Youngstown Daily Legal News

Appellate court upholds aggravated burglary, sexual imposition convictions

ANNIE YAMSON
Special to the Legal News
Published: March 14, 2016

An opinion recently released by the 9th District Court of Appeals affirmed the convictions of DeAndre Scott, a Summit County man who was convicted of aggravated robbery, aggravated burglary and gross sexual imposition.

Scott appealed from the Summit County Court of Common Pleas with two assignments of error.

According to him, his convictions were not supported by the manifest weight of the evidence and the trial court erred when it failed to merge his robbery and burglary convictions.

The case stemmed from an incident that took place on the afternoon of Dec. 16, 2014.

Court documents state that T.C., a 14-year-old girl, was home alone after school when she heard a knock at the door and asked who it was. A man replied that he was looking for “G Money,” which is T.C.’s stepfather’s nickname.

When T.C. informed the man that her stepfather was not home, he asked if he could leave his phone number and she opened the door. At that point, the man entered the house and pulled out a gun.

T.C. testified that the man asked her where the “stuff” and the money was but she told him that she did not know what he was talking about. He began ordering T.C. throughout the house while holding the gun to her back.

Once the two of them were in a bedroom, the man grew agitated and pushed T.C. onto the bed. She testified that he touched her inappropriately before going back to his search.

In the bedroom, the man found an iPad and a grocery bag that contained $5,000. Apparently satisfied, he took the items and left the home, at which point T.C. called her mother, Tiffany Golden.

Golden returned home and found a packaged condom on her front porch that was not there when she left the house that morning. She called the police and Officer Jason Beck investigated the case.

Eventually, the police found a potential suspect in the neighborhood and presented T.C. with a photo array.

She picked a man out of the array but said that she was only 50 percent sure that it was the man who broke into her home.

In the meantime, the condom was tested for DNA and Scott came back as a potential match.

Another photo array was prepared, this time including Scott’s photo, and T.C. chose Scott from the lineup with 100 percent certainty.

At trial T.C. again identified Scott as the man who entered her home.

He was subsequently found guilty by a jury and sentenced to 14 and a half years in prison.

Upon review, the court of appeals found that Scott’s convictions were supported by the manifest weight of the evidence.

Although Scott argued that the evidence against him was inconsistent and that T.C.’s photo array identification of him as the suspect was unreliable, the appellate panel found otherwise.

“Despite the fact that the state did not clearly establish how Mr. Scott may have learned that Ms. Golden had $5,000 at her house, his DNA profile is consistent with the DNA recovered from the condom that Ms. Golden found on the front porch of her house and which she indicated was not there when she left for work that morning,” Judge Jennifer Hensal wrote on behalf of the court of appeals.

Scott claimed that condoms are “often passed around” so his DNA on the wrapper was not conclusive evidence that he had been at the house.

He also contended that the state failed to present any evidence of motive.

According to him, he had simply come into some money at that time in his life and he did not have a need to rob anyone.

But the appellate panel pointed out that T.C. identified Scott in a photo array and again at trial.

“The jury was free to believe any or all of her testimony,” Hensal wrote. “A conviction is not against the manifest weight of the evidence because the jury chooses to credit the state’s version of events.”

The court of appeals concluded that the evidence weighed heavily in favor of conviction and that Scott could not prevail on his appellate claim.

It also held that the trial court was not required to merge the aggravated robbery and aggravated burglary convictions.

“This court has recognized that aggravated burglary and aggravated robbery are not generally allied offenses because the aggravated burglary is complete upon an offender’s forced entrance and an aggravated robbery requires additional conduct,” Hensal wrote.

The minute that Scott stepped through the door, he committed aggravated burglary, according to the reviewing court. The aggravated robbery then took place when he proceeded to force T.C. through the house with a gun to her back.

“Mr. Scott’s second assignment of error is overruled,” Hensal wrote.

The judgment of the Summit County court was affirmed with Presiding Judge Donna Carr and Judge Beth Whitmore joining Hensal to form the majority.

The case is cited State v. Scott, 2016-Ohio-682.

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