State v. Scott, 101 Ohio St.3d 31 (Ohio 1/14/2004)

• Decision Date: 14 January 2004
• Docket Number: No. 2000-1001.,2000-1001.
• Citation: 101 Ohio St.3d 31,2004 Ohio 10
• Parties: THE STATE OF OHIO, APPELLEE, v. SCOTT, APPELLANT.
• Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Page 1

Unpublished Opinion

101 Ohio St.3d 31

2004 Ohio 10

THE STATE OF OHIO, APPELLEE, v. SCOTT, APPELLANT.

No. 2000-1001.

In the Supreme Court of Ohio.

Submitted July 8, 2003.

Decided January 14, 2004.

Appeal from the Court of Common Pleas of Stark County, No. 1999CR1154.

John D. Ferrero Jr., Stark County Prosecuting Attorney, and Ronald Mark Caldwell, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellee.

Annette L. Powers, for appellant.

O'DONNELL, J.

{¶1} Michael Dean Scott appeals from a judgment of the Stark County Court of Common Pleas, entered pursuant to jury verdicts finding him guilty of the murder of Dallas Green, with a firearm specification; and the aggravated robbery, kidnapping, and aggravated murder of Ryan Stoffer, with firearm specifications and three death-penalty specifications; and from the imposition of the death penalty in connection with the aggravated-murder conviction. Because none of Scott's ten propositions of law are well taken, we overrule them and affirm his convictions; further, after independently weighing the aggravating circumstances against the mitigating factors and comparing his sentence to those imposed in similar cases, as required by R.C. 2929.05(A), we also affirm the imposition of the death penalty.

{¶2} The circumstances that gave rise to these convictions began during the early morning hours of August 24, 1999, as Scott, then 22 years of age, and his friends Michael Wilson and Ryan Allen walked from the Canton Centre Mall toward the apartment of Amber Harsh, one of Scott's girlfriends. Dallas Green, who did not know Scott or his friends, drove past them, and Scott shouted "Hey," prompting Green to stop his vehicle. Green exited his vehicle and waited for the three to join him.

{¶3} The four men began talking. Green told them "about the party he was going to at his girl friend's, stuff like that." As their conversation continued, Green started talking as if the others "were his girlfriends." He pointed at Scott, Allen, and Wilson, telling each, "[Y]ou are my bitch."

{¶4} After talking for about a half hour, Green returned to his vehicle and got inside. Scott approached Green and asked for a ride. Green responded that "he couldn't do it." Scott then asked Green for the time. When Green turned his head to look at the clock on the dashboard, Scott pointed a .22 caliber handgun at him, said, "[N]ow who the bitch mother fucker," and then shot Green twice in the back and once in the left cheek.

{¶5} Green drove off, but after traveling a few blocks, collided with a parked vehicle near the Old-Timer's Club on Tenth and Ross Streets. He later died at Mercy Medical Center from the gunshot wounds inflicted by Scott.

{¶6} After shooting Green, Scott fled the scene with Wilson and Allen and went to Harsh's apartment. There, Scott emptied the shell casings from the handgun and threatened Wilson and Allen that he would shoot them if they told anybody about the shooting. Allen and Wilson later explained that they had failed to report the crime because they feared for their safety.

{¶7} Thereafter, Scott asked his friend Todd Jewell if he had ever heard of Dallas Green, and Jewell said that he had not. Jewell asked Scott if Green had been killed and Scott said, "Yeah." On a later occasion, as Jewell and Scott drove near the Old-Timer's Club, Scott pointed and stated, "[T]his is where I killed Dallas at."

{¶8} In early September, Scott mentioned to Jewell that he wanted to test drive a vehicle and kill the owner. Despite Jewell's protest that Scott did not have to kill anyone in order to steal a car, Scott reiterated his idea during a later conversation with Jewell and another friend, Dustin Hennings. Hennings also told Scott that he could steal the car without killing anyone.

{¶9} After these conversations, on Friday, September 10, 1999, Scott, one of his girlfriends, Kerry Vadasz, and Jewell saw a Ford Probe with a "for sale" sign in the window parked in the front yard of Ryan Stoffer's grandmother on Dryden Avenue in Canton, Ohio. Scott wrote down the telephone number and told Jewell that he wanted to call the owner, take the car for a test drive, have Vadasz drive, and shoot the owner from the back seat. Scott then called the number and arranged to test drive the vehicle the next day. As Jewell drove Scott to test drive the vehicle, Scott again mentioned that he wanted to follow through with his plan to kill the owner and steal the car. Scott asked Jewell to drive the Probe, but he declined, stating that he did not know how to operate a standard transmission vehicle.

{¶10} Nevertheless, Scott and Jewell met Stoffer, who took them for a test drive that afternoon. Scott then told Stoffer that he wanted his girlfriend to look at the car and that he would call him on Sunday to make arrangements.

{¶11} The following Sunday afternoon, Vadasz called Stoffer from the home of Scott's brother Anthony Scott and arranged to meet Stoffer at Stoffer's grandmother's house in Canton, Ohio. Jewell then drove Scott and Vadasz to Canton but did not accompany them on the test drive. Brenda Stoffer, Ryan Stoffer's mother, watched her son, Scott, and Vadasz get into the car, thinking that they would return after a short test drive.

{¶12} Vadasz drove the Probe, Stoffer sat in the front passenger seat, and Scott rode in the back seat. She drove the car for the next hour and a half. As time passed, Stoffer provided directions on how to return to his grandmother's house, but ostensibly because Vadasz had little experience with driving a standard transmission, Scott told her to keep driving until she got used to it.

{¶13} Scott eventually removed a .22 caliber handgun from his pants pocket and placed it on the seat. According to his confession to the police, "[a]fter about ten minutes, [he] just lifted [the gun] up and sat it back behind the head rest of [Stoffer's] chair. And just left it sittin' there for like two more minutes." Scott then fired six shots into the back of Stoffer's head.

{¶14} Afterward, Scott and Vadasz dumped Stoffer's body in a secluded, wooded area and then drove to a friend's home to clean up. They placed plastic trash bags on the front passenger seat so that Vadasz would not get blood on her, and then Scott drove to her home in Akron, where they parked Stoffer's car in her garage. Later that evening, Scott telephoned Jewell and reported killing Stoffer and dumping his body in the woods. According to Jewell, Scott said that "he shot him once, and afterwards he kind of freaked out and he put the other five bullets in the gun into his head." Scott then asked Jewell to "help him bury the body," but Jewell refused.

{¶15} Later that evening, Scott and Vadasz returned to Canton in Stoffer's Probe. While there, Scott talked about the shooting with Jewell and Hennings. Hennings remembered Scott saying that "he just put the gun behind the boy's head and pulled the trigger once, and he said then he emptied the whole clip in the same hole in the back of his head through the padding of the seat." Scott also mentioned that he had left the gun at Vadasz's home in Akron. Scott and Vadasz eventually returned to Akron, and on Monday morning, Scott drove the Probe to work.

{¶16} When Stoffer did not return from the test drive Sunday evening, his mother called the police. Her husband had informed her that the people who took the test drive had called and said that "they don't want the car; they don't have the money." The Stoffer family heard nothing further about Stoffer until the following Wednesday when the sheriff's department informed them that his body had been found.

{¶17} On Monday, the day after Stoffer's murder, Jewell telephoned Scott and advised him that he had seen a news report about Stoffer's disappearance on television. In response, Scott stated, "I am going to get rid of this thing, I'll call you back." Scott and Vadasz then cut the bloody seatbelt out of the Probe and threw it into a sewer across the street from Vadasz's apartment. They also put on latex gloves and tried to "wipe everything off" the Probe.

{¶18} Scott then drove the Probe toward Hartville and "ditched the car" near a vacant building. Before leaving, he squirted lighter fluid on the front seat, back seat, and dashboard but could not set the car ablaze, as neither he nor Vadasz had matches. The two then walked back to Akron.

{¶19} On Tuesday, September 14, the police obtained Stoffer's telephone records showing that on the day of the test drive, a telephone call had been made to the Stoffer home from Anthony Scott's residence. When the police contacted him, Anthony reported that Scott and Vadasz had used his phone on that date. Anthony later told Scott what he had told the police, and Scott replied that "he was thinking about killing [Anthony] and [his] girlfriend and [his] kids."

{¶20} On the same day, the police received an anonymous telephone call linking Scott to Green's murder. Until they received that call, Scott had not been a suspect in that murder.

{¶21} The next day, a representative from the Stark County Sheriff's Office and the Canton Police Department arrested Scott. Vadasz cooperated with law enforcement by leading them to Stoffer's body and his car and by consenting to a search of her home. During that search, police recovered a .22-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver, a box of .22-caliber ammunition, and bloodstained clothing belonging to Scott. They also recovered the seatbelt from the Probe that had been thrown into the sewer.

{¶22} Police Lieutenant Michael Firth interviewed Scott about Stoffer's murder. Scott provided a detailed confession consistent with the facts outlined herein. Detectives then asked him about Green's murder. He initially denied any involvement but then blurted out, "[O]kay, I did it," and provided a detailed account of Green's murder.

{¶23} The Stark County Grand Jury subsequently returned a seven-count indictment against him, charging him with the murder...