For a prisoner earning $12 a month, the cost of a co-defendant’s Ohio court transcript could be what stands between a conviction and a new trial.
For 70 years, prisoners have had a constitutional right to a free copy of their own trial transcript. But they have no automatic right to a co-defendant’s transcript. When co-defendants are tried separately, the same witnesses might tell two different stories. The version told at one trial might support a motion for a new trial for their co-defendant. But prisoners who cannot afford that transcript might never know about the conflicting accounts. Ohio’s 120-day deadline for a new trial motion starts at the verdict — not when they find out.
State v. Reese asks what happens when a defendant finally gets one and finds testimony that conflicts with the evidence used to convict him.
One Case, Two Verdicts
Lamar Reese is serving a life sentence in an Ohio prison for the 2011 murder of Josh Davis, 17, in Youngstown, Ohio. Initially, the State charged Reese and another man, Frankie Hudson Jr. The court later severed their cases and tried them separately.
Reese was convicted in 2014 of aggravated murder and aggravated robbery. He was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole after 33 years.
Hudson Jr., however, was acquitted of aggravated murder and aggravated robbery with a firearm. A jury did convict him for having a weapon while under disability. The court sentenced him to three years in prison.
In 2025, the public defender’s office re-examined Reese’s case. They obtained a copy of Hudson Jr.’s trial transcript, and provided the copy to Reese. For the first time, 11 years after his conviction, Reese was able to review the testimony relied on in Hudson Jr.’s case. He argued that what he found could mean his freedom.
Reese filed a motion last year seeking a new trial. The trial court denied that motion, and Reese appealed. In December 2025, Ohio’s Seventh District Court of Appeal affirmed the lower court’s ruling.
The crux of Reese’s argument for a new trial is that his co-defendant’s trial transcript reveals key witness testimony directly conflicting with the evidence used to convict him in trial. Ohio gives defendants 120 days from the time of conviction to file this motion — unless under Ohio Crim. R. 33, they can show they were “unavoidably prevented” from discovering the new evidence in that time frame.
The Price of Proof
Trial transcripts are a matter of public record. Under the Ohio Public Records Act, also known as Ohio’s “Sunshine Laws,” “any person” is allowed access to these records. But do cost money. As noted by the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, the government is “allowed to charge the requester the ‘actual cost’ that it incurred to respond to the request.'” They can also charge the cost to produce electronic records, print paper records, and for packing / delivery. Some public offices, including law enforcement agencies, can charge more than actual cost for certain requests, such as producing video footage. These agencies can charge up to $75/hour for their time.
Trial transcripts tend to be on the pricier end of public records requests. In Franklin County, for example, criminal trial transcripts are $4.75 a page. Criminal trial transcripts can be hundreds of pages long — not including all of the pre-trial depositions, etc.
Meanwhile, Ohio prison inmates earn a monthly salary of between $0 and $24 through the Inmate Compensation for Work Program. Reese, as a Category five inmate who works between 90 and 120 hours month, is among those who earn $12 monthly. If his co-defendant’s trial transcript was 100 pages (a low estimate for a murder trial), he’d have to save his prison earnings for 40 months to afford it.
The question Reese raised in his motion for new trial and subsequent appeal: whether a defendant who could not afford that transcript was “unavoidably prevented” from discovering what it contained.
The Hypothetical Helper
The trial court and the appellate court both answered no.
“The fact that Reese was incarcerated and could not afford a copy of the transcript did not prevent him from having another individual review the same or copy the transcript during the ten years after Hudson’s trial.” — Ohio’s Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals
The appellate panel did not say who that individual would be. A person in prison without a lawyer, money, investigators, or a right to the transcript would need someone able to read a full trial record and spot where it conflicts with his own.
On August 4, 2026, the Ohio Supreme Court declined to hear Reese’s appeal. That means the appellate decision stands, and an indigent prisoner is not unavoidably prevented from discovering evidence in another person’s transcript if some unnamed friend, relative, or co-defendant could have obtained it for him.