State v. Thompson (Slip Opinion), 141 Ohio St. 3d 254

Thompson was convicted and sentenced to death for the aggravated murder of Twinsburg Officer Joshua Miktarian; Thompson faced two counts of aggravated murder with three death specifications each, plus multiple accompanying counts and firearm specifications.
The State presented evidence of a nighttime incident at Rav’s Bar, a traffic stop and pursuit leading to the officer’s death, and Thompson’s arrest at his sister’s residence where officers found the murder weapon and matching DNA on Thompson’s clothing and weapon.
The Defense presented a single witness, Danielle Roberson, who testified Thompson acted under fear and asked the officer to stop; the State rebutted with jailhouse recordings and physical evidence.
The trial court sentenced Thompson to death after a mitigation hearing, merging certain counts and adopting a multi-count sentence structure with concurrent terms and specific firearm specifications.
Thompson appealed, challenging jurisdiction, jury selection, venue, evidentiary rulings, trial/counsel performance, and the proportionality of the death sentence.
The Ohio Supreme Court upheld Thompson’s conviction and death sentence, clarifying the proper 12-month sentence for a specific escape count and affirming the rest of the judgment with concurrences and dissents addressing weighing and due-process concerns.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Final, appealable order	Thompson claims improper Crim.R. 32(C) final-order formatting.	Thompson argues nunc pro tunc entry replaced earlier entry making judgment nonfinal.	Court held final orders existed; nunc pro tunc did not replace original entry; sentencing opinion plus journal entry complied with Crim.R. 32(C).
Batson challenge to juror No. 6	Prosecution used race-based peremptory challenge against African-American juror.	Trial court properly conducted Batson steps and found no purposeful discrimination.	Batson challenge rejected; trial court’s third-step credibility assessment upheld.
Pretrial publicity and venue	Publicity tainted venue preventing a fair trial.	Court conducted extensive voir dire; denied change of venue.	Court did not abuse its discretion; venue denial affirmed; no presumed prejudice shown.
Evidentiary rulings (BartZ statements)	Prosecution improperly admitted statements under Evid.R. 403/404.	Statements were probative of intent and not improper character evidence.	Admission upheld; no plain error found; evidence found probative and not unduly prejudicial.
Prosecutorial misconduct and closing	Prosecutor made improper comments shifting burden and attacking defense.	Statements were improper in parts but did not prejudice the outcome; instruction preserved fairness.	No reversible prejudice; cumulative review declined; close to plain error but not dispositive.

Lester v. State, 130 Ohio St.3d 303 (2011-Ohio-5204) (final, appealable order requires Crim.R. 32(C) elements; nunc pro tunc relates back)
State v. Ketterer, 126 Ohio St.3d 448 (2010-Ohio-3831) (capital-sentencing opinion required; combined with judgment entry for final order)
Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986) (three-step race-based jury-selection test; credibility weighs in trial court)
State v. Bryan, 101 Ohio St.3d 272 (2004-Ohio-971) (execution standard for death-penalty weighing; aggravating vs. mitigating factors)