In State v Reed, the Supreme Court of Ohio has ruled that a man convicted of sexually abusing four minors will remain sentenced, holding that the charges were properly tried together rather than in separate trials.
Justice R. Patrick DeWine authored the opinion of the court, joined by Chief Justice Sharon L. Kennedy and Justices Patrick F. Fischer, Joseph T. Deters, Daniel R. Hawkins, and Megan E. Shanahan. Justice Jennifer Brunner was the lone dissent.
Background
Jeremy Reed was indicted on twenty-two charges involving sexual abuse of four minor victims. The alleged abuse took place between 2003 and 2020. Reed moved to sever the charges so that each victim’s allegations would be tried separately. The trial court denied the motion. Reed later entered a no-contest plea to four counts; the trial court found him guilty, and the remaining charges were dismissed.
After his conviction, Reed appealed the denial of his motion to sever. The Fifth District Court of Appeals held that the trial court abused its discretion in denying severance and vacated Reed’s plea.
The State requested an en banc review of that decision but was denied. The State then appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court.
In its opinion, the Court explained the legal framework of joining and severing cases. Under Criminal Rule 8(A), separate offenses may be joined in a single trial if they are of the “same or similar character.” Under Criminal Rule 14, a court may sever charges if a joinder would prejudice the defendant, however, the defendant bears the burden of affirmatively demonstrating such prejudice.
To determine prejudice, the courts use two tests. If the state can satisfy either test, the cases may be tried together. The first test is the “other acts” test which asks if the evidence of the other crimes would be admissible in separate trials as “other acts” evidence. The second test is the “simple and direct” test which asks if the evidence of each crime is so simple and direct that the jury can separate the evidence for each offense.
If the State can satisfy either of these tests, the State can defeat a severance claim, and the cases will be tried together.
Why the Court Allowed the Joint Trial
The Court sought to determine whether Reed met the affirmative burden of demonstrating “that a single trial on all charges would prejudice his rights, and thus, whether the trial court abused its discretion” in denying separate trials.
The Court focused on the “simple and direct” test, which the trial court also relied on. Reed did not argue to the trial court that the evidence was not simple and direct. Rather, Reed acknowledged in his motion to sever that “[t]he witnesses and evidence the State will introduce with regard to each allegation is different and there appears to be no connection between the allegations.”
The Court noted the alleged incidents occurred during different time periods and in different households, and that each victim would testify about her own separate experiences. The jury could therefore reasonably segregate the evidence for each victim. The majority emphasized that Reed’s motion to sever was largely conclusory and failed to explain how prejudice would arise. Because Reed did not provide arguments showing jury confusion or evidentiary overlap, the trial court reasonably concluded that the evidence was simple and direct.
The Ohio Supreme Court therefore held that the trial court did not act unreasonably or arbitrarily in denying severance, reversed the court of appeals, and reinstated Reed’s convictions and sentence.
The Dissent: Emotional Weight and the Danger of a Joint Trial
In her dissent, Justice Brunner wrote that she would have affirmed the decision of the appeals court, concluding that Reed should have received separate trials. She argued that the State’s strategy depended on asking jurors to use allegations from one accuser to infer that Reed was more likely to have committed the others which is something courts generally forbid because it risks convictions based on character rather than proof of each individual charge.
Justice Brunner went on to argue that even if some of the evidence might be allowed for a limited purpose, it still should have been excluded because it risked unfairly swaying the jury. Courts generally require judges to bar evidence when its value is outweighed by the danger that it will provoke an emotional response or lead jurors to decide a case on an improper basis. Here, she emphasized the same concerns identified by the court of appeals, including the highly inflammatory nature of the allegations, the strong social stigma attached to accusations involving minors, and the compounding effect that can occur when multiple allegations are presented together.
The dissent also agreed with the appellate court that the evidence was not as easy to separate as the majority suggested. Justice Brunner pointed to similarities across the allegations, such as the ages of the victims, Reed’s relationships with their family members, and the nature of the alleged conduct, which could lead jurors to view the accusations as reinforcing one another. In her view, these overlaps made it more likely that jurors would treat evidence from one allegation as proof of another, rather than evaluating each charge independently. Given the emotionally charged nature of the case, she concluded that jurors would have difficulty keeping the allegations distinct and might be influenced more by the overall narrative than by the evidence tied to each individual charge.
Brunner concluded that the Fifth District correctly determined that the trial court should have severed the charges.
The Rule the Court Declined to Make
The Ohio Attorney General’s Office filed an amicus curiae brief supporting the State and requesting reversal of the appellate decision.
The Attorney General argued that when a defendant pleads no contest before proceeding to trial, little information is available about what may have been presented to a factfinder. The appellate courts must effectively reconstruct a hypothetical trial to determine whether the denial of severance caused prejudice.
To address this issue, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost asked the Court to adopt a rule that a defendant who has pleaded no contest may not then appeal to a trial court’s denial of a motion to sever.
The Court acknowledged these concerns but declined to adopt the proposed rule for two reasons. The Court cited Criminal Rule 12(I), which explicitly provides that a no-contest plea does not waive a defendant’s ability to appeal prejudicially erred rulings on pretrial motions. The Court also heard arguments from both the State and Reed, and neither party argued that Reed’s no-contest plea waived his right to challenge the trial court’s denial of his motion to sever. The ruling underscores a persistent tension in criminal justice: while trying multiple charges together may promote efficiency, it also raises difficult questions about whether jurors can fairly separate emotionally powerful allegations when deciding a defendant’s guilt.