State v. Stroud, 2018 Ohio 904

Defendant William M. Stroud was charged in Ashtabula Municipal Court with third-degree misdemeanor Sexual Imposition for allegedly inserting his hand between Gladis Parker’s legs and grabbing her buttocks in a lobby on August 18, 2016.
Parker and a witness, Steven Ferrand, testified that Stroud said “first time’s free, second time you pay” and “you enjoyed that” after the contact; Parker told police and identified the touching as sexual assault.
Stroud denied sexual intent, said he only tapped Parker’s shoulder with a coffee mug and later had a few beers, and claimed Parker misconstrued the contact.
A magistrate found Stroud guilty, sentenced him to a suspended 30-day jail term, fined him $150, and imposed 18 months’ probation.
On appeal Stroud raised (1) that the State failed to prove he knew the contact would be offensive and (2) ineffective assistance of counsel for failing to request a jury trial and for not presenting certain testimony.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether the conviction can stand absent direct evidence defendant knew contact would be offensive	State: conviction may rest on reasonable inferences from the conduct and circumstances	Stroud: no direct evidence he knew contact was offensive; conviction against manifest weight	Court: evidence (touching intimate areas, no consent/relationship, defendant’s apology) supports inference of awareness or recklessness; conviction affirmed
Whether counsel was ineffective for not demanding a jury trial	State: tactical decision; failing to demand a jury is not per se ineffective	Stroud: counsel ignored his request for a jury and his preferred defense presentation	Court: counsel’s choice to proceed to bench trial falls within reasonable strategy; even assuming negligence, Stroud failed to show prejudice; claim denied

State v. Thompkins, 78 Ohio St.3d 380 (weight-of-the-evidence standard)
State v. Wilson, 113 Ohio St.3d 382 (standard for weighing evidence and credibility)
State v. Madrigal, 87 Ohio St.3d 378 (ineffective-assistance two-prong test applying Strickland)
Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (constitutional standard for ineffective assistance of counsel)
State v. Murphy, 91 Ohio St.3d 516 (trial strategy and allocation of tactical decisions to counsel)
State v. Conway, 108 Ohio St.3d 214 (defendant does not have constitutional right to dictate trial strategy)