FIRST DISTRICT
COURT OF APPEALS
THESE SUMMARIES ARE NEITHER APPROVED IN ADVANCE NOR ENDORSED BY THE COURT. THEY ARE NOT HEADNOTES OR SYLLABI. INTERESTED PARTIES SHOULD OBTAIN COPIES OF THE ACTUAL DECISIONS FROM THE CLERK OF THE COURT OF APPEALS.
DATE: Friday, November 21, 2025
CAPTION: STATE V. SMOTHERS
APPEAL NO.: C-230663
TRIAL NO.: B-1800336
KEY WORDS: MURDER — GROSS ABUSE OF A CORPSE — TAMPERING WITH EVIDENCE — MOTION TO SUPPRESS — SEARCH WARRANT — PROBABLE CAUSE — AUTOMOBILE EXCEPTION — PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT — POST-ARREST SILENCE — IMPEACHMENT — EVID.R. 403 — SUFFICIENCY OF THE EVIDENCE – MANIFEST WEIGHT OF THE EVIDENCE — DUE PROCESS — BRADY V. MARYLAND — EXCULPATORY EVIDENCE — POTENTIALLY-USEFUL EVIDENCE — ADVERSE-INFERENCE INSTRUCTION — JUROR MISCONDUCT
SUMMARY: The trial court did not err by denying defendant’s motion to suppress evidence where the seizure of defendant’s car in Grant County, Kentucky, and the subsequent search of the car at the Sharonville Police Department was pursuant to the automobile exception to the warrant requirement and not the alleged defective warrant that police obtained to search the car.
The prosecutor’s alleged improper comments at trial did not amount to prosecutorial misconduct where the comments were either made to refute defendant’s testimony or based on evidence submitted at trial and where defendant failed to show, in light of other evidence of guilt presented at trial, that defendant would not have been found guilty of the charged offenses but for the prosecutor’s comments.
The trial court did not abuse its discretion by admitting photographs of the decedent’s autopsy where each photograph was relevant to illustrate the coroner’s testimony about the condition of the decedent’s body and the cause of death and the photographs were not repetitive as multiple photographs of the same area of the body showed different injuries to those areas.
Defendant’s convictions for murder, gross abuse of a corpse, and tampering with evidence were supported by sufficient evidence and not contrary to the manifest weight of the evidence where (1) decedent’s cell phone and towels soiled with decedent’s blood were found in defendant’s car, (2) defendant’s DNA was under decedent’s fingernails and defendant had fresh scratches on his face, (3) shoe prints in the snow near decedent’s body matched defendant’s boots, and (4) “drag marks” and a blood trail in the snow led from defendant’s trailer home to where decedent’s body was found.
The trial court did not err in denying defendant’s motion to dismiss the charges based on the State’s failure to preserve the sexual-assault kit or disclose its destruction where the kit did not contain materially exculpatory evidence and was not destroyed in bad faith: there was no allegation that the decedent had been sexually assaulted, any possibility that test results might have revealed another person’s DNA on the decedent’s body was purely speculative given the overwhelming evidence of defendant’s guilt presented at trial, and the coroner testified that the kit had been destroyed due to storage constraints at the coroner’s new facility and because there had been no allegation of sexual assault.
The trial court did not abuse its discretion by overruling defendant’s proposed adverse-inference jury instruction regarding the State’s destruction and non-testing of the sexual-assault kit where the record reflects that the coroner’s destruction of the kit was not due to malfeasance or gross neglect.
The trial court did not abuse its discretion by overruling defendant’s motion for a new trial based on juror misconduct where the court based its decision on each juror’s testimony that his or her findings were based on the evidence presented at trial, not the juror’s alleged experiment.
JUDGMENT: AFFIRMED
JUDGES: OPINION by MOORE, J.; ZAYAS, P.J., and NESTOR, J., CONCUR.
CAPTION: STATE V. BARKER
APPEAL NO.: C-240408
TRIAL NO.: B-1107595-C
KEY WORDS: POSTCONVICTION PETITION — INEFFECTIVE ASSISTANCE OF COUNSEL — MOTION TO SUPPRESS — PLEA — CIV.R. 60(B) — EXCUSABLE NEGLECT
SUMMARY: The trial court did not abuse its discretion by granting defendant’s Civ.R. 60(B) motion to vacate the dismissal of his postconviction petition where defendant met all three requirements for relief: defendant filed his motion within the one-year time period, defendant had a meritorious claim of ineffective assistance of counsel at his suppression hearing to present, and defendant’s failure to attach the expert’s report to the petition or seek a stay following the State’s response to the petition constituted excusable neglect where defendant’s postconviction counsel had previously filed a notice with the court explaining defendant’s intent to amend the petition to add the ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim after receiving the expert’s report in support and explained that the delay was caused by postconviction counsel being unaware that a suppression hearing had occurred prior to defendant’s plea hearing when notice of the suppression hearing and the entry denying the suppression motion was never docketed.
The common pleas court abused its discretion by granting defendant’s petition for postconviction relief where the court failed to engage in the proper prejudice inquiry with respect to defendant’s claim of ineffective assistance of counsel for failing to investigate whether he could effectively waive his right to self-incrimination based on his intellectual disability: where defendant had entered pleas of no contest, the proper prejudice inquiry was not limited to whether defendant’s suppression motion would have been granted but whether, if the motion to suppress defendant’s statements had been granted, would defendant have declined to enter the his no-contest pleas and insisted on going to trial.
JUDGMENT: AFFIRMED IN PART, REVERSED IN PART, AND CAUSE REMANDED
JUDGES: OPINION by MOORE, J.; CROUSE, P.J., and NESTOR, J., CONCUR.
CAPTION: KELLEY V. HORTON
APPEAL NO.: C-240644
TRIAL NO.: A-2300099
KEY WORDS: EVIDENCE – RELEVANCE – HEARSAY – TIMELY – JURY INSTRUCTIONS – OBJECTION – CIV.R. 51(A) – WAIVER
SUMMARY: Plaintiff’s failure to timely raise a hearsay objection waived the objection to the evidence on that basis: plaintiff’s hearsay objection was untimely where plaintiff initially objected based solely on relevance, only to renew the objection and assert a hearsay basis a day later after the witness was excused.
Plaintiff’s acquiescence to the agreed-upon remote- or intervening-cause jury instruction, paired with plaintiff’s failure to object to defendants’ remarks that allegedly improperly shifted blame for her injury onto the plaintiff, constituted a waiver of the jury-instruction issue: pursuant to Civ.R. 51(a), a waived defect in a jury instruction shall not be considered on appeal.
JUDGMENT: AFFIRMED
JUDGES: OPINION by MOORE, J.; ZAYAS, P.J., and CROUSE, J., CONCUR.
CAPTION: Provolish v. DeCiocco Showroom, Inc.
APPEAL No.: C-250047
TRIAL No.: 24CV19040
KEY WORDS: Contracts — UCC — Usage of Trade — Magistrates — App.R. 34 — Civ.R. 53
SUMMARY: Plaintiff-appellant’s request to strike defendant-appellee’s brief, made in appellant’s reply brief, was improper, because the appellate court’s magistrate had already issued an order accepting appellee’s brief, and that order had to be challenged in a separate motion.
In a dispute over whether custom chairs conformed to the parties’ agreement, the trial court’s finding that measurements provided by the chairs’ manufacturer accurately represented the chairs’ dimensions was not against the manifest weight of the evidence, where buyer introduced no evidence of alternative measurements or to suggest the manufacturer’s measurements were invalid.
The trial court’s finding that the contract’s reference to “seat depth” referred to the distance from the front edge of the seat to the face of the seatback pillow (rather than the seatback itself) was not against the manifest weight of the evidence, where seller introduced evidence that this definition was a standard usage of trade under R.C. 1302.05(A) and 1301.303(C), and where buyer introduced no evidence to rebut this.
Where a contract to purchase custom chairs expressly listed several dimensions and provided that the chairs would be similar to a provided concept photo and based on the manufacturer’s interpretation of the concept photo’s design, the seller and manufacturer were not required to deliver chairs that conformed to the dimensions of the chair in the concept photo that were not listed in the agreement.
JUDGMENT: affirmed
JUDGES: OPINION by Crouse, P.J.; BOCK and MOORE, JJ., CONCUR.
CAPTION: STATE V. BAILEY
APPEAL NO.: C-250116
TRIAL NO.: B-2404363
KEY WORDS: FELONY SENTENCING — R.C. 2929.13(B)(1)(a) — PRESUMPTION OF COMMUNITY CONTROL — R.C. 2953.08(G)(2) — IMPROPER CONSIDERATIONS
SUMMARY: The presumption in favor of community control under R.C. 2929.13(B)(1)(a) did not apply to defendant’s sentences where defendant was convicted of two fifth-degree felonies and, by its terms, R.C. 2929.13(B)(1)(a) applies only if the defendant is convicted of a single fourth- or fifth-degree felony.
Defendant’s argument that the record does not support the trial court’s findings under R.C. 2929.11(B) and 2929.12(A) fails because an appellate court cannot vacate or modify a sentence under R.C. 2953.08(G)(2) based on its view that the sentence is not supported by the record under R.C. 2929.11 and 2929.12.
The trial court properly considered defendant’s possession of a machete during defendant’s attempted burglary because that fact was relevant to the seriousness of the offense and defendant’s conduct’s impact on the victim.
JUDGMENT: AFFIRMED
JUDGES: OPINION by BOCK, J.; KINSLEY, P.J., and CROUSE, J., CONCUR.
CAPTION: STATE V. HARDEN
APPEAL NOS.: C-250130, C-250131
TRIAL NO.: B-0304786
KEY WORDS: POSTCONVICTION — R.C. 2953.23 — JURISDICTION
SUMMARY: The trial court lacked jurisdiction to entertain defendant’s untimely petitions for postconviction relief where defendant pleaded guilty to the offense and therefore could not show that he would not have been found guilty by a reasonable fact finder without the constitutional error at trial, as required by R.C. 2953.23(A)(1)(b). [See CONCURRENCE: Defendant makes a compelling case for expanding eligibility for expungement and the legislature should consider doing so.]
JUDGMENT: AFFIRMED AS MODIFIED
JUDGES: OPINION by BOCK, J.; NESTOR, J., CONCURS, and KINSLEY, P.J., CONCURS SEPARATELY.
CAPTION: IN RE: D.B.
APPEAL NO.: C-250248
TRIAL NO.: F/18/346 X
KEY WORDS: APPELLATE REVIEW — CIVIL — JUVENILE — PRESUMED REGULARITY OF THE PROCEEDINGS
SUMMARY: As appellant mother failed to cause the proper transcripts to be included in the record under App.R. 9, this court must presume the regularity of the proceedings and affirm the trial court’s judgment.
JUDGMENT: AFFIRMED
JUDGES: OPINION by NESTOR, J.; ZAYAS, P.J., and BOCK, J., CONCUR.