A Cleveland man receives potential relief from the Cuyahoga County Appellate Court after two separate police chases were tried together.
On July 26, 2022, at 11:00 p.m., Jayson Mitchell was stopped by a Cleveland Heights patrolman for speeding. As the patrolman approached the driver’s side window, Mitchell took off in his SUV. The Patrolman pursued, but driving conditions quickly became unsafe. One witness, a doctor, saw Mitchell’s SUV speed toward her car from behind. Mitchell’s vehicle then overtook hers, continued, and ran “the red light at the Fairmount Boulevard intersection, narrowly missing two cars.” Mitchell then lost control while turning left, causing his car to skid, flip over, and collide with a house.
After catching up, the police found inside the wrecked SUV a Glock pistol, methamphetamine pills, and a scale. Mitchell was later indicted on 11 counts related to the incident, including two counts of having weapons while under a disability. In Mitchell’s case, the “disability” in question was his prior felony conviction, which barred him from possessing a gun.
Two months later, on October 7, 2022, police located a stolen car at a Sunoco gas station in East Cleveland. Officers barricaded the vehicle at both front and rear, but the driver still managed to drive away, narrowly missing two patrolmen in the process. It later struck a car, injuring a mother and son who were inside.
The driver’s side of the stolen car was smashed in. Jayson Mitchell was found standing near the passenger side. Police also found a pistol and drugs inside the vehicle. Mitchell was later indicted on 13 counts, including several counts of vehicular assault and multiple counts of having weapons while under a disability.
Although the offenses occurred months apart, Mitchell’s two cases were tried together. While one count of criminal damaging was eventually dropped, Mitchell was ultimately found guilty on all remaining charges. Mitchell received a sentence of up to 17.5 years with sentences running consecutively.
On appeal, Mitchell raised five assignments of error. Most notably, that the trial court erred in denying his motion for relief from prejudicial joinder, which he argued permitted the State to introduce improper character evidence.
Joinder is the concept that multiple indictments may be “joined” in a single trial “if the offenses or the defendants could have been joined in a single indictment or information.” But even if joinder is seemingly allowed, a court should not join cases where the defendant would be prejudiced.
At the heart of Mitchell’s argument is the claim that the State was permitted to introduce evidence of “other bad acts” that otherwise would have been inadmissible had the cases been tried separately, causing prejudice against him as a defendant. However, Ohio courts have decided that under the evidence rules, “‘[W]hen simple and direct evidence exists, an accused is not prejudiced by joinder regardless of the nonadmissibility of evidence of these crimes as ‘other acts’.” See State v. Belle, In other words, the permissibility of introducing Mitchell’s “other bad acts” rests on whether the two cases contain simple and direct evidence.
At trial, the State presented the cases chronologically: first, the Cleveland Heights case, then the East Cleveland case. Siding with the State, the Court of Appeals found that the evidence presented for each case was simple and direct. As such, the court found that joinder was permissible and that the trial court did not err.
In a separate assignment of error, Mitchell argued that the trial court erred by failing to merge charges at sentencing that were allied offenses of similar import. Merging charges refers to combining offenses that arise from the same conduct, as a defendant’s actions can sometimes support more than one criminal offense. This will prompt courts to analyze whether the offenses constitute “allied offenses of similar import” and should therefore merge or, instead, result in separate convictions. If the offenses are allied offenses of similar import, then the defendant can only be convicted of a single offense.
A three-part test is used to determine if actions are considered “allied offenses of similar import.” Specifically, the court asks: (1) did each offense cause separate harm?; (2) were the offenses committed separately?; and (3) were the offenses committed with separate animus or motivation?
In both the Cleveland Heights case and the East Cleveland case, Mitchell was convicted of having a weapon while under a disability. The Ohio Revised Code provides two separate offenses for this under R.C. 2923.13(A)(2) and (3), both of which applied in Mitchell’s cases.
Subsection (A)(2) applies to any person convicted of any felony offense of violence, while subsection (A)(3) applies to any person convicted of any felony offense involving illegal possession, use, sale, administration, distribution, or trafficking in any drug or abuse. In 2008, Mitchell was convicted of robbery, a felony offense of violence, and in 2013 he was convicted of drug trafficking, a felony drug offense.
In reviewing the three-part test for both cases, (1) the conduct (i.e. possessing a weapon) did not cause separate harm, (2) the violations were not committed separately, and (3) the offenses did not have separate animus or motivation. As the Court of Appeals stated, “the possession of a single gun cannot result in multiple convictions of having weapons under disability.” Therefore, the Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Mitchell and found that the counts should have been merged.
Similarly, Mitchell challenged the four aggravated vehicular assault charges for the East Cleveland case. Two counts involved sentence enhancements if the offender committed the offense while driving under suspension, which Mitchell was.
The Court of Appeals confined its analysis to whether the two counts involving harm to the mother, who occupied the vehicle, should merge and, separately, whether the counts involving the son should merge. In its analysis, the court found that Mitchell’s actions stemmed from a single course of conduct, were of similar import or significance, and did not reflect separate animus or motivation. Accordingly, the court held that the charges should merge, reducing them from four to two.
Mitchell’s appeal ultimately yielded mixed results. Most assignments of error were overruled, and though his successful challenges were largely technical, they have the potential to reduce his sentence, perhaps significantly.
Judgment against Mitchell was affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded for resentencing. Ohio Court Watch will continue to monitor this case as it goes back to the trial court.