State v. Laskey

• Court: Ohio Court of Appeals
• Writing for the Court: LONG; HILDEBRANT
• Citation: State v. Laskey, 234 N.E.2d 318, 13 Ohio App.2d 91 (Ohio App. 1968)
• Decision Date: 13 February 1968
• Parties: , 42 O.O.2d 206 The STATE of Ohio, Appellee, v. LASKEY, Appellant.

Page 91

13 Ohio App.2d 91

234 N.E.2d 318, 42 O.O.2d 206

The STATE of Ohio, Appellee, v. LASKEY, Appellant.

Court of Appeals of Ohio, First District, Hamilton County.

Feb. 13, 1968.

Syllabus by the Court

1. A change of venue for a criminal trial should be granted only when it is clearly apparent that a fair and impartial jury cannot be had in the county where the crime was committed. And the determination whether to grant a change of venue rests largely in the sound discretion of the trial court, and an appellate court will not disturb such court's determination unless it is clearly shown that the trial court abused its discretion in making such determination.

2. Newspaper accounts concerning the character of a defendant and his alleged crime are not in themselves, sufficient to warrant a change of venue, where it appears from voir dire examination of jurors that a juror who had read such newspaper accounts can truthfully say that he will decide the case solely on the evidence and the law as given by the court.

Melvin G. Rueger and Calvin W. Prem, Cincinnati, for appellee.

Signer & Roney and Donald L. Robertson, Cincinnati, for appellant.

LONG, Presiding Judge.

On Saturday evening, August 13, 1966, Barbara Bowman, aged thirty-one years, with some friends was visiting a bar on Vine Street in the city of Cincinnati. At about two o'clock on Sunday morning following, Miss Bowman went to the phone, called a taxicab, and in a few minutes a cab driver entered the bar and called, 'cab.' Miss Bowman left the cafe in the company of the cab driver who was identified by several witnesses at the trial as the defendant.

There is substantial evidence that, somewhere on Grand Avenue between Glenway and Warsaw Avenues in Price Hills, Miss Bowman was brutally attacked. She was stabbed numerous times; marks on her neck were identified by the coroner as having been made in an effort to choke her; the carotid artery was severed, as was the juglar vein. We will not recite the gory details. Miss Bowman was horribly butchered.

Just about four months after the Bowman murder, defendant, on December 9, 1966, was arrested for an unrelated assault on a twenty-two year old young woman and was sentenced to six months in jail. This conviction resulted in the most intensive police investigation and the indictment of defendant for the murder of Miss Bowman. He was convicted and sentenced on May 5, 1967, to die in the electric chair.

In his appeal to this court, defendant has set forth twenty-three alleged errors committed in the trial of his case, which he claims were prejudicial and which prevented him from having a fair and impartial trial. We do not think there is any merit to any of his claims; however, we do wish to discuss his assignment of error number three (3). In setting forth this alleged error, defendant says:

'The trial court erred in denying the defendant's motion for a change of venue from Hamilton County, and in denying to the defendant a hearing upon questions of law and fact raised thereby adequate enough to protect the defendant's constitutional rights under the Ohio Constitution and the Constitution of the United States of America to...