STATE OF OHIO v. ULONDA EVETTE DEGAHSON
Appellate Case No. 2021-CA-35; Trial Court Case No. 2019-CR-558
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF OHIO SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT CLARK COUNTY
August 26, 2022
[Cite as State v. Degahson, 2022-Ohio-2972.]
EPLEY, J.
Criminal Appeal from Common Pleas Court
Attorney for Plaintiff-Appellee
MICHAEL R. PENTECOST, Atty. Reg. No. 0036803, 117 South Main Street, Suite 400, Dayton, Ohio 45422
Attorney for Defendant-Appellant
OPINION
I. Facts and Procedural History
{2} Degahson and Dewand Moore (aka “Shake“) had been sexually involved for several months, but by late summer 2019, the two started having issues because, as Degahson testified, Moore became very possessive and controlling. He also purportedly became mentally and physically abusive. After weeks of the relationship‘s going downhill, Degahson told Moore that they were “no longer going to mess around.”
{3} Despite ostensibly breaking it off with Moore, in the late-night hours of August 20, Degahson sent Moore a text message “asking if he was still up.” He did not immediately respond by text, but he called Degahson close to 3 a.m. on August 21, asking “if [Degahson] was gonna open the door or if he was gonna use his key?” Degahson was troubled by the question because she had not given Moore a key.
{4} At some point after the initial phone conversation between the two, Moore arrived in front of Degahson‘s Bassett Drive residence in his truck. Degahson quickly put on flip flops and, wearing nothing but a night dress, she headed outside to meet him. She entered Moore‘s vehicle, and Moore burned her hand with a cigarette. Degahson did not exit though, and instead closed the door. She testified that things then got violent, and that Moore began slamming her head into the dashboard and choking her. According to
{5} Moore‘s sexual advances were thwarted by a light being turned on inside the house, allowing Degahson to escape temporarily. She started to run back toward the house, but Moore was able to grab her, causing them both to tumble to the ground. They struggled in the yard, but eventually Degahson was able to free herself and flee back to the house, locking the door behind her.
{6} After an unknown amount of time, Degahson‘s daughter, G.L., and her friend left the house to walk to the bus stop, and as they passed Moore (who was still by his car on the street in front of the house), they told him to leave. The record is silent as to Moore‘s reply (if any), but Degahson admits that after seeing the interaction she walked out onto the front porch and yelled, “Don‘t talk to my kids!” G.L. told the jury that the two began to argue.
{7} Degahson told the jury that after she warned Moore to not talk to her kids, she went back inside the house and retrieved her gun. When she came back out, she warned Moore that he needed to leave. “I had [the gun] beside my thigh and I walked out and just told him to leave, that I wasn‘t gonna call the police, I wasn‘t gonna tell nobody that he put his hands on me, I just wanted him to leave.” Trial Tr. at 566. Moore, still at the end of the driveway, stated he was not going to leave, and Degahson testified that she “just was walking towards him and just continuously to tell him to leave [sic].” Trial Tr. at 567.
{8} According to Degahson, once Moore noticed the gun, he said, “Oh, what, you
{9} Springfield Officer Trent Holbrook was the first person on the scene at approximately 6:30 a.m. He arrived to find Degahson standing behind the Buick in the driveway, and as he approached, Officer Holbrook noticed Moore laying face-down in the front yard. He also found cartridge casings around the driver‘s side and rear of Moore‘s truck, which was parked on the road in front of Degahson‘s home. The crime scene was not just limited to the immediate area around Moore‘s truck and Degahson‘s yard; a bullet was also recovered in the garage door of a adjacent neighbor, and one was discovered on the ground just beneath a bedroom window of a house across the street.
{10} Moore‘s wounds were fatal. His body was taken to the Montgomery County Coroner‘s Office, where an autopsy was performed by Dr. Russell Uptegrove. The doctor testified that he found four entrance and four exit wounds on Moore‘s body. According to Dr. Uptegrove, one bullet entered the chest, went through a lung, the diaphragm, liver, aorta, and left kidney, and then exited out the back. Another bullet struck one of Moore‘s pelvic bones, pancreas, and stomach, went through a rib, and then exited. It was also determined that Moore had been shot in the back at least once. The official cause of death: “internal hemorrhaging from multiple traumatic injuries to [the] chest and
{11} Degahson was transported to Springfield police headquarters where she was interviewed by detectives and then indicted on counts of purposeful murder, felony murder, felonious assault, and discharge of a firearm on or near a prohibited premises. After nearly two years, the case proceeded to trial on June 1, 2021. During the four-day trial, the jury heard from a dozen witnesses, including Degahson herself, and it was given nearly 80 exhibits to consider. Degahson requested that the jury be given a self-defense instruction, specifically an instruction that she had no duty to retreat before acting in self-defense. This specific instruction was in accordance with the newly-revised
{12} After approximately three hours of deliberation, the jury found Degahson not guilty of purposeful murder but guilty of felony murder and felonious assault, each with firearm specifications. At sentencing, the court merged the felony murder and felonious assault counts, and the State elected to proceed on felony murder. The court imposed a term of 15 years to life for the felony murder conviction and an addition three-year term for the firearm specification, to be served prior to and consecutively to the underlying sentence. In all, Degahson was sentenced to 18 years to life in prison.
{13} Degahson appeals, raising two assignments of error.
II. The self-defense instruction was proper as given
{15} Ohio‘s self-defense laws have been in a state of flux over the course of the last several years. In 2019, S.B. 228 came into effect, altering
{16} Degahson asserts that even though the shooting happened in August 2019 and the new “stand your ground” law did not go into effect until April 2021, she still should have received the updated jury instruction because the law changed before her trial. We disagree.
{17} “A statute is presumed to be prospective in its operation unless expressly made retrospective.”
{18} Even assuming the legislature did clearly intend for the amended
{19} We find
{20} While this appears to be a case of first impression for our Court, appellate courts across the country have held that changes to “stand your ground” laws are substantive in nature and thus do not allow for retroactive application. See Blalock v. State, 452 P.3d 675, 687 (Alaska App.2019) (“Before the ‘Stand Your Ground’ amendment was passed in 2013, a person ordinarily had a duty to retreat before using deadly force to defend themselves. * * * But now the law of self-defense is that there is no duty to retreat before using deadly force, as long as the person using the force is in a place where they have a right to be. This is a substantive change in the law, not merely a clarification of the existing law.“); State v. Mahler, 157 So.3d 626, 631 (La.App.2013) (2006 amendment to “stand your ground” law changed the existing jurisprudence, was substantive in nature, and must be applied prospectively); Smiley v. State, 966 So.2d 330, 335-337 (Fla.2007) (amended “stand your ground” law “clearly constitutes a substantive change in the law” and is constitutionally impermissible to apply retroactively); People v. Conyer, 281 Mich.App. 526, 530, 762 N.W.2d 198 (2008) (statute altered the
{21} Finally, the trial court‘s decision not to give Degahson‘s requested instruction was consistent with
(A) The reenactment, amendment, or repeal of a statute does not, except as provided in division (B) of this section:
(1) Affect any validation, cure, right, privilege, obligation, or liability previously acquired, accrued, or incurred thereunder;
(2) Affect any violation thereof or penalty, forfeiture, or punishment incurred in respect thereto, prior to the amendment or repeal;
(3) Affect any investigation, proceeding, or remedy in respect of any such privilege, obligation, liability, penalty, forfeiture, or punishment,
and the investigation, proceeding, or remedy may be instituted, continued, or enforced, and the penalty, forfeiture, or punishment imposed, as if the statute had not been repealed or amended. (B) If the penalty, forfeiture, or punishment for any offense is reduced by a reenactment or amendment of a statute, the penalty, forfeiture, or punishment, if not already imposed, shall be imposed according to the statute as amended.
{22} Since the statute was amended while Degahson‘s case was pending,
{23} We conclude that the trial court did not err by instructing the jury on the pre-S.B. 175 version of
{24} Degahson‘s first assignment of error is overruled.
III. Manifest Weight of the Evidence
{25} In her second assignment of error, Degahson asserts that the judgment of the trial court was against the manifest weight of the evidence.
{27} In this case, there was never any question about who shot and killed Moore; Degahson admitted it from the very beginning. The jury just had to discern whether she had a justification for doing so, and to make that determination, it had to (mostly) rely on Degahson‘s account(s). During her testimony at trial, Degahson told the jury that she and Moore were involved in a “situationship” (they would interact socially and have sex) and that she texted Moore sometime before midnight on August 20, 2019 “asking if he was still up.” Moore did not immediately respond, but several hours later, in the early morning hours of August 21, he called her back and showed up at her Bassett Street residence.
{28} Seeing that Moore was parked in front of her house, Degahson went out to meet him wearing nothing but a night shirt and sandals. Degahson entered Moore‘s truck and, according to her testimony, a lengthy physical altercation ensued, both in and around Moore‘s truck and in the front yard. Eventually, she was able to escape back into her
{29} At some point between 6:00 and 6:30 a.m., Degahson‘s daughter and a family friend left the house to walk to the bus stop, and as they passed Moore (who was still with his truck on the street in front of the house), they exchanged words. Degahson, who was by now on her front porch, testified that she told Moore “Don‘t talk to my kids,” and then went back inside and retrieved a gun.
{30} Testimony indicated that Degahson proceeded to walk, gun at hip, toward Moore, demanding that he leave. As she got close, Moore, who had by then noticed the gun, stated “Oh, what, you gonna shoot me?” Degahson told the jury that Moore lunged at her and then she began shooting with her eyes closed. She fired until the gun did not shoot anymore, and when she opened her eyes, Moore was on one knee on the driveway next to a parked Buick. Degahson then called 911 and waited outside for first responders to arrive.
{31} In addition to Degahson‘s trial testimony, the jury was played a video interview she did with Springfield detectives a few hours after the shooting. Degahson‘s words in the interview painted a different picture of the lead-up to Moore‘s death.
{32} Degahson told detectives that she texted Moore “U up?” and then hours later, approximately 5 a.m., he showed up to her house. She confirmed that Moore made threats, specifically to break her jaw, but Degahson was clear that she was not intimidated by him. “I‘m thinking the whole time: he ain‘t gonna hit me – He ain‘t gonna do nothin’ to actually harm me.” Interview video at 1:26.54. The interview also showed that both parties were physically aggressive. Degahson described that at one point she pushed Moore to
{33} Once inside, she collected the gun from under her bed and then went back out with the gun at her hip. Degahson told detectives that she and Moore walked from the house down the driveway with Moore “grabbin’ and kissin’ on me.” She made it clear they were not going to have sex and then ran toward Moore‘s truck with him following. Degahson then threatened Moore with the gun. She described that Moore put his hands up in what could be described as a “defensive position” and taunted, “Come on. Here I am. Shoot me.” Interview video at 1:31.30. She told detectives that “he lunged for me to hit me, and I shot him.” Interview video at 1:31.37. Degahson described that Moore went around the car and she kept shooting. “My hand was on the trigger, and I kept shooting him.” Interview video at 1:32.05. Degahson fired the weapon until it ran out of bullets and explained that Moore made his way into the grass in front of her house, told her that he loved her, and said, “I can‘t believe you fuckin’ shot me.” Interview video at 1:32.45. She then took the gun back inside and called 911, but there is no indication that Degahson attempted to render aid to Moore.
{34} The jury also heard testimony from G.L., Degahson‘s teenage daughter, who testified that when her mother came back inside the house she made the comment, “I‘m gonna have to shoot him.” Trial Tr. at 245. Detective Sandy Fent testified that despite the claims of abuse at the hands of Moore, she observed no bruises, scratches, scrapes,
{35} The jury had two versions of the events before it: the story that Degahson told during her direct examination almost two years after the shooting and the story she told detectives just hours after the shooting. In the end, the jury believed that Degahson had not acted in self-defense and was guilty of murder. We cannot say that that determination demonstrated that the jury lost its way. “The decision whether, and to what extent, to credit the testimony of particular witnesses is within the peculiar competence of the factfinder, who has seen and heard the witness.” State v. Lawson, 2d Dist. Montgomery No. 16288, 1997 WL 476684, *4 (Aug. 22, 1997). “The fact that the evidence is subject to different interpretations does not render the conviction against the manifest weight of the evidence.” State v. Adams, 2d Dist. Greene Nos. 2013-CA-61 and 2013-CA-62, 2014-Ohio-3432, ¶ 24. Consequently, even though this Court acts as a thirteenth juror when considering whether the manifest weight of the evidence requires reversal, we must give great deference to the jury‘s determination of the witnesses’ credibility. State v. Williams, 10th Dist. Franklin No. 02AP-35, 2002-Ohio-4503, ¶ 58. The jury in this case did not believe that Degahson had acted in self-defense, and that determination did not create a miscarriage of justice.
{36} Degahson‘s conviction was not against the manifest weight of the evidence. Her second assignment of error is overruled.
IV. Conclusion
{37} The judgment of the trial court will be affirmed.
EPLEY, J.
WELBAUM, J. and LEWIS, J., concur.
Copies sent to:
Ian A. Richardson
Michael R. Pentecost
Hon. Richard J. O‘Neill