State v. Williams

2021 Ohio 1256

STATE OF OHIO, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. CHRISTOPHER DONTEZ WILLIAMS a.k.a. CHRISTOPHER DONTEZ CURTIS WILLIAMS, Defendant-Appellant.

CASE NO. 2020-A-0033

COURT OF APPEALS ELEVENTH APPELLATE DISTRICT ASHTABULA COUNTY, OHIO

April 12, 2021

OPINION

Criminal Appeal from the Ashtabula County Court of Common Pleas, Case No. 2018 CR 00636.

Judgment: Affirmed.

Colleen M. O'Toole, Ashtabula County Prosecutor, and Shelley M. Pratt, Assistant Prosecutor, Ashtabula County Prosecutor's Office, 25 West Jefferson Street, Jefferson, OH 44047 (For Plaintiff-Appellee).

Adam M. Van Ho, 243 Furnace Street, Suite 201, Akron, OH 44304 (For Defendant-Appellant).

MATT LYNCH, J.

{¶1} Defendant-appellant, Christopher Dontez Williams, appeals from his convictions for Robbery and Improperly Handling Firearms in a Motor Vehicle, following a jury trial in the Ashtabula County Court of Common Pleas. For the following reasons, we affirm the decision of the lower court.

{¶2} On October 24, 2018, the Ashtabula County Grand Jury issued an Indictment, charging Williams with Robbery, a felony of the second degree, in violation of R.C. 2911.02(A)(2); Improperly Handling Firearms in a Motor Vehicle, a felony of the fourth degree, in violation of R.C 2923.16(B); and two counts of Petty Theft, misdemeanors of the first degree, in violation of R.C. 2913.02(A)(1).

{¶3} A trial was held on March 11-12, 2019. The following pertinent testimony and evidence were presented:

{¶4} On September 14, 2018, Michael Tran was working as manager at Grumpy Grandpa's in Ashtabula, which is owned by his father, Chinh Tran. The store sells groceries and alcohol. According to Tran, around 7:30 p.m., he noticed some liquor bottles missing from a shelf. He reviewed the security camera footage and saw a group of three individuals, including Williams, stealing alcohol worth approximately $95. Tran called the police, who responded and took a statement.

{¶5} Shortly after the officer left, around 9 p.m., Williams and a female who committed the prior theft returned to the store. Tran asked that they leave due to the prior theft and they did not respond. He again asked them to leave and Williams said "he gonna come in and take whatever he want." According to Tran, Williams then pushed him out of the way and began taking bottles of alcohol. After Williams took a bottle of Hennessy, which was described as "half a gallon" and really large, Williams "threatened to hit [him] with it." Williams pushed Tran out of the way again and took more alcohol, which totaled $400, before leaving. The surveillance video depicts Williams and his accomplice entering an aisle and taking alcohol off of the shelf, with Tran subsequently running toward them. Tran began trying to retrieve alcohol from the pair and a brief conversation between Tran and Williams occurred. There then appeared to be somephysical contact between the men, with Williams raising his arm in an upward motion toward Tran's chest and shoulder area, although the specific contact made is unclear due to the angle of the video and the position of the men. Williams took additional alcohol, which Tran again tried to remove from his hands before Tran's father pulled him away. When Williams and the woman exited, Tran observed the red car they were in and a cashier called the police. Tran described the car to the responding officer who then left the scene. Tran testified that he took Williams' statement that he would hit Tran seriously and was in fear for his safety and the safety of his employees.

{¶6} Deputy James Lewis of the Ashtabula County Deputy Sherriff's Department was dispatched to Grumpy Grandpa's to respond to the theft complaint. Shortly after he left, at around 9 p.m., he returned to respond to a complaint of a "fight" occurring there. After speaking with Tran and his father who gave a description of a red car, Lewis left to search for the vehicle. He located a maroon four-door Saturn that matched the provided description. He and several other officers pursued it for approximately 22 minutes. The vehicle ultimately drove into the back yard of a residence where it came to a stop. Williams exited the vehicle, where he had been sitting in the passenger side rear seat, ran into a field, and was arrested. There were four individuals in the vehicle when it was stopped and both the driver and Williams ran from the vehicle.

{¶7} Lewis testified that a search of the car recovered, inter alia, several liquor bottles and a loaded handgun in the center console area that he described as accessible to all four individuals within the vehicle. Sergeant Brian Rose, who searched and photographed the interior of the car, testified that when he "got up to the car and started looking at the car, [he] observed the pistol that was in the car." Rose described the gunas being "beside the driver's seat between the console and driver's seat." The handgun was described as a Taurus Millennium G2 9mm. The photographs of the interior of the vehicle show the gun located between the driver's seat and front passenger seat, in front of the center armrest area and visible when looking into the front seat area from the driver's side door. Sergeant Rose clarified that the firearm was accessible to "everybody in the car" and that the car was "small" with bucket seats.

{¶8} The jury found Williams guilty of all four counts as charged in the Indictment. The verdict was memorialized in a March 15, 2019 Judgment Entry.

{¶9} A sentencing hearing was held on July 20, 2020, and the sentence was memorialized in a July 23, 2020 Judgment Entry of Sentence. The court sentenced Williams to serve a prison term of five years for Robbery, 18 months for Improperly Handing Firearms in a Motor Vehicle, and six months for each count of Petty Theft. They were ordered to be served concurrently.

{¶10} Williams timely appeals and raises the following assignments of error:

{¶11} "[1.] Appellant's conviction for robbery, in violation of Section 2911.02(A)(2) of the Ohio Revised Code, is unconstitutional as it is against the manifest weight of the evidence and is based upon insufficient evidence, in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and Article One, Sections Ten and Sixteen of the Ohio Constitution.

{¶12} "[2.] Appellant's conviction for improper handling of a firearm in a motor vehicle, in violation of Section 2923.16(B) of the Ohio [Revised Code], is unconstitutional as it is against the manifest weight of the evidence and is based upon insufficient evidence, in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United StatesConstitution and Article One, Sections Ten and Sixteen of the Ohio Constitution.

{¶13} "[3.] The trial court erred * * * in failing to grant appellant's Criminal Rule 29 motion for a judgment of acquittal on the charges of robbery and improperly handling a firearm in a motor vehicle following the conclusion of the state's case.

{¶14} "[4.] Appellant was deprived of the effective assistance of counsel at trial, in violation of Strickland v. Washington, the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution, and Article One, Section Ten of the Ohio Constitution."

{¶15} In his first assignment of error, Williams argues that his conviction for Robbery was against the weight and sufficiency of the evidence because the State failed to prove that he inflicted, attempted to inflict, or threatened to inflict physical harm on Tran.

{¶16} Crim.R. 29(A) provides, in pertinent part: "[t]he court * * * shall order the entry of a judgment of acquittal of one or more offenses charged * * * if the evidence is insufficient to sustain a conviction of such offense or offenses." In reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence, "[t]he 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, following Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979).

{¶17} Whereas "sufficiency of the evidence is a test of adequacy as to whether the evidence is legally sufficient to support a verdict as a matter of law, * * * weight of the evidence addresses the evidence's effect of inducing belief." State v. Wilson, 113 Ohio St.3d 382, 2007-Ohio-2202, 865 N.E.2d 1264, ¶ 25, citing State v. Thompkins, 78 Ohio St.3d 380, 386-387, 678 N.E.2d 541 (1997). "[A] reviewing court asks whose evidenceis more persuasive—the state's or the defendant's?" Id. An appellate court must consider all the evidence in the record, the reasonable inferences, the credibility of the witnesses, and whether, "in resolving conflicts in the evidence, the jury clearly lost its way and created such a manifest miscarriage of justice that the conviction must be reversed and a new trial ordered." (Citation omitted.) Thompkins at 387. "Since there must be sufficient evidence to take a case to the jury, it follows that 'a finding that a conviction is supported by the weight of the evidence necessarily must include a finding of sufficiency.'" (Citation omitted.) State v. Arcaro, 11th Dist. Ashtabula No. 2012-A-0028, 2013-Ohio-1842, ¶ 32.

{¶18} To be convicted of Robbery, the State was required to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Williams did, "in attempting or committing a theft offense or in fleeing immediately after the attempt or offense * * * [i]nflict, attempt to inflict, or threaten to inflict physical harm on another." R.C. 2911.02(A)(2). As Williams takes issue only with the element of inflicting, attempting to inflict, or threatening to inflict physical harm, we will address only that element.

{¶19} Williams contends that he used force when pushing Tran but this would only meet the elements of R.C. 2911.02(A)(3), which is a third-degree Robbery. However, as he subsequently recognizes, the...