State v. Dunham, 2014 Ohio 1042

Dunham was charged with multiple counts of vehicular homicide, aggravated vehicular assault, and OVI related offenses after a high-alcohol crash involving a motorcycle rider who died and another seriously injured.
On remand from prior appeal, Dunham pleaded guilty to all counts; sentencing imposed a mix of mandatory prison terms and concurrent/consecutive sentences.
The jury ultimately acquitted one OVI aggravated vehicular homicide count but convicted on others, and found Dunham lacked a valid license and was not eligible for renewal without examination.
The trial court merged some counts as allied offenses and imposed a ten-year mandatory prison term, lifetime license suspension, and restitution.
There were issues about the license-status proof, jury instruction on causation, sentencing findings for consecutives, license-suspension class, and restitution calculations.
Remand was ordered for restitution to consider insurance offsets and other offsets to economic loss.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
License-status proof for renewal waiver	Dunham argued the state failed to prove he was not eligible for renewal without examination	Dunham asserted the waiver was discretionary and he did not have to prove status	First assignment overruled; waiver discretionary and burden on applicant to prove status
Intervening causation instruction	Dunham claimed the instruction omitted intervening-causation terms	State contended instruction adequately covered causation concepts	Second assignment overruled; instructions sufficient and plain-error claim rejected
Consecutive-sentencing findings	Dunham argued lack of statutory findings before consecutive terms	State contended findings are not required to be verbatim and record supports them	Third assignment overruled; record supports discretion to impose consecutive sentences within statutory framework
License suspension classification	Dunham was sentenced to a class one suspension	The correct classification is class two	Fourth assignment sustained; correct suspension class is class two
Restitution and insurance offsets	Restitution ordered without considering insurance payments		Sixth assignment sustained; remand for restitution hearing to account for insurance

Neder v. United States, 527 U.S. 1 (Supreme Court (1999)) (plain-error review for improper jury instructions)
State v. Foster, 109 Ohio St.3d 1 (Ohio Supreme Court (2006)) (struck down mandatory consecutive-sentence findings; sentencing discretion restored)
State v. Ice, 555 U.S. 160 (Supreme Court (2009)) (whether judicial fact-finding is required before consecutive sentences)
State v. Hodge, 128 Ohio St.3d 1 (Ohio Supreme Court (2010)) (reaffirmed that findings before consecutive sentences are not constitutionally required but ensure the record supports them)
State v. Bonnell, 135 Ohio St.3d 1412 (Ohio Supreme Court (2013)) (addressed consecutive-sentence findings post-Foster and Ice)