caller and returned the phone to the living room. As Moss returned to his room, he heard Matthews say, “I’m going to kill that bitch,” but he admitted at trial that he did not tell the police of this threat. Moss took more pain medication and lay back down.

{¶ 7} Some time later, Tomlinson knocked on Moss’s door, waking him up. He thought he heard her say that she had been stabbed and that he should call 911, so he got dressed and went to check on her. Tomlinson had gone upstairs and had lain on her bed. When Moss saw blood above her left eye, he went downstairs to get the phone. Seeing Matthews in the living room, he asked her to call 911. At some point Moss took the phone from Matthews. Believing that Tomlinson had fallen and hit her head because she was drunk, Moss did not tell either the operator or police that she had been stabbed.

{¶ 8} Although Matthews insisted that Moss went upstairs only a couple of minutes after receiving the call and that he had returned just minutes later to call 911, telephone records reveal that nearly 30 minutes had elapsed between the calls. Additionally, although in a written statement Matthews claimed to have gone upstairs to check on Tomlinson prior to calling 911, at trial, she insisted that she did not go upstairs until after she had called 911.

{¶ 9} When paramedics arrived, they found Tomlinson lying on her bed, with Matthews holding her arms down, as if trying to keep her calm. Tomlinson looked agitated and was trying to pull away from Matthews. They saw injuries above Tomlinson’s left eye and on one hand, and her left ear was red and bruising. When they asked her what happened, Tomlinson responded, “Sandy stabbed me in the ear with a pen.” Matthews interjected, “I’m Sandy and I wasn’t even here.” Tomlinson insisted, “Sandy, you stabbed me in the ear with a pen.”

[452]*452(¶ 10} The paramedics asked Matthews to leave the room, and once she was gone, Tomlinson calmed down noticeably, becoming more responsive to the questions and instructions of the paramedics. Several times during their examination, Tomlinson spontaneously repeated that Matthews had stabbed her in the ear with a pen. The paramedics saw blood that appeared to be running from Tomlinson’s left eye, pooling in her left ear and on the bed, but they did not see anything coming from her ear.

{¶ 11} Sergeant Lane, who had followed the paramedics into the home and was waiting in the hall outside Tomlinson’s bedroom, heard one of the paramedics repeating Tomlinson’s explanation that Matthews had stabbed her in the ear with a pen. Lane went into the room and asked Tomlinson who had stabbed her and with what. Tomlinson told him that Matthews had stabbed her with a pen, but she did not know where the pen was at that time. Lane returned to the hallway and told Officer Kelley to get identifying information from Matthews.

{¶ 12} Tomlinson was placed in an ambulance, where paramedics heard her repeat that Matthews had stabbed her in the ear with a pen. After the ambulance left Tomlinson’s home, Sergeant Lane talked to Matthews, who told him that the first she knew that something was wrong was when Moss told her to call 911 because Tomlinson had fallen. When he asked her why Tomlinson would say that Matthews had stabbed her, Matthews said, “I don’t know.” After a short pause, she added, “But I saw some lady leave right before I went up and found Tomlinson.” When Lane sought clarification, Matthews said that the woman was Janine, who used to cut Tomlinson’s hair. Matthews then explained that she had not actually seen Janine at the house that night, but that she had seen her in the neighborhood when she took her dog for a walk.

{¶ 13} When the emergency-room staff at Greene Memorial Hospital asked Tomlinson what happened to her, Tomlinson pointed to her left ear and said, “Sandy put a pen in my ear.” She repeated several times that there was a pen in her ear. A doctor could see something in Tomlinson’s ear canal, and he ordered a CAT scan, which revealed the presence of a metallic foreign body passing through Tomlinson’s brain, from one ear to the other. The medical staff decided to have Tomlinson care-flighted to Miami Valley Hospital, where she would receive more neurological care than at Greene Memorial Hospital.

{¶ 14} Before she was transferred, Sergeant Lane went to check on Tomlinson at Greene Memorial, where he met with Detective Forrest. Medical staff told them of the results of the CAT scan. As a result of this information, any lingering doubts that Sergeant Lane had about whether Tomlinson had been stabbed or whether she had fallen evaporated.

{¶ 15} Sergeant Wilson joined Lane at the hospital.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
938 N.E.2d 1099, 189 Ohio App. 3d 446, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-matthews-ohioctapp-2010.