Summary
The Supreme Court of Ohio reversed the lower courts’ application of res judicata to Martin L. Hatton’s motion for leave to file a motion for a new trial and successive petition for postconviction relief. The court held that a newly discovered memorandum from the state’s DNA expert contained information materially different from evidence previously litigated and that Hatton was unavoidably prevented from discovering it. The court remanded for further proceedings and held that Hatton was entitled to an evidentiary hearing on his new-trial motion, without deciding whether he would ultimately prevail on the merits.
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Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether res judicata barred Hatton's motion for leave to file a motion for a new trial and successive petition for postconviction relief based on the newly discovered DNA memorandum.
- Whether the trial court improperly reached the merits of Hatton's proposed new-trial motion instead of first deciding whether he was unavoidably prevented from discovering the evidence under Crim.R. 33(B).
- Whether Hatton was entitled to an evidentiary hearing on his motion for leave to file a motion for a new trial.
- Whether the trial court and court of appeals properly addressed the jurisdictional requirements for Hatton's untimely and successive postconviction petition under R.C. 2953.23(A)(1).
Holdings
- Res judicata did not bar Hatton's motion for a new trial or petition for postconviction relief because the memorandum contained a new acknowledgment by the state's expert that the DNA evidence included a male contributor other than Hatton or Dunn, an issue that had not been and could not have been litigated previously.
- When deciding a motion for leave under Crim.R. 33(B), the trial court must first decide only whether the defendant established by clear and convincing evidence that he was unavoidably prevented from discovering the evidence within the 120-day period; the court may not consider the merits of the proposed new-trial motion until leave is granted.
- Hatton was entitled to an evidentiary hearing because his motion alleged sufficient substantive grounds for relief, including that the suppressed memorandum could undermine confidence in the verdict.
- The trial court must first determine whether Hatton satisfies the jurisdictional requirements of R.C. 2953.23(A)(1) for an untimely and successive petition, and, if he does, determine the merits of the petition.
Key quotations
“That new information creates an obvious hole in the state’s narrative that two men entered J.C.’s home, that those two men raped J.C. and left their DNA, and that those two men were Hatton and Dunn.” (¶ 24)
“The sole question before the trial court when considering whether to grant leave is whether the defendant has established by clear and convincing proof that he was unavoidably prevented from discovering the evidence on which he seeks to base the motion for a new trial.” (¶ 30)
“Whether suppressed evidence is outcome determinative for purposes of a motion for a new trial is not determined by whether sufficient other evidence supported the jury’s verdict but by whether the suppressed evidence, when viewed in the context of the whole case, is sufficient to undermine confidence in the verdict.” (¶ 36)
Factual background
Hatton was convicted of aggravated burglary, kidnapping, rape, felonious assault, and theft based largely on evidence that he was the second participant in offenses committed with Ricky Dunn. At trial, the state's DNA expert described mixed male DNA samples as inconclusive, while the defense expert testified that a B allele in the samples could not have come from Hatton, Dunn, or the victim. In a memorandum discovered more than 20 years later, the state's expert acknowledged that the B allele was not observed in the known samples from Hatton, Dunn, or the victim, indicating the presence of DNA from another male. The memorandum had not been disclosed to Hatton's counsel.
Procedural history
Hatton was convicted in 1997 and unsuccessfully pursued direct appeal and earlier postconviction proceedings. After obtaining a 1998 memorandum from the state's DNA expert through a public-records request in 2018, he filed a motion for leave to file a new-trial motion and a successive postconviction petition in 2019. The trial court denied both without a hearing, and the Fourth District affirmed on the ground that res judicata barred the claims. The Supreme Court of Ohio reversed and remanded.
Remand instructions
The trial court must grant Hatton's motion for leave to file a motion for a new trial, afford him an evidentiary hearing on that motion, determine whether he satisfies the jurisdictional requirements for an untimely and successive postconviction petition under R.C. 2953.23(A)(1), and, if so, determine the merits of that petition.