State v. Anderson

• Decision Date: 19 February 2014
• Docket Number: No. 2012–1834.,2012–1834.
• Parties: The STATE of Ohio, Appellant, v. ANDERSON, Appellee.
• Court: Ohio Supreme Court

138 Ohio St.3d 264

6 N.E.3d 23

The STATE of Ohio, Appellant,

v.ANDERSON, Appellee.

No. 2012–1834.

Supreme Court of Ohio.

Submitted Oct. 8, 2013.

Decided Feb. 19, 2014.

Paul J. Gains, Mahoning County Prosecuting Attorney, and Ralph M. Rivera, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellant.

John B. Juhasz, Youngstown, for appellee.

Timothy Young, Ohio Public Defender, and Stephen P. Hardwick, Assistant Public Defender, urging affirmance for amicus curiae, Office of the Ohio Public Defender.

O'CONNOR, C.J.

{¶ 1} In early June 2003, Amber Zurcher was found dead in her home by her mother. Two months later, appellee, Christopher Anderson, was arrested and charged with Zurcher's murder.

{¶ 2} Anderson has now been subjected to five trials in seven years. He has been incarcerated for more than a decade, but he has never been lawfully convicted.

{¶ 3} When the state attempted to prosecute Anderson for the sixth time, he moved to dismiss the indictment against him. In so doing, he argued that the prosecution was barred by the Double Jeopardy and Due Process Clauses of the United States Constitution.

{¶ 4} Our task today is not to determine whether Anderson is guilty of the murder, or even whether he can be forced to stand trial for a sixth time. Rather, we answer a narrower question: Was the trial court's order denying Anderson's motion to dismiss the indictment a final, appealable order that the appellate court had jurisdiction to review? We conclude that it was.

{¶ 5} Accordingly, we affirm the appellate court's decision denying the state's motion to dismiss Anderson's appeal, and we remand the cause to the court of appeals to address Anderson's appeal on its merits.

Relevant Background

{¶ 6} Because the question before us is a question of law, it is not necessary to extensively detail the facts. For our limited purposes here, we summarize the state's evidence against Anderson and the procedural path that brought this appeal before us as they have been described by the appellate court's prior decisions.

The Murder

{¶ 7} Facts surrounding the murder and the first two trials are set forth here as stated in the appellate court's opinion in the appeal from the second trial. 7th Dist. Mahoning No. 03 MA 252, 2006-Ohio-4618, 2006 WL 2573785. On June 2, 2002, Zurcher went to Chipper's Bar in Youngstown. There, she met several friends, including Sandy Shingleton and John Orosz.

{¶ 8} After the bar closed, Zurcher and her friends went to Zurcher's apartment in Austintown, where they continued to drink. By 3:50 A.M., only Anderson, Orosz, and Shingleton remained in Zurcher's apartment. When they left, Zurcher was clothed. Orosz locked Zurcher's door from the inside, shut the door, and checked to make sure it was locked. Anderson then drove Orosz and Shingleton to Orosz's pizzeria, where he dropped them off and then departed.

{¶ 9} A few hours later, Zurcher's mother, Diane Whiteman, grew concerned because Zurcher had not come to retrieve her son from Whiteman as they had planned. After Zurcher did not answer or respond to Whiteman's repeated phone calls, Whiteman went to Zurcher's apartment building and secured a key to Zurcher's apartment from the building manager.

{¶ 10} When Whiteman entered the apartment, she found Zurcher's naked, dead body on the floor near the door. There were no signs of forced entry into the apartment and no indication that Zurcher had been robbed.

{¶ 11} A deputy coroner determined that Zurcher had died around 4:00 A.M. due to asphyxiation by strangulation. Ligature marks around Zurcher's neck were consistent with the conclusion that Zurcher had been strangled by cord or wire, but neither was recovered from the scene.

{¶ 12} Near the time of her death, Zurcher had also sustained a deep scalp contusion and multiple bruises to her body. A contusion on her left breast appeared to be a “love bite,” or “hickey.” The DNA sample taken from that site was consistent with Anderson's DNA profile. Zurcher's fingernail scrapings contained a mixture of DNA profiles consistent with the DNA of Anderson, Zurcher's son, and a third person.Foreign DNA was not found in Zurcher's oral, vaginal, or rectal cavities.

{¶ 13} Zurcher was buried on June 6, 2002. That day, Zurcher's friends gathered again at Chipper's Bar. Anderson arrived wearing a jacket with long sleeves. When he removed it, witnesses noticed that he had scratches on his hand and arms that had not been present three days earlier.

The Trials and Appeals

{¶ 14} The first trial in this case began May 27, 2003. On the day of trial, Anderson successfully moved in limine under Evid.R. 404 to preclude the state from introducing evidence of prior bad acts through testimony from Donna Dripps. The state intended to have Dripps testify that prior to Zurcher's death, Anderson had choked Dripps and bitten one of her breasts.

{¶ 15} Although Anderson's motion was granted, another witness, Nichole Ripple, testified during trial that Zurcher had called Anderson “a freak” and that Anderson had “tried to strangle his ex-girlfriend.” That portion of Ripple's testimony was repeated on a local evening news broadcast. On Anderson's motion, the trial court granted a mistrial based on the undue prejudice caused by Ripple's statement.

{¶ 16} A second trial began November 18, 2003. During the second trial, the state was permitted to introduce the same testimony by Dripps that previously had been excluded. The jury found Anderson guilty of murder, and the trial court imposed a prison sentence of 15 years to life.

{¶ 17} The court of appeals, however, found error in the admission of the bad-acts evidence. It reversed Anderson's conviction, finding it “difficult, if not impossible, to correlate the two opposing decisions by the trial court on this matter.” 2006-Ohio-4618, 2006 WL 2573785, ¶ 45. We declined to review that decision. 112 Ohio St.3d 1443, 2007-Ohio-152, 860 N.E.2d 767.

{¶ 18} Subsequent history of the case is set forth in the opinions of the court of appeals concerning the order now on appeal before us. 7th Dist. Mahoning App. No. 11–MA–43, 2012-Ohio-4390, 2012 WL 4391545.

{¶ 19} A third trial began in December 2008. The jury was unable to return a verdict, and the court declared a mistrial.

{¶ 20} The fourth trial began in April 2010. During voir dire, defense counsel fell asleep. The court declared a mistrial.

{¶ 21} After a fifth trial in August 2010, the jury was again unable to reach a verdict. The court declared another mistrial.

{¶ 22} When the trial court set a sixth trial date, Anderson moved to dismiss the indictment, asserting that making him stand trial a sixth time violated his right to protection from double jeopardy and his right to due process. The trial court denied the motion, and Anderson appealed.

{¶ 23} The state moved to dismiss the appeal, arguing that the denial of Anderson's motion to dismiss was not a final, appealable order. The court of appeals rejected its claim, “finding that in this particular situation where there have been multiple mistrials, the order appealed is a final, appealable order as defined by R.C. 2505.02.” 2012-Ohio-4390, 2012 WL 4391545, at ¶ 1.

{¶ 24} On the state's motion, the court of appeals sat en banc to consider whether the order was final and appealable. The court was equally divided on the issue; two judges agreed that the order was a final, appealable order, and two would have held that it was not. Id. Thus, the original appellate court determination—that the order was a final, appealable order—stood. Id. at ¶ 30.

{¶ 25} We accepted the state's discretionary appeal, which asserts that the denial of a motion to dismiss on due-process and double-jeopardy grounds is not a final, appealable order pursuant to R.C. 2505.02. 134 Ohio St.3d 1448, 2013-Ohio-347, 982 N.E.2d 727. We disagree.

{¶ 26} We hold that the denial of a motion to dismiss on double-jeopardy grounds is a final, appealable order. We affirm the judgment of the court of appeals to the extent that it held that the denial of a motion to dismiss on double-jeopardy grounds is a final, appealable order. We need not, and do not, reach the issue of a whether a motion to dismiss on due-process grounds is also a final, appealable order.

Analysis

{¶ 27} We are presented with two important considerations: the prudential concerns that limit which orders an appellate court can review and the constitutional protections against double-jeopardy violations. Although we have not specifically addressed the issue in light of the General Assembly's most recent amendments to the definition of “final order” in R.C. 2505.02, we do not write on a blank slate. Indeed, we have answered this important question repeatedly, but admittedly inconsistently, over the years.

{¶ 28} The requirement of a final, appealable order is equally important in both civil and criminal cases. “An appellate court can review only final orders, and without a final order, an appellate court has no jurisdiction.” Supportive Solutions, L.L.C. v. Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, 137 Ohio St.3d 23, 2013-Ohio-2410, 997 N.E.2d 490, ¶ 10.

{¶ 29} R.C. 2953.02 authorizes appellate courts to review the judgment or final order of a trial court in a criminal case. State v. Muncie, 91 Ohio St.3d 440, 444, 746 N.E.2d 1092 (2001). To determine whether the order issued by the trial court in a criminal proceeding is a final, appealable order, appellate courts must apply the definitions of “final order” contained in R.C. 2505.02. Id., citing State ex rel. Leis v. Kraft, 10 Ohio St.3d 34, 36, 460 N.E.2d 1372 (1984).

{¶ 30} Here, the specific question before us is whether the denial of a motion to dismiss on double-jeopardy grounds is a final, appealable order within the meaning of the statute.

{¶ 31} In Owens v. Campbell, 27 Ohio St.2d 264, 272 N.E.2d 116 (1971), syllabus, we held that an accused could invoke the original jurisdiction of Ohio's appellate courts through extraordinary writs to adjudicate his right...