State v. Jones

• Decision Date: 27 May 2020
• Docket Number: No. 2019-0187,2019-0187
• Citation: 160 Ohio St.3d 314,156 N.E.3d 872,2020 Ohio 3051
• Parties: The STATE of Ohio, Appellee, v. JONES, Appellant.
• Court: Ohio Supreme Court

160 Ohio St.3d 314

156 N.E.3d 872

2020 Ohio 3051

The STATE of Ohio, Appellee,

v.JONES, Appellant.

No. 2019-0187

Supreme Court of Ohio.

Submitted February 11, 2020

Decided May 27, 2020

Joseph T. Deters, Hamilton County Prosecuting Attorney, and Alex Scott Havlin, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellee.

Raymond T. Faller, Hamilton County Public Defender, and David Hoffmann, Assistant Public Defender, for appellant.

Kennedy, J. {¶ 1} The First District Court of Appeals has certified a conflict between its decision in this case and a decision from the Tenth District Court of Appeals on the following question of law:

"Where the state is permitted to exercise more than its allotted number of peremptory challenges in a criminal prosecution, does that circumstance constitute structural error requiring automatic reversal of a conviction, or is the defendant-appellant required to demonstrate that prejudice has resulted from the error?"

155 Ohio St.3d 1418, 2019-Ohio-1315, 120 N.E.3d 865, quoting 1st Dist. Hamilton No. C-170358 (Jan. 11, 2019). The answer to both parts of that question is no.

{¶ 2} A structural error is a violation of the basic constitutional guarantees that define the framework of a criminal trial; it is a fundamental constitutional defect in the proceeding that is presumptively prejudicial and not susceptible to harmless-error review. See State v. Fisher , 99 Ohio St.3d 127, 2003-Ohio-2761, 789 N.E.2d 222, ¶ 18. However, the right to exercise peremptory challenges is not guaranteed by either the United States Constitution or the Ohio Constitution but rather is provided by a statute, R.C. 2945.21. Moreover, it is the Rules of Criminal Procedure that regulate the number and manner of exercising peremptory challenges. See Crim.R. 24(D) and (E). Accordingly, while a trial court's good-faith misallocation of peremptory strikes is an error, the error does not cause a fundamental constitutional defect within the framework of the trial-court proceedings that should be classified as structural error. Like other trial errors, it is subject to harmless-error review and a reviewing court may disregard the error upon a determination that it did not affect the outcome of the trial-court proceedings.

{¶ 3} In this case, the First District correctly held that the trial court erroneously allowed the state to strike a juror from the panel after the state had waived its final peremptory challenge. But that error is not structural and therefore does not require the automatic reversal of appellant Seante Jones's conviction for complicity to theft. However, when the First District analyzed the error, it incorrectly required Jones to demonstrate that the error affected the outcome of the trial. Under the harmless-error standard of review, the state always bears the burden of demonstrating that the error did not affect the outcome of the trial-court proceedings. Nonetheless, because the record demonstrates that allowing the state to exercise an additional peremptory strike did not affect the outcome of Jones's trial, the appellate court's error is itself harmless.

{¶ 4} Accordingly, we affirm the appellate court's judgment.

Facts and Procedural History

{¶ 5} The state charged Jones with theft based on an allegation that he had shoplifted clothing items and a watch valued at $37.97 from a Burlington Coat Factory store in Springdale, Ohio.

{¶ 6} During jury selection, the state chose not to exercise its third and final peremptory strike. Jones then used his final peremptory challenge, causing prospective juror M.W. to be brought into the jury box and seated as the final juror. In his individual voir dire, prospective juror M.W. admitted that his feelings about police officers were "split 50/50," meaning that he believed there were "good cops" and "bad cops." He also said that police-officer-involved shootings in the national news had "gotten [his] attention" and that "it just seemed like, in [his] opinion, things just wasn't adding up." But on further questioning, prospective juror M.W. agreed that he could set those issues aside, listen to the evidence presented in the courtroom, keep an open mind until a verdict was reached, and remain fair and impartial to Jones and to the state. The state did not challenge him for cause. E.R. was then selected as the alternate juror, and both parties agreed that they were satisfied with the jury.

{¶ 7} At a sidebar conference, however, before the jury was empaneled, the assistant prosecuting attorney claimed that the state had been denied an opportunity to use its final peremptory strike on juror M.W. The trial court "reviewed the transcript" and said that it had failed to offer the state the chance to use its last challenge, and over defense counsel's objection, it excused juror M.W. and seated juror E.R. as the final juror. Jones moved for a mistrial, asserting that Crim.R. 24 did not permit the state to use its third and final peremptory challenge after having waived it and that juror M.W. appeared to be "a potentially friendly juror" for the defense. The trial court denied the request for a mistrial.

{¶ 8} At trial, Steve Seiter, a loss-prevention associate for the Burlington Coat Factory store, testified that on June 29, 2016, he watched from the camera room as Jones and Ricardo Scott entered the store. Seiter testified that Jones appeared to be looking around the store to see if anyone was paying attention to him and that that behavior was concerning because it made Seiter feel like Jones was "doing something that [was] out of the ordinary or * * * suspicious in [a] possible theft act." Seiter observed Jones select clothing from the racks, including a red shirt and a pair of black shorts, and take those items into a fitting room. According to Seiter, Jones left the fitting room, placed several clothing items back on a rack, and then walked out of the store in a hurry, without paying for anything. However, Seiter could not find the red shirt and black shorts. Seiter then checked the fitting room and ascertained that the red shirt and black shorts were missing. Jones got into a tan Hyundai Sonata with Scott. Seiter took down the license-plate number and reported the theft to the Springdale Police Department.

{¶ 9} Officer Joseph Robers testified that he was dispatched to respond to the call, saw Jones and Scott leave the store, and stopped the Sonata as it pulled out of the parking lot. Jones and Scott received pat-down searches, during which merchandise belonging to the store was found. At trial, however, Officer Robers could not remember whether the merchandise belonging to the store was found on Jones or Scott. Subsequently, the car was searched and additional merchandise was found, including a red shirt and black shorts with Burlington Coat Factory stickers on them. Seiter arrived and identified the clothing as items that had been stolen from the store.

{¶ 10} Jones testified in his own defense, explaining that he had arranged a "bootleg trip"—a ride with an unlicensed taxi driver—to Tri-County Mall with Scott, someone Jones had connected with on social media. Burlington Coat Factory was on the way to the mall, and Jones agreed to stop there first, even though he "was not interested in anything at Burlington Coat Factory." He said they walked inside the store and he looked around for about five minutes before returning to the car, where he waited for Scott for another 20 minutes. According to Jones, Scott got back in the car and "start[ed] pulling stuff out of his pants, tucking it away." Jones testified that he told Scott, "I'm not going to jail for you." As Scott drove out of the parking lot, the police pulled the car over and ordered Jones and Scott out of the car. At trial, Jones testified that none of the clothing, which he admitted had been stolen, was found on him.

{¶ 11} The trial court instructed the jury on the offenses of theft and complicity. The jury found Jones not guilty of theft but guilty of complicity. The trial court imposed a jail sentence of 180 days (with 177 days suspended), a $200 fine, court costs, and six months of community control.

{¶ 12} Jones appealed, asserting that the error in allowing the state to exercise a peremptory challenge out of sequence was structural in nature and therefore per se reversible. The court of appeals recognized that the trial court erred in allowing the state to use a peremptory strike that it had already waived, but it held that the error was not a constitutional error and therefore could not amount to a structural error. 2018-Ohio-4754, 124 N.E.3d 439, ¶ 21-23. It then determined that the error was harmless, because Jones had failed to demonstrate that he had been prejudiced by it. Id. at ¶ 37. After rejecting other assignments of error not at issue here, the court of appeals affirmed Jones's conviction and sentence. Id. at ¶ 52. Subsequently, the First District certified that its decision was in conflict with State v. Holloway , in which the Tenth District held that "as a matter of law, the defendant was not required to make a showing of actual prejudice where the state is granted an ‘extra’ peremptory challenge," 129 Ohio App.3d 790, 798, 719 N.E.2d 70 (10th Dist.1998).

{¶ 13} We determined that a conflict existed. 155 Ohio St.3d 1418, 2019-Ohio-1315, 120 N.E.3d 865.

Positions of the Parties

{¶ 14} Jones maintains that granting the state's request for an "extra" peremptory strike violated his right to a trial by an impartial jury, as guaranteed by Article I, Sections 5 and 10 of the Ohio Constitution and as implemented by Crim.R. 24. He contends that by improperly allowing the peremptory challenge, the trial court "unfairly skewed the trial process in favor of the state," so that the error permeated the whole trial. Jones cites Lewis v. United States , 146 U.S. 370, 13 S.Ct. 136, 36 L.Ed. 1011 (1892), and decisions from the Fourth, Tenth, and Eleventh District Courts of Appeals for the proposition that a violation of the right to...