State v. Lewis, 2017 Ohio 2747

Victim and John Lewis had a long-term, on-and-off relationship; by 2014 she had tried to end it and alleged stalking and repeated unwanted contact.
On Aug. 2–3, 2014 Lewis picked up the victim; she alleges he drove her to his home, punched her, dragged her out of his truck, and that she fell from his raised porch, sustaining a dislocated knee and fractured tibia; Lewis suffered a fractured pinkie.
The victim says Lewis took her cell phone and kept her in his basement for several hours before he called 911 around 5:01 a.m.; medical personnel observed severe knee deformity and facial injuries and the victim eventually reported being assaulted.
A grand jury indicted Lewis for kidnapping, felonious assault, abduction, menacing by stalking, and domestic violence; a jury convicted on all counts and the trial court merged allied offenses and sentenced Lewis principally on kidnapping, felonious assault, and menacing by stalking for a total of 13 years.
On appeal Lewis raised: (1) a Batson challenge to the State’s peremptory strike of an African-American juror with a recent felony; (2) ineffective assistance for counsel’s alleged failure to press Crim.R. 29 motions; and (3) that several convictions were against the manifest weight of the evidence.
The Ninth District affirmed, rejecting Lewis’s Batson claim, finding no manifest-weight basis to overturn the jury’s credibility determinations, and finding no prejudice from counsel’s abbreviated Crim.R. 29 argument.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Batson challenge to State’s peremptory strike of Juror No. 10	State: peremptory strike was race-neutral because juror had a recent felony conviction in the same courthouse raising impartiality concerns	Lewis: strike was pretextual and racially motivated because juror was African American	Court: Held State gave a race-neutral reason (recent serious felony conviction and proximity in time/location); Batson challenge overruled
Manifest-weight challenge to convictions for kidnapping, abduction, felonious assault, domestic violence	Lewis: victim’s account was inconsistent; injuries could result from an accidental fall; jury lost its way in crediting State	State: multiple witnesses corroborated stalking, assault, restraint, and victim’s injuries; jury credited her testimony	Court: Held jury did not lose its way; credibility decisions are for the trier of fact; convictions sustained
Ineffective assistance for not making/sufficiently arguing Crim.R. 29 motion	Lewis: counsel’s perfunctory acquittal motion prejudiced him because sufficiency issues existed	State: sufficiency could be raised on appeal regardless; viewed in State’s favor evidence supported submission to jury	Court: Held Lewis failed to show prejudice under Strickland; even a persuasive Crim.R. 29 would have been denied

Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (prohibits race-based exercise of peremptory challenges)
Hernandez v. New York, 500 U.S. 352 (clear-error standard and considerations in evaluating prosecutors’ reasons for strikes)
Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (two-prong ineffective-assistance-of-counsel test)
Jenks, 61 Ohio St.3d 259 (standard for reviewing sufficiency of the evidence in Ohio)
Otten v. State, 33 Ohio App.3d 339 (manifest-weight review explained)
Thompkins, 78 Ohio St.3d 380 (appellate role as a "thirteenth juror" in weight claims)