State v. Kodger

Summary

The Sixth District Court of Appeals of Ohio affirmed Dave Kodger’s convictions and aggregate 27-year prison sentence following a negotiated guilty plea to sexual battery, bribery, and gross sexual imposition offenses. The court held that Kodger knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily entered his plea, waived merger arguments through the written plea agreement, and suffered no prejudice from the trial court’s description of his appellate rights.

Holdings

1. The trial court properly accepted the guilty plea. Correcting the statutory citation for one count to conform to the indictment was a permissible correction of a clerical error, and the written stipulation waiving merger protections was effective even though the court did not expressly discuss it during the plea colloquy. Kodger failed to show prejudice because the record reflected that the offenses involved separate victims, separate conduct, or separate animus.
2. Any error in telling Kodger that he had no automatic right of appeal or only a limited right of appeal was harmless because he timely filed an appeal and therefore suffered no prejudice.

Questions Presented

1. Whether Kodger's guilty plea was not knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily entered because the trial court did not expressly discuss the written stipulation that the offenses would not merge and corrected the statutory section for one sexual-battery count during the plea proceedings.
2. Whether the trial court's statements that Kodger had no automatic right of appeal or only a limited right of appeal required resentencing or other relief.

Disposition

affirmed