State v. Williams

2016 Ohio 733
Ohio Court of Appeals·Decided February 24, 2016·No. 15CA3·Published·Cited by 23 cases

Opinion

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF OHIO FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT JACKSON COUNTY

STATE OF OHIO, : Case No. 15CA3 Plaintiff-Appellee, :

v. : DECISION AND JUDGMENT ENTRY

ROBERT S. WILLIAMS, :

Defendant-Appellant. : RELEASED: 2/24/2016 APPEARANCES:

John K. Clark, Jr., Jackson, Ohio, for appellant.

Justin Lovett, Jackson County Prosecuting Attorney, and Randy H. Dupree, Jackson County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, Jackson, Ohio, for appellee. Harsha, J.

{¶1} A jury convicted Robert S. Williams of misdemeanor assault in violation of

a Wellston city ordinance. The Jackson County Municipal Court sentenced Williams to 180 days in jail, suspended 177 days of the jail term, placed him on reporting probation for five years, and fined him $1,000 plus court costs, with the fine to be paid within 12 months.

{¶2} Williams initially asserts that the trial court erred because it failed to consider the sentencing factors in R.C. 2929.22. Because the trial court’s sentence was within the statutory range and Williams makes no affirmative showing to rebut the presumption that the trial court correctly considered the appropriate sentencing criteria, his claim is meritless. In addition, insofar as Williams claims in his initial argument that the trial court disregarded R.C. 2929.22 by imposing both a jail term and a fine without an adequate explanation on the record, he relies on cases interpreting former R.C.

Jackson App. No. 15CA3 2

2929.22(E) and (F), which are no longer part of the statute and did not apply to his conviction.

{¶3} Williams also claims that his trial attorney provided ineffective assistance of counsel by 1) failing to object to the prosecutor’s repeated leading of state witnesses, 2) twice erroneously objecting on the basis of hearsay to statements made by him to witnesses, and 3) not requesting a continuance to prepare for sentencing. However, the failure to object to leading questions does not constitute ineffective assistance and his remaining contentions do not establish a reasonable probability that the outcome of his trial would have been different.

{¶4} Therefore, we reject Williams’s contentions and affirm his conviction and sentence.

I. FACTS

{¶5} A complaint in the form of an affidavit charged Williams with one count of misdemeanor assault in violation of Section 135.04(A)(1) of the Codified Ordinances of the City of Wellston. Williams entered a plea of not guilty to the charge and retained private counsel. The case proceeded to a jury trial, which produced the following evidence.

{¶6} Williams’s wife, April, committed suicide. According to Williams, April’s family, including her children, Samantha and Tony, blamed him for her death. Her funeral service was August 23, 2014. Wellston Police Officer Todd Shong testified that on that date, he responded to a call that Williams disrupted the service at the funeral home. When Officer Shong arrived, he observed Williams outside the funeral home in

Jackson App. No. 15CA3 3

an agitated state with his shirt off. Because the situation appeared to have been diffused, Officer Shong proceeded to escort the procession to the cemetery.

{¶7} Tony Clark, who is Williams’s stepson, testified that as he got out of the vehicle and headed towards the grave site carrying his infant son, Willliams told him that he could not spend time with his dead wife because of her family; Tony told him to “shut the f*** up.” Williams then got out of the car and moved towards Tony, telling his stepson to hit him. Samantha Clark, Williams’s stepdaughter, testified that she then got between them to try to keep her baby nephew from being hurt, and that Williams called her a “mouthy b****” and punched her in the mouth. According to Samantha, Williams then grabbed her by her throat, strangled her, bit her hand, and caused bruises to her arms and legs. Several members of Samantha’s family confirmed that Williams had assaulted her that day.

{¶8} Officer Shong testified that he was present, but did not witness the beginning of the incident. When he heard yelling and screaming, he ran towards the area and broke up the fight. According to Officer Shong, Williams did not comply with his request to get back in his car and instead demanded his badge when he refused Williams’s request to do something about the incident. Officer Shong told those involved to fill out statements about the incident and leave them for his review. Williams stated that he did not want to be in the same building as the officer. Officer Shong investigated the matter and concluded that Williams was the aggressor and should face charges for assaulting his stepdaughter, Samantha.

{¶9} Williams testified that the incident started when Tony said he was going to kill him, which prompted him to get out of the car and tell Tony “let’s end this.”

Jackson App. No. 15CA3 4

According to Williams, Samantha came between them and accused him of killing her mother, but when he tried to turn around to leave, Tony hit him and several of their family members piled on him. Williams’s parents and the wife and children of one of his friends testified that he did not start the fight and did not hit Samantha.

{¶10} At the conclusion of the trial, the jury returned a verdict finding Williams guilty of assault. The trial court then stated that it was prepared to proceed with sentencing, but that it would grant a continuance if “either counsel wants to have time to prepare for a more formal sentencing hearing.” The prosecutor indicated that he could prepare quickly for sentencing, and Williams’s trial counsel specified that “we would like to just go ahead and just get this over with today if at all possible” because it “has been a long trying time.” The trial court then gave the prosecutor some time to prepare any victim impact statement he wanted to present.

{¶11} When the trial court readjourned, it shared with counsel an NCIC report and an ORAS scoring assessment for his presentence investigation report.1 The trial court “noted a complete lack of criminal history from the official records.”

{¶12} Williams’s trial counsel requested probation or community control as an appropriate sanction based on the fact that Williams had moved from the area and other than visiting his parents, there was no reason for him to be in the area, and that he was 42 years old and unlikely to reoffend. Williams’s counsel further noted that Williams works at a company in Lancaster and had been working over 48 hours per week.

1 NCIC is the National Crime Information Center, which provides information on a person’s criminal history. See State ex rel. Multimedia, Inc. v. Snowden, 72 Ohio St.3d 141, 647 N.E.2d 1374 (1995). ORAS is the Ohio Risk Assessment System, the tool selected by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction to “assess an adult offender’s risk of reoffending and to assess the offender’s rehabilitative needs.” Ohio Adm.Code 5120-13-01(A). “ORAS is a work in progress, and is not a litmus test for sentencing.” State v. Jennings, 2d Dist. Clark No. 2013 CA 60, 2014-Ohio-2307, ¶ 28.

Finally, he mentioned that Williams had a “counselor already in place that he sees for his panic attacks and some of the issues he had been dealing with, with the death” of his wife. Williams’s counsel reiterated that Williams would do anything the court wanted him to do and that he would not be back before the judge for a criminal violation.

{¶13} Conversely, the state, upon conferring with the victim of Williams’s assault, his stepdaughter, requested that the trial court impose the maximum sentence. The victim had indicated that she had ongoing medical issues from the assault, that she feared for her and her family’s safety, and that she had changed her life because of the crime. The state noted that if the maximum jail time would not be imposed, the victim requested some amount of jail time and probation with a “no contact” condition and a “large fine.”

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State v. Williams, 2016 Ohio 733 (Ohio Ct. App. 2016).

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