State v. Santana, 2022 Ohio 4118

Santana shot and killed Devin Henderson and Javier Harrison in a detached garage on his property on August 28, 2019; Ja’shin Gibson, a third occupant, survived. Santana owned the revolver recovered at the scene and ballistics matched spent casings to his gun.
Santana left his house (about 42 feet from the garage), entered the dark garage, opened a car door and fired; victims were sitting inside the car; no weapons were found on the victims at the scene.
Indicted on multiple counts (murder and felonious assault with firearm specifications); one count (assault of Gibson) resulted in acquittal; convictions on the remaining counts produced an aggregate sentence of 21 years to life.
At trial Santana sought to introduce evidence of prior trespasses/damage to his property to show his state of mind and claimed self-defense; the trial court excluded those proffered past-trespass incidents as remote and unconnected to the victims.
The trial court admitted two videotaped police interviews of Santana (defense argued portions were unintelligible and unduly prejudicial); Santana also argued ineffective assistance for counsel’s failure to object to the recordings and challenged the verdicts as against the manifest weight of the evidence.

Issue	State's Argument	Santana's Argument	Held
Admissibility of past trespass evidence	Prior incidents were remote and not tied to these victims; probative value low	Evidence showed Santana’s subjective fear and why he armed himself; relevant to self-defense	Exclusion not abuse of discretion; remoteness and lack of connection made evidence properly excluded
Admissibility of police interview recordings	Recordings intelligible enough; difficulties go to weight not admissibility	Recordings largely unintelligible (poor audio/English/interpreter), unfairly prejudicial under Evid.R.403	Admission not an abuse of discretion; recordings sufficiently comprehensible and probative
Ineffective assistance for failing to object to recordings	No deficient performance because recordings were properly admitted; no prejudice shown	Counsel deficient for not objecting; prejudice from jurors hearing unintelligible statements	Denied under Strickland; no reasonable probability of different outcome because admission was proper
Manifest weight of the evidence	Overwhelming evidence (witnesses, stipulations, Santana’s statements, ballistics) supports convictions; Santana was first aggressor	Gibson couldn’t see well; insufficient evidence for some assault theories	Convictions not against manifest weight; jury did not lose its way; self-defense fails because Santana was first aggressor

State v. Barnes, 94 Ohio St.3d 21 (2002) (sets elements for self-defense)
State v. Robbins, 58 Ohio St.2d 74 (1979) (self-defense precedent regarding first aggressor)
Blakemore v. Blakemore, 5 Ohio St.3d 217 (1983) (abuse of discretion standard)
AAAA Ents., Inc. v. River Place Community Urban Redevelopment Corp., 50 Ohio St.3d 157 (1990) (‘‘unreasonable’’ standard in abuse-of-discretion review)
Oberlin v. Akron Gen. Med. Ctr., 91 Ohio St.3d 169 (2001) (Evid.R.403 and unfair prejudice explained)
State v. Fields, 84 Ohio App.3d 423 (1992) (prior threats/trespasses may be considered in assessing reasonableness of fear)
State v. Thompkins, 78 Ohio St.3d 380 (1997) (distinguishes sufficiency from manifest weight review)
State v. Martin, 20 Ohio App.3d 172 (1983) (manifest-miscarriage-of-justice standard for weight claims)
Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984) (two-part ineffective-assistance test)
State v. Davis, 159 Ohio St.3d 31 (2020) (Ohio application of Strickland standard)