State v. Carstaphen
| Decision Date | 08 September 2022 |
| Docket Number | 110906 |
| Citation | 2022 Ohio 3129 |
| Parties | STATE OF OHIO, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. ANTONIO CARSTAPHEN, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | Ohio Court of Appeals |
Criminal Appeal from the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Case No. CR-20-650948-A
Michael C. O'Malley, Cuyahoga County Prosecuting Attorney, and Carl J. Mazzone, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellee.
Cullen Sweeney, Cuyahoga County Public Defender, and Francis Cavallo, Assistant Public Defender, for appellant.
JOURNAL ENTRY AND OPINION
{¶ 1} Defendant-appellant Antonio Carstaphen brings this appeal challenging his convictions and sentence for felonious assault, kidnapping, and disrupting public services. After a thorough review of the applicable law and facts, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.
{¶ 2} This case arose from an incident that occurred on May 30 and 31, 2020, in Garfield Heights, Ohio. There are two victims, female L.W. and male Roger Ortiz ("Ortiz").
{¶ 3} On the night in question, Ortiz went to a house on Marvin Avenue with a friend, "Brian." Ortiz met L.W. at the house. Brian left after approximately 15 minutes. There was another individual present with Ortiz and L.W. This individual, later identified as appellant, resided at the house. The three individuals - Ortiz, L.W., and appellant - consumed gin. Ortiz and L.W. consumed crack.
{¶ 4} At some point in the evening, appellant emerged from the kitchen holding a knife and a hammer. He took Ortiz's and L.W.'s cell phones. Appellant began beating L.W. in the head with a hammer. Ortiz tried to intervene, but appellant shoved him back down. Appellant forced Ortiz into a small bathroom. When Ortiz attempted to exit the bathroom, appellant struck him 6-7 times causing bruising to Ortiz's head, neck, and shoulder. Eventually, appellant gave Ortiz his phone back and let Ortiz leave the residence. Ortiz left around midnight on May 30. He called 911 after returning home but was unable to provide an exact location of the house. He recalled certain details about the location of the residence and passed the information along to police.
{¶ 5} Police were dispatched to Marvin Avenue on May 30, 2020, regarding a hostage situation. They knocked on the door of the residence and attempted to speak with the occupants. However, nobody answered the door, and officers did not believe they had probable cause to forcibly enter the house.
{¶ 6} L.W. was not permitted to leave with Ortiz. According to L.W., appellant sexually abused her after Ortiz left and kept her captive in the house.
{¶ 7} Police were again dispatched to Marvin Avenue the following day, May 31, 2020, regarding a call for a victim being held hostage. This time, when police arrived on scene, they encountered L.W. on the front porch. Officers observed that she "was visibly upset; shaking, crying; just looked very taken aback, very alleviated in her stress that we were there, that we had arrived." L.W. informed the officers that she had been beaten, raped, and held captive in the house. She provided a description of her attacker to police. She was transported to MetroHealth where a rape kit was performed.
{¶8} Officers patrolling the area located an individual matching the description provided by L.W. approximately four houses away from the scene. They approached this individual, and he gave police a fake name. Officers verified appellant's identity from his driver's license, and he was taken into custody.
{¶ 9} On June 8, 2020, appellant was charged in a ten-count indictment with four counts of rape, two felonious assault counts, two kidnapping counts, one count of disrupting public services, and an assault count. The victim of Counts 1-9 was L.W. The victim of Count 10 (assault) was Ortiz.
{¶ 10} A jury trial was held; however, appellant elected to try the sexually violent predator, notice of prior conviction, and repeat violent offender specifications to the bench.
{¶ 11} L.W. did not testify at trial. The state presented the testimony of the following witnesses: (1) Hristina Lekova, DNA analyst with Cuyahoga County Regional Forensic Lab; (2) Ortiz; (3) Cleveland Police Patrol Officer Danielle McNulty; (4) Cleveland Police Detective Joshua Johnson; (5) Cleveland Police Patrol Officer Aric Pruitt-Humphreys; (6) Jennifer Jacobs, SANE nurse at MetroHealth Medical Center; (7) Cleveland Police Detective Walter Emerick; (8) Cleveland Police Dispatcher Michael Sanders; and (9) Cleveland Police Sex Crimes Detective Cynthia Adkins. The defense did not call any witnesses at trial. The relevant testimony of these witnesses will be outlined below in the analysis of appellant's assignments of error.
{¶ 12} The jury returned its verdict, finding appellant not guilty on Counts 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, and 10. The jury found appellant guilty on Counts 5, 6, 7, and 9: two counts of felonious assault, one count of kidnapping, and one count of disrupting public services, respectively. The trial court found appellant guilty of the notice of prior convictions and repeat violent offender specifications charged in Counts 5, 6, and 7. The trial court ordered a presentence-investigation report and set the matter for sentencing.
{¶ 13} The trial court held a sentencing hearing where it determined that Counts 5 and 6 (the two felonious assault counts) merged for sentencing purposes, and the state elected to sentence appellant on Count 6. The trial court imposed an indefinite prison sentence of 11 to 16.5 years on Count 7 (kidnapping), 8 years on Count 6 (felonious assault), 1.5 years on Count 9 (disrupting public services), and 6 years on the repeat violent offender specification. The trial court ordered Counts 6, 7, and 9 to run concurrently with one another but consecutively to the 6-year sentence on the repeat violent offender specification, for a total minimum prison term of 17 years and a maximum prison term of 22.5 years.
{¶ 14} Appellant then filed the instant appeal challenging the trial court's judgment. Appellant assigns five errors for our review:
{¶ 15} In his first assignment of error, appellant argues that the trial court erred by admitting the L.W.'s out-of-court statements to officers during trial. Appellant contends that L.W.'s statements were testimonial in nature and constituted inadmissible hearsay.
{¶ 16} As noted above, L.W. did not testify at trial. L.W.'s out-of-court statements were admitted through the testimony of the responding patrol officers and investigating detective, as well as the introduction of body-camera footage that recorded the L.W.'s statements.
{¶ 17} As an initial matter, appellant does not specifically identify what testimony was improperly admitted. App.R. 16(A)(7) requires appellant to support his assignments of error and arguments with citation to the record below.
{¶ 18} Appellant generally argues that the officers' testimony about L.W.'s statements "identifying appellant as the individual responsible for causing her injuries" were testimonial in nature and should have been excluded under the Confrontation Clause. Because the trial court admitted L.W.'s statements, appellant argues that his constitutional right to confrontation was violated.
{¶ 19} Appellant appears to challenge the testimony of the responding patrol officers (McNulty, Pruitt-Humphreys, and Johnson (now a detective)), and the testimony of Detective Adkins who interviewed L.W. on the phone. Appellant argues that the testimony of these officers about L.W.'s out-of-court statements was inadmissible because L.W.'s statements constitute hearsay and are testimonial in nature.
{¶ 20} The state, on the other hand, argues that L.W.'s out-of-court statements describing what happened to her, how she was injured, who injured her, and her description of the perpetrator were (1) admissible under the excited utterance exception to the hearsay rule; and (2) nontestimonial in nature because they were made to the responding officers for the purpose of enabling the officers to respond to the emergency.
{¶ 21} The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides in relevant part that "[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right * * * to be confronted with the witnesses against him [or her]." In Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 124 S.Ct. 1354, 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2004), the United States Supreme Court held that the Confrontation Clause bars "admission of testimonial statements of a witness who did not appear at trial unless he [or she] was unavailable to testify, and the defendant had had a prior opportunity for cross-examination." Id. at 53-54.
{¶ 22} Thus, according to Crawford, the initial analysis to be made in determining whether a defendant's right...
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