State v. Steffen

• Decision Date: 24 June 1987
• Docket Number: No. 86-193,86-193
• Citation: 31 OBR 273,509 N.E.2d 383,31 Ohio St.3d 111
• Parties: , 31 O.B.R. 273 The STATE of Ohio, Appellee v. STEFFEN, Appellant.
• Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Page 111

31 Ohio St.3d 111

509 N.E.2d 383, 31 O.B.R. 273

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

No. 86-193.

Supreme Court of Ohio.

June 24, 1987.

Syllabus by the Court

1.The proportionality review required by R.C. 2929.05(A) is satisfied by a review of those cases already decided by the reviewing court in which the death penalty has been imposed.

2.While R.C. 2929.04(B)(7) evinces the legislature's intent that a defendant in a capital case be given wide latitude to introduce any evidence the defendant considers to be mitigating, this does not mean that the court is necessarily required to accept as mitigating everything offered by the defendant and admitted.The fact that an item of evidence is admissible under R.C. 2929.04(B)(7) does not automatically mean that it must be given any weight.

On August 19, 1982, the lifeless body of nineteen-year-old Karen Range was discovered by her mother in the bathroom of their residence in Cincinnati, Ohio.Karen's throat had been repeatedly slashed, her face and head were severely bruised and battered, and her clothes ripped open to expose her breasts and pubic region.Quantities of semen were found both in and around the vagina.Three separate bloody shoeprints were present on Karen's chest, one of which had been applied with sufficient force to cause a bruise.The cause of death was later determined to be exsanguination, or bleeding to death, as a result of the severing of the major blood vessels in the neck.The record discloses the following account of the events leading up to this tragic conclusion.

On the afternoon of Karen's death, appellant, David J. Steffen, then twenty-two years of age, was working as a door-to-door salesman of a household cleaning product called Hy-Pro.He approached the suburban residence of Karen's parents, with whom Karen was then living.Karen was in the front yard.Appellant demonstrated the product to her on several spots on the front landing and on the doorbell.According to appellant's testimony, Karen then allowed him to enter the house.Appellant made further demonstrations of the product in the living room and then he and Karen proceeded to the bathroom.The events that transpired in that room were described by appellant in his confession as follows.

With Karen observing, appellant sprayed some Hy-Pro on the rear base of the toilet.As he and Karen both straightened up to a standing position, he brushed against Karen's breast.She began screaming.In an attempt to silence her, appellant stuffed his cleaning rag into her mouth and began hitting her repeatedly.Karen continued to scream.Appellant grabbed her, ripping her blouse off, and knocked her to the floor.He then got a paring knife from the kitchen and cut her throat three times.According to appellant's confession, he tried raping her, but could not achieve an erection.The record indicates that in rage and frustration, he stomped on her chest.Grabbing the Hy-Pro bottle, appellant ran out of the house.He discarded his bloody shirt by some bushes (it was never found) and concealed the Hy-Pro supplies (later recovered).Realizing that his employer would expect an explanation for his absence, appellant concocted a tale about being robbed.He called the police with this story and made out a police report.

The next day, appellant was picked up for questioning by Cincinnati police regarding his robbery report and the murder.Appellant initially denied any involvement.He then asserted that he had been present during the murder, but that his adopted brother had been the actual perpetrator.Eventually, appellant confessed to police that he alone had killed Karen but denied the rape.

Appellant was subsequently indicted for aggravated murder in violation of R.C. 2903.01, with specifications that the offense was committed while appellant was committing or attempting to commit the offenses of aggravated burglary and rape.Appellant was also charged with rape in violation of R.C. 2907.02 and with aggravated burglary in violation of R.C. 2911.11.Appellant entered a plea of not guilty on all counts.

Trial commenced on April 25, 1983.The jury returned a verdict of guilty on all charges: aggravated murder, both aggravating circumstances, rape and aggravated burglary.The subsequent sentencing hearing resulted in a recommendation by the jury that appellant be sentenced to death, upon their determination that the aggravating circumstances outweighed the mitigating factors beyond a reasonable doubt.The trial court, upon completing its own duty to weigh the mitigating factors against the aggravating circumstances, adopted the jury's recommendation and imposed a penalty of death.In addition, appellant received consecutive sentences of seven to twenty-five years for rape and seven to twenty-five years for aggravated burglary.

The court of appeals affirmed appellant's convictions and sentence in all respects.

The cause is now before this court upon an appeal as of right.

Arthur M. Ney, Jr., Pros.Atty., Leonard Kirschner, Claude N. Crowe, Steven M. Tolbert and William E. Breyer, Cincinnati, for appellee.

H. Fred Hoefle and William Flax, Cincinnati, for appellant.

DOUGLAS, Justice.

The instant appeal presents this court with numerous issues concerning the appellant's convictions and the penalty of death subsequently imposed.For the reasons discussed infra, we affirm the judgment of the court of appeals in all respects and uphold appellant's death sentence.

Appellant's first two propositions of law challenge the trial court's instruction to the jury that their recommendation of death would not be binding on the court, and that the final responsibility for the imposition of the death penalty rests with the court.Appellant cites Caldwell v. Mississippi(1985), 472 U.S. 320, 105 S.Ct. 2633, 86 L.Ed.2d 231, for the proposition that such an instruction impermissibly reduces the jury's sense of responsibility and increases the likelihood of a recommendation of death.Appellant further submits that this error was compounded by the court's statement that " * * * [t]he final decision as to whether the death penalty shall be imposed upon the defendant rests upon this Court after the Court follows certain additional procedures required by the laws of this State."

A substantially similar instruction ¹ was considered by this court in State v. Buell(1986), 22 Ohio St.3d 124, 22 OBR 203, 489 N.E.2d 795.There, we rejected an identical argument that such an instruction is unconstitutional under Caldwell.Buell at 142-144, 22 OBR at 219-220, 489 N.E.2d at 811-813.See, also, State v. Rogers(1986), 28 Ohio St.3d 427, 28 OBR 480, 504 N.E.2d 52;State v. Williams(1986), 23 Ohio St.3d 16, 21-22, 23 OBR 13, 18-19, 490 N.E.2d 906, 912.We are not persuaded to alter that position by appellant's argument herein.

Appellant's third proposition of law argues that the use of the same felony twice, to elevate the offense to aggravated murder and again to elevate it to capital aggravated murder, fails to narrow the class of offenders eligible for the death penalty.This court has previously rejected this argument.State v. Jenkins(1984), 15 Ohio St.3d 164, 177-178, 15 OBR 311, 322-323, 473 N.E.2d 264, 279-280;Buell, supra, 22 Ohio St.3d at 141-142, 22 OBR at 218, 489 N.E.2d at 810-811;State v. Barnes(1986), 25 Ohio St.3d 203, 206-207, 25 OBR 266, 269, 495 N.E.2d 922, 924-925.For the reasons set forth in those decisions, we adhere to that position today.

In his fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh propositions of law, appellant attacks the legal sufficiency of his conviction for aggravated burglary and of the aggravating circumstance based thereon.His threshold argument maintains that the trial court erred in instructing the jury that one who lawfully enters premises becomes a trespasser ² subject to conviction for burglary by virtue of the commission of a felony on the premises.Citing this court's holding in State v. Barksdale(1983), 2 Ohio St.3d 126, 2 OBR 675, 443 N.E.2d 501, appellant argues that once the privilege to enter the premises is granted, as here, ³ that privilege is not vitiated by the subsequent commission of a felony thereon.

We cannot agree with this application of our holding in Barksdale, supra.There, the accused entered an automobile dealer's car lot, open to the public, and broke into a locked car.This court struck down the accused's subsequent conviction for breaking and entering on the basis that the state had failed to prove the essential element of trespass.In so holding, we reasoned that the automobile dealer's tacit invitation to the general public to enter the lot was a grant of privilege and that one who entered the lot with the purpose of committing a felony thereon did not relinquish that privilege and, therefore, no trespass had been demonstrated.

The instant case is readily distinguishable from Barksdale.First, a private home is involved herein while Barksdale involved a used car lot open to the general public.The interest of a private person in the inviolability of his home is materially greater than that of a business owner in his business premises, particularly where the business premises are open to the public.Moreover, a privilege once granted may be revoked.In the case sub judice, unlike in Barksdale, the felony committed, once on the premises, was one of violence, directed against a human being who had the ability and the authority to revoke the privilege of initial entry, if such privilege was in fact granted as appellant testified.⁴We note further that R.C. 2911.21(A), defining criminal trespass, provides that:

"No person, without privilege to do so, shall do any of the following:

"(1) Knowingly enter or remain on the land or premises of another * * *."(Emphasis added.)

Under the circumstances of this case, even assuming lawful initial entry, the jury was justified in inferring from the evidence that appellant's...