State v. Watson

Summary

The Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals reviewed Brandon Watson's sentences arising from three related criminal cases. The court held that the trial court improperly imposed a domestic-violence sentence in the journal entry without imposing it at the sentencing hearing, improperly ordered misdemeanor and felony sentences consecutively, and failed to make the required consecutive-sentencing findings under R.C. 2929.14(C)(4). The judgment was reversed in part, the sentences were vacated in part, and the matters were remanded for resentencing.

Holdings

1. A trial court may not impose in a sentencing entry a sentence for an offense that it did not impose at the sentencing hearing. Because the trial court did not impose any sentence for Watson's domestic-violence conviction in the April Robbery Case during the hearing but later imposed a 180-day term in the journal entry, that sentence was contrary to law and required vacation and resentencing.
2. Under R.C. 2929.41(A), a jail term or misdemeanor sentence must be served concurrently with a felony prison term unless a statutory exception applies. The trial court therefore erred by stating that all of Watson's counts, including misdemeanor domestic-violence counts, would run consecutively to felony sentences.
3. Before imposing consecutive prison terms, the trial court must make the findings required by R.C. 2929.14(C)(4) at the sentencing hearing and incorporate those findings into its sentencing entry. The trial court's statement concerning the seriousness of the harm did not make the required finding that at least two offenses were committed as part of one or more courses of conduct, and the entries could not cure the deficient oral findings.
4. The challenges to whether the record supported the trial court's courses-of-conduct, great-or-unusual-harm, and criminal-history findings were moot because the court had already determined that the consecutive sentences were contrary to law for failure to make the required findings.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the trial court could impose a sentence in the journal entry for a misdemeanor offense when it had not imposed any sentence for that offense at the sentencing hearing.
2. Whether the trial court could order misdemeanor sentences to run consecutively to felony sentences under R.C. 2929.41(A).
3. Whether the trial court made the findings required by R.C. 2929.14(C)(4), including the courses-of-conduct finding, at the sentencing hearing and in the sentencing entries.
4. Whether the record clearly and convincingly supported the trial court's consecutive-sentence findings concerning courses of conduct, great or unusual harm, and criminal history.

Disposition

reversed_and_remanded