Ohio Criminal Appeals Lawyer Blog

James Russell won his appeal again. This time it was an appeal from a Batson hearing. The last time I appealed Russell's case, the Second District Court of Appeals ruled that a Batson hearing should have been held as you can read here. On remand the trial judge held a Batson hearing but decided that the defense had not made a prima facie case (the first step in the Batson analysis). Russell appealed from that decision. Today the Second District Court of Appeals for Montgomery County ruled that the trial judge erred in ruling that a prima facie case had not been made. The Appeals Court held that the quantum of proof required for a finding that a defendant has made a prima facie case is minimal and Russell met that burden in this case. Read the decision in State v. Russell, 2012-Ohio-422, here.

If you are accused of a crime or have been convicted already, contact me if you can afford to hire a private criminal defense lawyer. Otherwise, contact your county or state public defender to see if they can help.

Contact me 24/7 by sending an email to ohiocriminalappealslawyer@gmail.com

A Batson challenge begins when a criminal defense lawyer makes a prima facie case that the prosecutor exercised a peremptory challenge based on a potential juror's race. The burden is then on the prosecutor to come up with a "race neutral" explanation for why they struck that juror. The trial judge must determine whether the prosecutor is being honest about the race-neutral explanation, or is just trying to come up with some "race-neutral" excuse for removing the potential juror based on race. But the trial judge does not have to agree with the prosecutor's race-neutral reason. That is what happened in the case of State v. Antonio Greene, Montgomery County Appellate No. 24307, 2011-Ohio-4541. The prosecutor's race-neutral explanation was that the potential juror had a brother who had been convicted of a crime seven years earlier. The prosecutor told the judge he was concerned that the juror would be biased against the prosecution, even though the juror said he would not be. The trial judge did not believe the juror would have been biased against the State, but at the same time the trial judge believed that the prosecutor was not using this race-neutral reason as a pretext for striking the juror on the basis of race. Even though the judge had a different view of the potential juror's ability to sit as a juror, the judge found the prosecutor to be credible in making the race-neutral explanation. Therefore, the Second District Court of Appeals for Montgomery County overruled Greene's argument on appeal that the trial judge erred in denying the Batson challenge. State v. Greene, 2011-Ohio-4541.

If you are accused of a crime or have been convicted already, contact me if you can afford to hire a private criminal defense lawyer. Otherwise, contact your county or state public defender to see if they can help.

Contact me 24/7 by sending an email to ohiocriminalappealslawyer@gmail.com

James Russell was convicted in 2005 of felony murder, aggravated robbery, evidence tampering, grand theft of a motor vehicle, abuse of a corpse and firearm specifications, in the death of Philip Troutwine. His first conviction was reversed in 2008 because a verdict form for "having weapon under disability" was inadvertently given to the jury. He was retried and again convicted in 2009.

Today the Second District Court of Appeals reversed his convictions in the second trial because the trial judge mishandled an issue under Batson v. Kentucky (1986), 476 U.S. 79. Russell's criminal defense lawyer was about to raise a Batson issue when the trial judge cut her off and announced that there was no Batson issue. The convictions are reversed and the case is remanded so the trial court can conduct a proper tripartite Batson analysis as you can read here.

If you are accused of a crime or have been convicted already, contact me if you can afford to hire a private attorney. Otherwise, contact your county or state public defender to see if they can help.