State v. Johnson
| Decision Date | 01 December 2015 |
| Docket Number | No. 2012–0405.,2012–0405. |
| Parties | The STATE of Ohio, Appellee, v. JOHNSON, Appellant. |
| Court | Ohio Supreme Court |
Joseph T. Deters, Hamilton County Prosecuting Attorney, and Ronald W. Springman Jr., Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellee.
Timothy Young, Ohio Public Defender, Linda Prucha, Supervisor, Death–Penalty Division, and Tyson Fleming and Daniel Jones, Assistant Public Defenders, for appellant.
{¶ 1} In 1998, defendant-appellant, Rayshawn Johnson, was convicted of the 1997 aggravated murder of Shanon Marks and was sentenced to death. Finding no success on direct appeal or through the postconviction process in state court, Johnson sought habeas corpus relief in federal court and was granted relief there on the grounds that he had received ineffective assistance of trial counsel during the mitigation phase of his trial.
{¶ 2} In 2011, the state conducted a new mitigation hearing. A new judge presided over the hearing, and 12 new jurors recommended a sentence of death. The trial court again imposed a death sentence, and we now review Johnson's direct appeal as of right from that sentence. We find that there were no significant procedural defects in the new mitigation hearing, but, pursuant to our independent evaluation of the sentence under R.C. 2929.05(A), we determine that the aggravating circumstances in this case do not outweigh beyond a reasonable doubt the mitigating factors. We accordingly vacate the sentence of death and remand the cause to the trial court for resentencing consistent with R.C. 2929.06.
{¶ 3} In 1998, a jury convicted Johnson of aggravated felony murder, R.C. 2903.01(B), with two accompanying death specifications: Johnson committed murder during the course of an aggravated burglary and aggravated robbery, and he acted with prior calculation and design or was the principal offender in the crime, R.C. 2929.04(A)(7). State v. Johnson, 88 Ohio St.3d 95, 101, 723 N.E.2d 1054 (2000). Johnson was sentenced to death. Id.
{¶ 4} Johnson challenged his conviction and sentence on the grounds that he had received ineffective assistance of counsel during the mitigation phase of his trial. The Ohio courts rejected this argument. See id. at 120, 130, 723 N.E.2d 1054 (direct appeal); State v. Johnson, 1st Dist. Hamilton No. C–000090, 2000 WL 1760225, at *3–9 (Dec. 1, 2000) (), appeal not accepted, 91 Ohio St.3d 1481, 744 N.E.2d 1194 (2001). In April 2002, Johnson filed a habeas corpus petition in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. Johnson v. Bagley, S.D.Ohio No. 1:02–cv–220, 2006 WL 5388021, *6 (Apr. 24, 2006). After conducting an evidentiary hearing, id. at *47, the district court granted habeas relief on Johnson's claim of ineffective assistance of counsel at mitigation. Id. at *72–73. On April 24, 2006, the court directed the state to commute Johnson's death sentence or grant him a new mitigation hearing. Id. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed. Johnson v. Bagley, 544 F.3d 592, 594 (6th Cir.2008).
{¶ 5} Johnson's second mitigation hearing began on November 30, 2011. The common pleas court assigned a new presiding judge, who in turn seated a new panel of jurors. The judge instructed the jurors that they must adhere to the prior guilty verdict as to aggravated murder and the two related death-penalty specifications and that they could consider only those two specifications as aggravating circumstances for sentencing purposes.
{¶ 6} Because the new jurors had not heard the guilt phase of Johnson's trial, the state presented seven witnesses during the new mitigation hearing. The prosecutor also reintroduced all but one of the state's exhibits from Johnson's original trial, including numerous photos of Shanon's body at the crime scene and during the autopsy. The state's evidence established the following. See also State v. Johnson, 88 Ohio St.3d at 96–101, 723 N.E.2d 1054.
{¶ 7} According to Johnson's recorded confessions, he decided to enter the Marks residence on the morning of November 12, 1997, because he needed money. Before leaving home, Johnson picked up a baseball bat and a pair of gloves. Then Johnson climbed out a window in his garage and over a fence into the Markses' backyard, which was contiguous to his own.
{¶ 8} Johnson was familiar with the layout of the Marks residence because he had done work there for a previous owner. He entered their unlocked back door and walked up the back staircase. Johnson spotted Shanon in the upstairs bathroom, looking out the window. He hit the back of her head and shoulder area with the bat. He hit her again after she fell to the floor.
{¶ 9} Johnson then found Shanon's purse in the master bedroom and emptied its contents on the bed. Shanon's husband, Norman Marks, testified that she should have had close to $50 in her purse that day, but police found no money.
{¶ 10} After Johnson left the house, he discarded the gloves in a trash bin, broke the bat with a brick, and threw the pieces of the bat into Eden Park. Police did not recover the gloves or the bat. However, they did find shoe prints consistent with Johnson's Air Jordan sneakers both in the Markses' bathroom and on a railroad tie along the fence line between Johnson's and the Markses' homes.
{¶ 11} Norman arrived home from work around 8:00 p.m., discovered his wife's body, and called 9–1–1.
{¶ 12} Emergency responders concluded that Shanon had been dead for hours. The coroner's autopsy indicated that she had suffered massive head injuries
, consistent with being hit multiple times—with much force—with a baseball bat. Shanon died of lacerations to the brain, caused by a blunt object hitting her head. Her left forearm was broken and her hands were bruised, indicating that she had tried to protect herself.
{¶ 13} In the hours following Shanon's death, Johnson watched police investigate the murder from a window in his house. Over the next few days, he spoke to the media on several occasions. He told reporters that his dog had been barking around 7:30 a.m. on November 12. He also expressed concern about having crime in the neighborhood.
{¶ 14} Police interviewed Johnson at his home on November 14, then at the police station on November 15. Johnson confessed in two recorded statements and was arrested. On November 16, he provided a third recorded statement at the county jail, in which he claimed that a man named Dante had accompanied him into the Markses' home and that Dante had delivered the final blows to Shanon with the handle of a gun.
{¶ 15} During the 2011 mitigation hearing, the defense presented five witnesses, Johnson's unsworn statement, and eight exhibits. A detailed description of the testimony is included in our independent sentence evaluation below.
{¶ 16} On December 7, 2011, the jury recommended a sentence of death.
{¶ 17} The judge did not immediately sentence Johnson, because he wanted time to review the trial transcript and exhibits from Johnson's original trial for any possible mitigation evidence the defense might have missed. The court also admitted the original 11–volume trial transcript into evidence as a court exhibit.
On January 10, 2012, the trial court concluded that the aggravating circumstances outweighed the mitigating factors and sentenced Johnson to death.
{¶ 18} Johnson now appeals, raising seven propositions of law.
{¶ 19} In proposition of law No. 1, Johnson, an African–American, argues that the state violated his equal-protection rights by purposefully excluding two African–American prospective jurors. In addition, proposition of law No. 2 asserts that Johnson's trial counsel were ineffective for failing to effectively present Batson challenges during voir dire.
{¶ 20} Criminal defendants have a constitutional right to be tried by a jury selected by nondiscriminatory criteria. Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 85–86, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986). Accordingly, a prosecutor may not "challenge potential jurors solely on account of their race or on the assumption that black jurors as a group will be unable impartially to consider the State's case against a black defendant." Id. at 89, 106 S.Ct. 1712. " ‘[T]he striking of a single black juror for racial reasons violates the equal protection clause, even though other black jurors are seated, and even when there are valid reasons for the striking of some black jurors.’ " United States v. Harris, 192 F.3d 580, 587 (6th Cir.1999), quoting United States v. Battle, 836 F.2d 1084, 1086 (8th Cir.1987).
{¶ 21} In Batson, the United States Supreme Court established a three-step inquiry for trial courts to adjudicate claims of race-based challenges to jurors. Batson at 96, 106 S.Ct. 1712. First, a defendant must make a prima facie case that the prosecutor is engaged in racial discrimination. Id. at 96–97, 106 S.Ct. 1712. Second, if the defendant satisfies that burden, the prosecutor must provide a racially neutral explanation for the challenge. Id. at 97–98, 106 S.Ct. 1712. Finally, the court must decide, based on all the circumstances, whether the defendant has proved purposeful racial discrimination. Id. at 98, 106 S.Ct. 1712. In doing so, the court must consider the circumstances of the challenge and assess the plausibility of the prosecutor's explanation in order to determine whether it is merely pretextual. See Miller–El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322, 339, 123 S.Ct. 1029, 154 L.Ed.2d 931 (2003) ; State v. Frazier, 115 Ohio St.3d 139, 2007-Ohio-5048, 873 N.E.2d 1263, ¶ 65.
{¶ 22} Johnson argues that a trial court must undertake its own investigation of a prosecutor's race-neutral explanation, even if the...
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