State v. Azeen

163 Ohio St.3d 447

170 N.E.3d 864

The STATE of Ohio, Appellant,

v.AZEEN, Appellee.

No. 2020-0143

Supreme Court of Ohio.

Submitted January 27, 2021

Decided May 25, 2021.

Michael C. O'Malley, Cuyahoga County Prosecuting Attorney, and Katherine E. Mullin, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellant.

Mark Stanton, Cuyahoga County Public Defender, and Erica Cunliffe, Assistant Public Defender, for appellee.

DeWine, J. {¶ 1} In 1987, Abdul Azeen pleaded no contest to attempted murder after shooting a young man in the neck on a playground basketball court. Some 27 years later, the victim died, allegedly as a result of injuries from the shooting. The state reindicted Azeen, this time charging him with aggravated murder. Azeen claims that his earlier plea prevents the state from prosecuting him again. We must decide whether the murder case may go forward.

{¶ 2} In arguing that further prosecution is barred, Azeen relies on a prior decision of this court, State v. Carpenter , 68 Ohio St.3d 59, 623 N.E.2d 66 (1993). There, we applied principles of contract law to hold that when a court "has accepted a negotiated guilty plea to a lesser offense and the victim later dies of injuries sustained in the crime" (emphasis added), the state is precluded from prosecuting the defendant for murder "unless the state expressly reserves the right to file additional charges on the record at the time of the defendant's plea." Id. at syllabus; see State v. Zima , 102 Ohio St.3d 61, 2004-Ohio-1807, 806 N.E.2d 542, ¶ 11 ("The holding in Carpenter is essentially a synthesis of contract and criminal law in a particular factual setting").

{¶ 3} By its terms, Carpenter applies to negotiated pleas. Here, there is no evidence that Azeen's 1987 plea was the product of negotiations between the state and Azeen. As a consequence, the rule announced in Carpenter does not prevent the state from prosecuting Azeen on the new murder charge. We therefore reverse the contrary judgment of the court of appeals and remand this case to the trial court for further proceedings.

I. The criminal proceedings related to the shooting

A. The 1987 case

{¶ 4} In 1987, Azeen opened fire on a group of young men taking part in a playground basketball game. Azeen shot Danuell Jackson in the neck, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. Azeen then took aim at Herman Jackson, Danuell's brother, shooting him in his groin. Azeen ultimately pleaded no contest to all the counts in the indictment: the felonious assault of Herman and the attempted murder of Danuell, both with gun specifications, as well as a charge of having a weapon while under a disability.¹

{¶ 5} The trial court opened the plea hearing by confirming that Azeen intended to enter a no-contest plea and advising him of the possible sentencing range for each of the offenses. Following that portion of the colloquy, the trial-court judge informed Azeen of the sentence he intended to impose: "I have indicated to your attorney that you will expect, under the circumstances presented here, I'm going to sentence you to three years actual incarceration and on top of that I'm going to sentence you to five to twenty-five years."

{¶ 6} By this exchange, the trial court conveyed to Azeen that it would impose 3 years for the gun specifications followed by an indefinite term of 5 to 25 years. This 8-to-25-year term amounted to the minimum sentence available on the attempted-murder count. See former R.C. 2923.02(E), Am.H.B. No. 651, 140 Ohio Laws, Part II, 4345, 4348; former R.C. 2929.11(B)(1)(a), Am.H.B. No. 284, 141 Ohio Laws, Part II, 3101, 3102; former R.C. 2929.71, Am.S.B. No. 261, 140 Ohio Laws, Part I, 583, 601.

{¶ 7} The trial court then reviewed Azeen's constitutional rights and accepted his no-contest pleas. At that point, the prosecutor summarized the facts supporting the charges, and the victims addressed the court. The prosecutor informed the court that Danuell's condition "will probably not improve," explaining that "[i]f anything, it will deteriorate slowly." No one suggested that Danuell's injuries might be fatal, and the state did not address the possibility of bringing additional charges in the event that Danuell were to die from his injuries.

{¶ 8} The court pronounced Azeen guilty and proceeded directly to sentencing. The trial court imposed a prison term of 8 to 15 years for the felonious-assault charge with the attendant gun specification; a term of 8 to 25 years on the attempted-murder charge, also including the associated gun specification; and a definite sentence of one and a half years for having a weapon while under a disability. The prosecutor then engaged in the following exchange with the court:

[Prosecutor]: To be served how?

The court: To be served concurrently.

[Prosecutor]: The first two counts to be served concurrently, or all three?

The court: All three served concurrently.

All in, the trial court sentenced Azeen to an aggregate prison term of 8 to 25 years. And by ordering Azeen's sentences to be served concurrently, the trial court imposed the minimum prison term authorized for his offenses.

B. The 2016 case

{¶ 9} Danuell died in 2014. The autopsy examiner opined that his death was caused by infections that had developed as a result of an ulcer in his pelvis and upper leg, which the examiner attributed to his paraplegia. The examiner therefore ruled the death a homicide, and in 2016, the state indicted Azeen for the aggravated murder of Danuell based on the 1987 shooting.

{¶ 10} Azeen filed a motion to dismiss the 2016 indictment on the grounds that it violated the terms of a negotiated plea agreement that Azeen claimed he had entered into with the state in 1987. His argument was premised on this court's decision in Carpenter . There, this court held, "[T]he state cannot indict a defendant for murder after the court has accepted a negotiated guilty plea to a lesser offense and the victim later dies of injuries sustained in the crime, unless the state expressly reserves the right to file additional charges on the record at the time of the defendant's plea." Carpenter , 68 Ohio St.3d at 62, 623 N.E.2d 66. Azeen contended that because the state had not reserved its right to bring additional charges at the time of his plea, the state was barred from prosecuting him for Danuell's death. The state countered that there had not been a negotiated plea, so Carpenter did not apply.

{¶ 11} During the hearing on the motion to dismiss, Azeen conceded that no explicit plea agreement appeared on the record. Nonetheless, Azeen maintained that the transcript of the 1987 plea hearing demonstrated that the parties had entered into a sentencing agreement prior to going on the record. Azeen argued that "there had to be some negotiation" between the parties because the trial court told Azeen what his sentence would be before he entered his no-contest pleas. Counsel for Azeen also touted the capabilities of the lawyer who had represented Azeen in 1987, saying that "there's no way [Azeen's former lawyer] walked into a courtroom without knowing his client was going to get the minimum and pled no contest."

{¶ 12} In response, the state pointed out that the trial court's statement about the sentence Azeen could expect demonstrated only that the judge had made a decision about the sentence he would impose; it did not show that that sentence was the product of an agreement. Because the record contained no evidence of a negotiated plea agreement between Azeen and the state, Azeen could not have reasonably believed that the state had—in exchange for Azeen's plea—agreed not to bring any additional charges related to the matter.

{¶ 13} The trial court granted Azeen's motion to dismiss, venturing that "all the elements of a contract are supported in the transcript" of the 1987 plea hearing. The trial court agreed that Azeen had been "assigned a zealous advocate" in the earlier case and that as a result, Azeen must have received "a significant benefit to induce him into entering a no contest plea." The court therefore surmised that Azeen's sentence was "a direct result of the discussions" that had taken place off the record. And because the prosecutor had "remained silent when the Court outlined this benefit," the court reasoned that the state had "in effect acquiesced to the agreement."

{¶ 14} The Eighth District Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court's dismissal of the aggravated-murder charge. It reasoned, "Had there not been off-the-record negotiations and an agreement on the sentence, the trial judge would not have stated Azeen's sentence as the first course of business at the change-of-plea hearing."² 2019-Ohio-4677, 149 N.E.3d 162. The court of appeals further relied on the fact that the trial court had proceeded directly to sentencing as proof that the sentence had already been negotiated. Id. And the court of appeals also found it significant that counsel for Azeen had "informed the court" at the hearing on the motion to dismiss that the attorney who had represented Azeen in the 1987 case was "a seasoned criminal defense attorney who fought hard for his clients." Id. at ¶ 26.

{¶ 15} The state presents two arguments in its appeal to this court. Its first proposition of law asserts that this court's decision in Carpenter does not apply retroactively to pleas entered before that case was decided. And in its second proposition of law, the state contends that irrespective of the retroactivity question, Carpenter does not apply to unnegotiated no-contest pleas like the one in this case.

II. The Carpenter decision

{¶ 16} When a defendant has entered a plea to a nonhomicide offense and the victim later dies as a result of the conduct that gave rise to the offense, the state may bring charges for homicide without running afoul of the constitutional prohibitions against double jeopardy. State v. Dye , 127 Ohio St.3d 357, 2010-Ohio-5728, 939 N.E.2d 1217, ¶ 20, fn. 2. This is because the Double Jeopardy Clauses of the Fifth Amendment to...