Cases before Ohio’s justices this week involve criminal sentencing, foreclosures, cross-border detention agreements, and public utilities.

Cases before Ohio’s justices this week involve criminal sentencing, foreclosures, cross-border detention agreements, and public utilities.

A man convicted of murdering his girlfriend’s boss to prevent him from reporting the woman’s alleged theft of nearly $20,000 will ask the Supreme Court of Ohio to reconsider his conviction and death sentence on Wednesday.

The appeal is the first of three cases to be argued before the court on January 8, the court’s second day of oral arguments this week. The court will also consider four cases on Tuesday, January 7. The Office of Public Information today released summaries of the seven cases.

The death penalty appeal involves Gregory Osie, of Butler County, who was dating a woman employed as the office manager for a contracting company. One of the company’s owners, David Williams, believed that the woman, Robin Patterson, had stolen about $18,000 from the company. Following a phone conversation with Williams, Osie went to Williams’s house in February 2009 to try to persuade him not to file charges against Patterson. They argued, and Osie stabbed Williams to death.

Osie was convicted of murder and other charges in 2010 and sentenced to death. Osie’s attorneys have claimed that 19 errors were made during his trial. Among them, they contend that Osie’s rights were violated when he was not given the chance to make a statement during his sentencing hearing. In addition, they assert that testimony from Williams’s business partner, who heard the heated phone call between Williams and Osie before Williams was killed, should not have been allowed during the trial because it was impermissible hearsay. They also maintain that the prosecution did not show that Osie purposely murdered Williams to stop any potential testimony about the theft, so the murder charge should not have been elevated to an offense that carried the possibility of a death sentence.

The court’s session begins at 9 a.m. each day at the Thomas J. Moyer Ohio Judicial Center in Columbus. The arguments will be streamed live online at sc.ohio.gov and broadcast live on the Ohio Channel.

Cases for Tuesday, January 7
The court will consider four cases on Tuesday:

• In the Matter of the Complaint of Buckeye Energy Brokers is an appeal of a ruling by the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio. Buckeye Energy Brokers claims that energy consultant Palmer Energy Company was acting as a broker by providing specific services to the natural gas and electricity industries without obtaining the required certification from the commission.
• A man who stole $117 from hotel vending machines has contested his prison sentence of more than eight years for the thefts in Bonnell v. State. The court imposed consecutive sentences for the four charges. Randall L. Bonnell Jr. argues the sentence is not proportionate to the crimes and it violates Ohio’s sentencing statute. He also contends that the court did not follow the law because it did not make factual findings to support consecutive sentences and did not report its findings and reasons for the sentence at the sentencing hearing and in court documents.
• State v. Black involves a cooperative legal agreement among most states to handle charges made against a person in more than one state. At issue is whether the law applies to those sentenced to county detention facilities or only those incarcerated in state institutions. Two Ohio appellate courts have interpreted the law differently, and the state asserts that the agreement does not apply to inmates in county jails.
• The court will consider a recommendation to disbar a Columbus attorney in Disciplinary Counsel v. Becker. The state’s disciplinary board found that the attorney misappropriated hundreds of thousands of dollars, including money entrusted to him on behalf of his nephew and an elderly aunt, to pay gambling debts. The attorney maintains he has made restitution to his relatives and has not gambled in the last three years, and he asks the court for the lesser sanction of a suspension with conditions.

Cases for Wednesday, January 8
In addition to Osie v. State, the court will hear two other cases during Wednesday’s session:

• In Bank of America v. Kuchta, the court is asked whether a party in a foreclosure action who does not appeal the judgment made by a trial court may later argue in a motion that the other side did not have the right to sue (or “standing”). The bank maintains that the property owners are barred from raising the issue of standing in a motion after the trial court had decided the issue. The property owners contend that the bank did not own the mortgage at the time it sued, so the trial court’s judgment is void.
• Johnson v. State is an appeal from a man convicted in Butler County who was appointed a new lawyer for an appeal. The Twelfth District Court of Appeals refused a request from the newly appointed attorney for access to the trial court’s presentence investigation report. While the man asserts that this refusal violates his constitutional rights to due process, the prosecutors maintain that such reports are confidential after sentencing.