State v. Bethel

• Decision Date: 22 March 2022
• Docket Number: 2020-0648
• Citation: 167 Ohio St.3d 362,192 N.E.3d 470
• Parties: The STATE of Ohio, Appellee, v. BETHEL, Appellant.
• Court: Ohio Supreme Court

167 Ohio St.3d 362

192 N.E.3d 470

The STATE of Ohio, Appellee,

v.BETHEL, Appellant.

No. 2020-0648

Supreme Court of Ohio.

Submitted September 8, 2021

Decided March 22, 2022

Janet A. Grubb, First Assistant Franklin County Prosecuting Attorney, and Seth L. Gilbert, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellee.

Timothy Young, Dayton, Ohio Public Defender, and Rachel Troutman, Alison Swain, and Joanna Sanchez, Assistant Public Defenders, for appellant.

Jones Day, Yvette McGee Brown, Columbus, and Benjamin C. Mizer, urging reversal for amicus curiae, the Innocence Network.

Fischer, J.

I. INTRODUCTION

{¶ 1} In 2003, appellant, Robert W. Bethel, was sentenced to death after being convicted of the aggravated murders of James Reynolds and Shannon Hawk, who were shot to death in a secluded field in Columbus in 1996. Evidence showed that Bethel and another man, Jeremy Chavis, had killed Reynolds to prevent him from testifying in the murder trial of one of their friends. Hawk was Reynolds's girlfriend and happened to be with him at the time.

{¶ 2} In 2018, Bethel filed a motion for leave to file a motion for a new trial under Crim.R. 33(B), claiming that in violation of Brady v. Maryland , 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963), the prosecution had suppressed an investigation report that was created in 2001. In a second filing, Bethel both moved for a new trial and submitted a successive petition for postconviction relief under R.C. 2953.23. In both filings, Bethel argued that the investigation report showed that Chavis had committed the murders with Chavis's cousin, Donald Langbein.

{¶ 3} The trial court denied Bethel's motion for leave and the motion for a new trial and found that it lacked jurisdiction to consider his successive postconviction petition. The Tenth District Court of Appeals affirmed. We accepted jurisdiction over Bethel's discretionary appeal and now affirm.

II. FACTUAL BACKGROUND AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

A. Trial and direct appeal

{¶ 4} In 1995, Reynolds saw Tyrone Green shoot someone to death during a burglary. The shooting led to Green's indictment for aggravated murder with death specifications. During discovery, Green learned that Reynolds had been identified as a potential witness against him.

{¶ 5} Green was a member of a street gang, along with Bethel, Chavis, and Langbein. Langbein testified at Bethel's trial that he and Bethel had been concerned about witnesses testifying against Green and had discussed "tak[ing] steps to get rid of them." After Reynolds was killed, Green pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of manslaughter.

{¶ 6} The main evidence tying Bethel to the murders of Reynolds and Hawk came from three sources. The most significant evidence was a confession Bethel had proffered as part of a plea deal to avoid the death penalty. In the proffer, Bethel admitted that he and Chavis had lured Reynolds and Hawk to the secluded field to kill them. He said that he had used a 9 mm firearm and that Chavis had used a shotgun. The plea deal was contingent on Bethel's willingness to testify against Chavis, and when Bethel later refused to do so, the deal was voided and his confession was used against him. Bethel testified at his own trial and denied killing Reynolds and Hawk. He claimed that he and Chavis were at Bethel's mother's house when Reynolds and Hawk were believed to have been killed.

{¶ 7} Next, Langbein gave testimony that was consistent with Bethel's proffered confession. When he was facing unrelated charges in 2000, Langbein told police and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms ("ATF") agents that he had information about the Reynolds and Hawk murders. At Bethel's trial, Langbein testified that on the evening of the murders, he saw Reynolds and Hawk riding with Bethel and Chavis in Bethel's car. And he testified that a couple of weeks after the murders, Bethel told him that he had shot Reynolds and Hawk multiple times with a 9 mm handgun and that Chavis had used a shotgun. Those details were consistent with the autopsies; Hawk had four bullet wounds and Reynolds had nine bullet wounds and one wound caused by a shotgun slug fired into his back.

{¶ 8} And finally, Bethel's former girlfriend, Theresa Campbell, testified that sometime after the murders, Bethel told her that he had shot Reynolds and Hawk. She testified that Bethel told her that Chavis was with him at the time of the murders but that Chavis started to cry and went to the car after he saw what Bethel had done.

{¶ 9} After finding Bethel guilty of two counts of aggravated murder with death specifications, a jury recommended the death penalty for each count, which the trial court imposed. We affirmed the convictions and death sentences on direct appeal. State v. Bethel , 110 Ohio St.3d 416, 2006-Ohio-4853, 854 N.E.2d 150.

B. Postconviction proceedings

1. Bethel's first postconviction petition

{¶ 10} Bethel filed a timely petition for postconviction relief under R.C. 2953.21 in February 2005. The trial court dismissed the petition, and the court of appeals affirmed. State v. Bethel , 10th Dist. Franklin No. 07AP-810, 2008-Ohio-2697, 2008 WL 2308770, ¶ 67. We did not accept jurisdiction over Bethel's discretionary appeal. 122 Ohio St.3d 1502, 2009-Ohio-4233, 912 N.E.2d 107.

2. Bethel's first motion for leave to file a motion for a new trial

{¶ 11} In 2009, Bethel filed a motion for leave to file a motion for a new trial, along with the new-trial motion itself. He alleged that the state had violated Brady by suppressing an investigation report created in 2000 containing information that an ATF agent had received about Langbein. Bethel alleged that he obtained a copy of the report in 2008 through a public-records request to the Columbus Police Department.

{¶ 12} According to the report, an inmate at the Franklin County jail, Shannon Williams, said that Langbein (who had been in the jail) told him that he had been "involved in a homicide with an individual who is now incarcerated at the Federal Penn., Ashland, KY, where the victim was shot seventeen times. Williams added that Langbein said that the other individual who was arrested was the driver following the homicide." Bethel argued that Chavis was incarcerated in a federal prison in Kentucky in 2000, so Langbein's statement to Williams amounted to a confession that Langbein—not Bethel—had committed the murders with Chavis.

{¶ 13} The trial court denied Bethel's motions, and the court of appeals affirmed. State v. Bethel , 10th Dist. Franklin No. 09AP-924, 2010-Ohio-3837, 2010 WL 3239480. The court of appeals noted, among other things, that it was "speculative as to whether Langbein's statements [were] referring to the homicides at issue" because he referred to only one victim and Reynolds and Hawks were not shot 17 times, either individually or collectively. Id. at ¶ 21. We did not accept jurisdiction over Bethel's discretionary appeal. 132 Ohio St.3d 1513, 2012-Ohio-4021, 974 N.E.3d 112.

3. Bethel's second motion for leave to file a motion for a new trial and successive postconviction petition

{¶ 14} In 2018, Bethel filed a second motion for leave to file a motion for a new trial along with a combined new-trial motion and successive postconviction petition. Bethel argued that the state had suppressed another investigation report—called "Summary 86"—that he said also implicated Langbein in the murders of Reynolds and Hawk. Summary 86 recounts a 2001 interview of Ronald Withers, who was incarcerated in the Franklin County jail at the time. Withers told investigators that while they were both in the jail, Chavis told him that he had been involved in a murder but that "when [Chavis] shot the individual [the victim] was already dead." Summary 86 states that "Chavis told Withers that his cousin was the other shooter, and his cousin is also incarcerated."

{¶ 15} The trial court found that it lacked jurisdiction over Bethel's successive postconviction petition and denied Bethel's motion for leave and motion for a new trial. The court of appeals affirmed. We accepted jurisdiction over Bethel's appeal. 159 Ohio St.3d 1487, 2020-Ohio-4232, 151 N.E.3d 633. Amicus curiae, the Innocence Network, has filed a merit brief urging this court to reverse the judgment of the court of appeals.

III. ANALYSIS

A. Res judicata

{¶ 16} The state argues that we need not address Bethel's propositions of law because his Brady claim is res judicata. The state contends that Bethel received Summary 86 in 2008 when the Columbus Police Department produced more than 1,200 pages of public records—and that Bethel therefore could have brought this Brady claim in 2009 when he pursued his other Brady claim based on Shannon Williams's allegedly suppressed jailhouse statement. Bethel has not specified when he discovered Summary 86, but his counsel leaves open the possibility that it was produced in 2008.

{¶ 17} Res judicata generally bars a convicted defendant from litigating a postconviction claim that was raised or could have been raised at trial or on direct appeal. State v. Perry , 10 Ohio St.2d 175, 226 N.E.2d 104 (1967), paragraph nine of the syllabus. The state does not argue that Bethel could have raised this Brady claim at trial or on direct appeal, but it relies on several cases in which Ohio courts of appeals applied res judicata to prevent a convicted defendant from raising postconviction issues in a piecemeal fashion. See, e.g. , State v. Bene , 11th Dist. Lake Nos. 2019-L-070, 2019-L-071, and 2019-L-072, 2020-Ohio-1560, 2020 WL 1910475, ¶ 13-14.

{¶ 18} The state, in raising the doctrine of res judicata, has the burden of showing that Bethel could have asserted this Brady claim in 2009. See In re Application of Ohio Power Co. , 144 Ohio St.3d 1, 2015-Ohio-2056, 40 N.E.3d 1060, ¶ 22. The state asserts only that it is "very likely" that Bethel received Summary 86 in 2008. And it argues that Bethel has not disproved that he could have presented this Brady claim in 2009. But Bethel is not required to make that showing. We hold...