Ohio Criminal Appeals Lawyer Blog

A Stark County man serving prison time in the Mansfield Correctional Institution had his due process rights violated by Judge a trial judge. The defendant filed a petition for postconviction relief and the prosecutor filed a motion for summary judgment. The defendant was supposed to have at least fourteen days to respond, but the judge went ahead and granted the prosecutor's motion even before that time expired. The Fifth District Court of Appeals for Stark County said the judge violated the defendant's right to due process 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 criminal defense lawyer. Otherwise, contact your county or state public defender to see if they can help.

If you are put on probation (community control) in Ohio, you may have your community control revoked if you violate any conditions of your community control. But you must be afforded due process of law before your probation can be revoked. Based on the United States Supreme Court decision in Gagnon v. Scarpelli (1973), 411 U.S. 778, a defendant must be provided written notice of the claimed violations, disclosure of the evidence against him, an opportunity to be heard and to present witnesses and documentary evidence, the right to confront and cross examine adverse witnesses, a neutral and detached hearing body, and a written statement by the factfinder of the evidence relied upon and the reasons for the revocation.

The Eighth District Court of Appeals of Cuyahoga County just reversed a trial judge who abruptly called for a probation revocation and hearing and appointed defense counsel on the spot ("Mr. Defendant, meet your Ohio criminal defense lawyer"). The court of appeals found that the defendant had not received even "minimal due process at his community control violation hearing." But one court of appeals judge dissented and you can read both sides of the debate 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.

A Dayton criminal defense lawyer filed a motion for a new trial based on newly discovered evidence. The defendant was charged with sexual imposition and public indecency but after trial it was discovered that the complainant made an interesting posting on her MySpace page. She posted that she had lied about the defendant's sexual advances to protect her relationship with her boyfriend.

The trial court never considered the motion for a new trial based on this newly discovered evidence, but denied it anyway. The Second District Court of Appeals for Montgomery County stated that "due process requires that a motion for a new trial based upon newly discovered evidence, properly filed under the Ohio Rules of Criminal Procedure, must, at some point, be considered upon its merits." Read the decision here.

So said a Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge to the lawyers in a murder trial as you can read by clicking here. The Eighth District Court of Appeals reversed the convictions of Arif Majid and remanded the case for a new trial because the trial record showed that a juror was clearly sleeping a number of times during trial. The Court of Appeals said the sleeping juror violated Majid's right to due process.

Ohio's Second District Court of Appeals reversed convictions for two counts of rape and seven

counts of gross sexual imposition because the State never differentiated between these counts.  This was a violation of the defendant's right to Due Process of Law.  In the indictment, the charges were identical and nothing in the bill of particulars differentiated the counts.  Finally, nothing in the testimony of the complainant differentiated one count from another so convictions for those counts were reversed as you can see in the full decision by clicking here.