STATE OF OHIO, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE vs. MARCUS LADSON, DEFENDANT-APPELLANT
No. 104091
Court of Appeals of Ohio, EIGHTH APPELLATE DISTRICT, COUNTY OF CUYAHOGA
November 17, 2016
2016-Ohio-7781
BEFORE: S. Gallagher, J., Jones, A.J., and E.T. Gallagher, J.
Criminal Appeal from the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas, Case No. CR-15-599880-A
Allison S. Breneman
1220 West 6th Street
Suite 303
Cleveland, Ohio 44113
ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE
Timothy J. McGinty
Cuyahoga County Prosecutor
By: Anna Woods
Zachary M. Humphrey
Assistant Prosecuting Attorneys
Justice Center - 9th Floor
1200 Ontario Street
Cleveland, Ohio 44113
SEAN C. GALLAGHER, J.:
{¶1} Marcus Ladson was sentenced to 16.5 years for improperly discharging a firearm into habitation, having a weapon while under disability, receiving stolen property, drug possession, and aggravated menacing. All the individual, maximum sentences were imposed consecutively, although only a $250 fine was imposed for the misdemeanor aggravated menacing count. We affirm.
{¶2} Most of the underlying facts are undisputed. In January 2015, a third party reported her 9 mm handgun stolen. The night before, her husband borrowed her car and was unaware of the fact that the handgun had been left in the back. The husband drove Ladson from a bar in the early morning hours and stopped at a convenience store along the way. The husband went inside, while Ladson remained with the running vehicle. Ladson was the only other person in the vehicle the night the handgun disappeared, although there is a claim that some other individuals milled about the car in the convenience store parking lot.
{¶3} Two months later, on the night of the incident, the victim in this case ran from her apartment to where her mother was staying in another building within the same complex. The victim appeared scared and distraught, telling her mother that Ladson came to the apartment to continue an argument they had earlier in the evening and that Ladson fired shots up through the apartment window. The victim‘s mother called the police. Officers immediately responded and found Ladson in the victim‘s back bedroom. The handgun, the same one reported stolen in January, was found in the clothes hamper
{¶4} Ladson disputes the victim‘s account of the evening. After Ladson and the victim colluded in a recorded jail-house telephone call, the victim was reluctant to testify at trial. She largely claimed she did not remember what had happened, and that Ladson was invited over and did not shoot at the apartment. The victim‘s trial testimony contradicted her statement to police officers, given on the night of the attack, and the statements made to her mother in an excited state immediately following the shooting. The state unsuccessfully attempted to refresh the victim‘s recollection, with her prior written memorandum contained in the police report, through leading questions that were answered in the negative.
{¶5} The jury convicted Ladson of improperly discharging a firearm into habitation, with an associated one- and three-year firearm specification, having a weapon while under disability, receiving stolen property, drug possession, and aggravated menacing. The trial court sentenced Ladson to an aggregate term of 16.5 years of prison — eight years on the discharging into habitation count, three years on the firearm specification, three years on the having weapon while under disability count, 18 months on the receiving stolen property count, one year on the drug possession count, and imposed a $250 fine for the misdemeanor aggravated menacing count. All prison terms were imposed to be consecutively served after the trial court made the
{¶6} Ladson appealed, claiming his conviction is against both the manifest weight and the sufficiency of the evidence, that the trial court erred in allowing the jury to use the
{¶7} The victim‘s written statement was not introduced into evidence, nor did it accompany the evidence into the deliberation process. Ladson also does not cite any authority in support of his argument regarding the victim‘s testimony as required under App.R. 16(A)(7). He included generic references to Evid.R. 611(C), providing that leading questions on direct are discouraged, and Evid.R. 613, the rule governing impeachment through self-contradiction, but it is not entirely clear how those rules impacted the trial evidence from the arguments presented. Without arguments in support of any error, we must overrule the assigned error.
{¶8} We are also required to overrule the sentencing argument because appellate courts cannot review a final sentence for abuse of discretion under
{¶9} This is not to say that a trial court cannot be guided by the sentencing factors within the scope of consecutive sentencing. A trial court imposing a consecutive sentence could be reviewing many of the same facts and considerations outlined in the principles of sentencing under
{¶10} In this case, Ladson has not asked us to review to determine whether the findings are supported by the record. Instead, he limited his argument to whether the trial court abused its discretion by imposing his sentences to be consecutively served. As a result, even if we considered the arguments presented under the standard of review set forth in
{¶11} Finally, we find no merit to Ladson‘s arguments regarding the weight of the evidence. In his manifest weight of the evidence argument, Ladson challenges the credibility of the victim and one of the police officers. The remaining testimony from the 11 other witnesses was not challenged on credibility grounds. Instead, Ladson claims the undisputed evidence was insufficient to sustain the conviction. Because the arguments are related, we will address them as one with the understanding that each presents a different and distinct review.
{¶12} When reviewing a claim challenging the manifest weight of the evidence, the court, reviewing the entire record, must weigh the evidence and all reasonable inferences, consider the credibility of witnesses, and determine whether, in resolving
{¶13} A claim of insufficient evidence raises the question whether the evidence is legally sufficient to support the verdict as a matter of law. Id. In reviewing a sufficiency challenge, “[t]he relevant inquiry is whether, after viewing the evidence in a light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime proven beyond a reasonable doubt.” State v. Jenks, 61 Ohio St.3d 259, 574 N.E.2d 492 (1991), paragraph two of the syllabus.
{¶14} We do acknowledge that one police officer mistakenly included a statement in his report that the handgun found near Ladson had a full magazine and one round in the chamber, meaning the weapon had not been discharged or had been reloaded. During trial, the officer acknowledged that he made a mistake; however, he claimed his trial testimony — that the weapon lacked one round when found — was accurate. Although this does affect the police officer‘s credibility, there was ample evidence that the handgun found near Ladson was recently discharged and the spent shell casing recovered at the scene was fired from that particular handgun. Coupled with the evidence of gunshot residue found on both Ladson and the handgun, the officer‘s mistake does not render the
{¶15} Further, even if we accept Ladson‘s version of the victim‘s trial testimony and deem her statements as an indication that she never saw Ladson shoot the handgun and was never in fear of his actions, there was overwhelming, credible evidence of Ladson‘s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt from every other witness. The victim‘s mother related how the victim was hysterical and afraid as she recounted how Ladson had shot at the apartment with the victim inside — all of which was admitted as substantive evidence of guilt through exceptions to the hearsay rule to support the aggravated menacing conviction.1 Importantly, the victim‘s mother also explained that the apartment did not have any bullet holes in it before that night, for the purposes of the discharging a firearm into habitation conviction.2 The victim‘s mother was the named tenant and lived in the apartment. She established that none of the tenants of the apartment owned or possessed a handgun, a fact bolstered by the victim‘s undisputed agreement, driving the reasonable inference that Ladson brought the weapon into the apartment, establishing Ladson‘s
{¶16} We affirm.
It is ordered that appellee recover from appellant costs herein taxed. The court finds there were reasonable grounds for this appeal.
It is ordered that a special mandate issue out of this court directing the common pleas court to carry this judgment into execution. The defendant‘s conviction having been affirmed, any bail pending appeal is terminated. Case remanded to the trial court for execution of sentence.
SEAN C. GALLAGHER, JUDGE
EILEEN T. GALLAGHER, J., CONCURS;
LARRY A. JONES, SR., A.J., CONCURS IN JUDGMENT ONLY