State v. Bishop, 2023 Ohio 947

Indicted on seven counts for two separate home incidents; charges related to Vincent Accurso included aggravated burglary, aggravated robbery, robbery, and felonious assault; separate burglary charged for Kucheys’ home.
Bishop pleaded guilty (plea accepted) to aggravated burglary (R.C. 2911.11(A)(1)), aggravated robbery (R.C. 2911.01(A)(3)), and felonious assault; other Accurso-related counts (including deadly-weapon allegations) were dismissed.
Discovery and videos showed Bishop gained entry by pretense, assaulted Accurso in the kitchen (punches/kicks), then fled; during pursuit through the garage Bishop allegedly struck Accurso in the head with a landscape brick recovered with Accurso’s blood and hair, causing severe head injury and lasting aphasia.
At sentencing the state argued the kitchen injuries (physical harm) supported aggravated burglary while the brick blow (serious physical harm) supported aggravated robbery; Bishop argued all harms arose in one continuous attack and thus offenses should merge.
Trial court found the harms separate and identifiable, imposed consecutive prison terms (10y aggravated burglary + 10y aggravated robbery + 2y unrelated burglary = 22 years aggregate) and ordered Bishop to stay away from the victims for life.
On appeal Bishop challenged merger and the stay-away order; the state conceded the stay-away order was improper when combined with prison terms.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether aggravated burglary and aggravated robbery merge under R.C. 2941.25/Ruff test	Offenses are of dissimilar import: separate, identifiable harms (kitchen beating vs separate brick blow causing serious head injury) justify separate convictions	Harms arose in the same continuous assault/"same fight," so offenses are allied and should merge	Court held offenses are of dissimilar import (separate harms); no merger; convictions affirmed
Whether the lifetime stay-away (no-contact) order was permissible when prison terms were imposed	State conceded the no-contact order was improper to impose as a community-control-like sanction alongside prison and joined request to vacate it	Bishop argued the stay-away order was improper because it effectively imposed a community-control sanction in addition to prison	Court vacated the no-contact/stay-away portion of the sentence and left prison terms intact

State v. Ruff, 34 N.E.3d 892 (Ohio Supreme Court case articulating the allied-offenses-of-similar-import test)
State v. Johnson, 942 N.E.2d 1061 (Ohio Supreme Court case cautioning against parsing a single beating into separate harms)
State v. Anderson, 35 N.E.3d 512 (Ohio Supreme Court: court may not impose prison term and community-control sanction for same offense)
State v. Washington, 999 N.E.2d 661 (Ohio Supreme Court: defendant bears burden to establish merger under R.C. 2941.25)
State v. Underwood, 922 N.E.2d 923 (Ohio Supreme Court: parties may stipulate facts relevant to merger in plea agreements)
State v. Williams, 983 N.E.2d 1245 (Ohio Supreme Court: standards for de novo review of merger determinations)