State v. Thompson, 2021 Ohio 2979

Background

On October 25, 2018, Logan Good was found dead from a fentanyl overdose; a baggie with a "tannish/peach" substance was found in his wallet and his cell-phone text history showed messages with Jermail Thompson earlier that morning.
Police obtained a warrant and searched Thompson’s home, recovering a similar baggie that tested positive for fentanyl.
Thompson was indicted (initial and superseding) on involuntary manslaughter (predicated on aggravated possession), aggravated possession of drugs, and corrupting another with drugs; he pleaded not guilty.
After jury trial, Thompson was convicted on the superseding indictment; court merged possession with manslaughter for sentencing, elected manslaughter, and imposed concurrent eight-year terms (including a mandatory term for corrupting another).
On appeal Thompson raised ineffective-assistance claims (failure to move to suppress search, failure to suppress or exclude police interview recordings, calling witnesses including himself, and counsel’s partial concession in closing) and argued insufficiency and manifest-weight defects in the convictions.
The appellate court affirmed: it declined to consider the search-warrant-suppression failure (record omission), rejected Miranda-based suppression (no custody), held counsel’s tactical choices were reasonable, and found the sufficiency and weight-of-evidence claims meritless.

Issues

Issue	State's Argument	Thompson's Argument	Held
1) Counsel ineffective for failing to move to suppress search of Thompson’s residence	Warrant-based search was valid; record does not show defective affidavit	Warrant affidavit contained "thin evidence" and suppression motion should have been filed	Court could not review because the search-warrant affidavit was not in the record; presumes regularity and rejects the claim on direct appeal
2) Counsel ineffective for failing to suppress/interview recordings (Miranda) or move in limine	Interviews were noncustodial; recordings admissible and highly probative	Officers failed to give Miranda warnings and recordings were unfairly prejudicial	Interviews were noncustodial (totality of circumstances); Miranda not required; an Evid.R. 403 motion lacked a reasonable probability of success
3) Counsel ineffective for calling Thompson and Nicole Cooper as witnesses and for conceding possession in closing	Calling witnesses and a strategic partial concession were legitimate tactics to preserve credibility and focus jury on proximate causation	Testimony connected Thompson to the drugs and prejudiced defense; concession changed trial outcome	Defendant controls decision to testify; no record of counsel overriding him; calling Cooper and the concession were reasonable trial strategy, not ineffective assistance
4) Convictions unsupported by sufficient evidence / against manifest weight	State presented interviews, texts showing a prearranged drug exchange, and matching fentanyl in both baggies to support possession, furnishing, and causation	No DNA linking Thompson to the baggie in victim’s wallet; insufficient proof he furnished drugs	Viewing evidence in State’s favor, a rational jury could find aggravated possession, corrupting another, and proximate causation for manslaughter; convictions are not against the manifest weight

Key Cases Cited

Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984) (two-pronged ineffective-assistance-of-counsel standard)
Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966) (custodial interrogation requires warnings)
Howes v. Fields, 565 U.S. 499 (2012) (Miranda custody inquiry and totality-of-circumstances test)
California v. Beheler, 463 U.S. 1121 (1983) (interrogation and custody considerations)
State v. Thompkins, 78 Ohio St.3d 380 (1997) (distinction between sufficiency and manifest weight review)
State v. Jenks, 61 Ohio St.3d 259 (1991) (standard for sufficiency-of-the-evidence review)
State v. Goodwin, 84 Ohio St.3d 331 (1999) (analysis of counsel concessions in closing)