State v. Hoskin

199 N.E.3d 1114

STATE of Ohio, Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.Sean T. HOSKIN, Defendant-Appellant.

Nos. 111119

111120

111121

Court of Appeals of Ohio, Eighth District, Cuyahoga County.

Released and Journalized: November 3, 2022

Michael C. O'Malley, Cuyahoga County Prosecuting Attorney, and Eben McNair, Kristin Karkutt, Alicia Harrison, and Margaret Graham, Assistant Prosecuting Attorneys, for appellee.

Flowers & Grube, Louis E. Grube, Cleveland, and Melissa A. Ghrist, for appellant.

JOURNAL ENTRY AND OPINION

LISA B. FORBES, J.:

{¶ 1} Sean T. Hoskin ("Hoskin") appeals his murder and felonious-assault convictions and his associated sentence of life in prison with eligibility for parole after 36.5 years. After reviewing the facts of the case and pertinent law, we affirm Hoskin's convictions, vacate his 4.5-year prison sentence for the firearm specification associated with the felonious assault, affirm the remainder of his sentence, and remand the case to the lower case for proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I. Facts and Procedural History

{¶ 2} This case involves the death of Vernon Norman ("Norman"). On May 23, 2020, Toya Johnson ("Johnson") and her youngest child spent their first night at the house she rented at 391 E. 162nd Street in Cleveland (the "house" or the "crime scene"). Johnson invited Norman, who is the father of the child, to spend the night at the house. Norman and the child fell asleep downstairs, and Johnson fell asleep upstairs.

{¶ 3} Johnson woke up to see Hoskin, who is Johnson's former boyfriend, standing on the roof of the house outside of the second-story bedroom window. Hoskin came into the bedroom through the window, and a tussle ensued between Hoskin and Johnson. Johnson cried for help, and Norman ran upstairs. When Norman saw the two arguing, he went back downstairs and Hoskin ran after Norman.

{¶ 4} Johnson heard three gunshots and went downstairs. Johnson saw that Norman had been shot, and he fell down on the kitchen floor. Johnson heard Hoskin say that he had been shot. Hoskin had a gun in his hand. Johnson called 911, and Hoskin fled the scene. Norman died at the scene. It is undisputed that in the early morning hours of May 24, 2020, Hoskin shot and killed Norman.

{¶ 5} On September 17, 2020, Hoskin was indicted for Norman's murder and other associated offenses in Cuyahoga C.P. No. CR-20-652363-A. On May 13, 2021, Hoskin pled guilty to various drug-related offenses in two other cases, Cuyahoga C.P. Nos. CR-19-642961-A and CR-19-644629-A.

{¶ 6} On November 5, 2021, a jury found Hoskin guilty of murder in violation of R.C. 2903.02(B), with one- and three-year firearm specifications, and felonious assault in violation of R.C. 2903.11(A)(1), with one- and three-year firearm specifications in CR-20-652363-A. Hoskin was found not guilty of various offenses including aggravated burglary and assaulting Johnson. The court found Hoskin guilty of a 4.5-year firearm specification associated with the murder, a 4.5-year firearm specification associated with the felonious assault, notice of prior conviction and repeat violent offender specifications associated with the felonious assault, and two counts of having weapons while under disability in violation of R.C. 2923.13(A)(2) and (3).

{¶ 7} The court merged the murder and felonious-assault convictions, and the state elected to proceed to sentencing on the murder. The court merged the two having-weapons-while-under-disability convictions, and the state elected to proceed to sentencing on one of them. On November 17, 2021, the court sentenced Hoskin to an indefinite prison term of 15 years to life for the murder, to run consecutive to 4.5 years on the firearm specification associated with the murder, to run concurrent with three years in prison for the weapons-while-under-disability conviction. The court also sentenced Hoskin to 4.5 years for the firearm specification on the felonious-assault conviction, to run consecutive to the aforementioned sentence.

{¶ 8} The court ran this sentence of life in prison with parole eligibility after 24 years consecutive to an 18-month prison sentence in CR-19-642961-A and an 11-year prison sentence in CR-19-644629-A, for an aggregate prison sentence of life with parole eligibility after 36.5 years.

{¶ 9} It is from these convictions and prison sentence that Hoskin now appeals, raising four assignments of error for our review.

I. The trial court erred by failing to grant the motion for judgment of acquittal as to the crimes of felonious assault and felony murder.

II. The trial court erred by permitting the state to ask questions and argue about the defendant's post-arrest silence.

III. The trial court erred by failing to merge gun specifications along with each underlying allied offense.

IV. The finding of necessity made under R.C. 2929.14(C)(4) clearly and convincingly lack[s] support in the record, and the trial court thus erred by ordering the defendant to serve his sentences consecutively.

II. Law and Analysis

A. Sufficiency of the Evidence

{¶ 10} In his first assignment of error, Hoskin argues that "the trial court erred by failing to grant the motion for judgment of acquittal as to the crimes of felonious assault and felony murder." Specifically, Hoskin argues that there was insufficient evidence to convict him of felonious assault and felony murder "because the State had not disproven any of the elements of self-defense * * *."

An appellate court's function when reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence to support a criminal conviction is to examine the evidence admitted at trial to determine whether such evidence, if believed, would convince the average mind of defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The relevant inquiry is whether, after viewing the evidence in a light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

State v. Jenks , 61 Ohio St.3d 259, 574 N.E.2d 492 (1991), paragraph two of the syllabus. "In essence, sufficiency is a test of adequacy. Whether the evidence is legally sufficient to sustain a verdict is a question of law." State v. Thompkins , 78 Ohio St.3d 380, 386, 678 N.E.2d 541 (1997).

1. Felony Murder and Felonious Assault

{¶ 11} Felony murder is defined in R.C. 2903.02(B) as follows: "No person shall cause the death of another as a proximate result of the offender's committing or attempting to commit [a qualifying] offense of violence * * *." Felonious assault is defined in R.C. 2903.11(A)(1) as follows: "No person shall knowingly * * * [c]ause serious physical harm to another * * *." In the case at hand, the parties do not dispute that Hoskin's felonious-assault conviction listing Norman as the victim is a qualifying offense under the felony-murder statute.

2. Self-defense

{¶ 12} Pursuant to R.C. 2901.05, self-defense is defined as follows:

(B) (1) A person is allowed to act in self-defense, defense of another, or defense of that person's residence. If, at the trial of a person who is accused of an offense that involved the person's use of force against another, there is evidence presented that tends to support that the accused person used the force in self-defense, defense of another, or defense of that person's residence, the prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused person did not use the force in self-defense, defense of another, or defense of that person's residence, as the case may be.

{¶ 13} In other words, when a defendant properly raises self-defense, the burden shifts to the state, which, to sustain a conviction, must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant: (1) was at "fault in creating the situation giving rise to the affray"; (2) "did not have a bona fide belief that he or she was in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm and that his or her only means of escape from such danger was in the use of force"; or (3) "must not have violated any duty to retreat or avoid danger." State v. Jackson , 8th Dist. Cuyahoga No. 108493, 2020-Ohio-1606, 2020 WL 1943528, ¶ 17 ; State v. Walker , 8th Dist. Cuyahoga No. 109328, 2021-Ohio-2037, 2021 WL 2474222, ¶ 13 ("in light of the cumulative nature of the self-defense elements, the state need only disprove one of the elements of self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt at trial to sustain its burden * * *.").

3. Trial Testimony and Evidence

{¶ 14} Our review of the trial transcript shows that the following evidence pertinent to this appeal was presented during trial.

i. Cleveland Police Patrol Officer Michael Mazanec

{¶ 15} Cleveland Police Patrol Officer Michael Mazanec ("Off. Mazanec") testified that he was dispatched to the crime scene on the morning of May 24, 2020, as a result of a call about "a female screaming, followed by a shots-fired call, and possibly a male shot." The female was Johnson, and Off. Mazanec said that he learned the following from her:

She said that an ex-boyfriend came over. He was trying to get in through a window. She was trying to keep him from getting inside. When he — he was eventually able to get inside the window and they began to physically tussle with each other. And then at some point she was calling for help and the victim, [Norman,] came upstairs to see what was going on.

{¶ 16} He also learned that the ex-boyfriend who entered the house through Johnson's second-story bedroom window was Hoskin. Off. Mazanec described what Johnson had told him about Hoskin's "tussle" with Johnson as follows: Hoskin "began to choke, strangle her and she tried calling while he had her — his hand around her neck, she called for help." Norman went upstairs, and he and Hoskin had "an exchange of words." Norman and Hoskin went downstairs, and Johnson followed them. According to Off. Mazanec, "[b]efore she could get all the way downstairs, she heard a gunshot." While Off. Mazanec was speaking with Johnson at the crime scene, EMS informed them that Norman had died.

{¶ 17} As part of his investigation of the crime...