The Supreme Court of Ohio today upheld the conviction of a Belmont County man who struck a neighbor’s home with a stray bullet while he was shooting at another man.

The Supreme Court ruled 6-1 that the trial court did not make a mistake when it omitted an instruction about transferred intent from its explanation to the jury that Timothy Bradley was claiming self-defense against one count of felonious assault and two counts of discharging a firearm into a habitation without privilege to do so. The jury acquitted Bradley of the felonious assault charge for shooting and wounding Zachary Burch during the 2024 argument. However, the jury found him guilty of the charges for shooting into the homes across the street.

Bradley appealed his conviction, and the Seventh District Court of Appeals found the trial court failed to explain that the privilege of self-defense not only applied to the charge for shooting Burch but also transferred to the discharging-a-firearm counts. The appeals court ordered Bradley to be retried on one charge of shooting into the neighbor’s house.

Today’s decision reversed the Seventh District’s ruling. Writing for the Court majority, Justice Joseph T. Deters noted that Bradley had not requested the trial court to instruct that the privilege of self-defense transferred to other offenses. Justice Deters explained that the Court had never ruled that the privilege transferred and that Bradley had not shown that the outcome of his trial would have been different had the instruction been given.

Even if the Court were to adopt the theory that the privilege of self-defense transferred to another charge, Justice Deters wrote, “We cannot say that the trial court’s failure to give the instruction sua sponte in this case was a clear error under current law.”

Chief Justice Sharon L. Kennedy and Justices Patrick F. Fischer, R. Patrick DeWine, Daniel R. Hawkins, and Megan E. Shanahan joined Justice Deters’ opinion.

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Jennifer Brunner stated the trial judge made an obvious error by not adequately explaining to the jury the charge of discharging a firearm into a habitation without privilege to do so, under R.C. 2923.161(A)(1). She wrote that self-defense is a privilege and a right under the law. The jury should have been told that self-defense is a privilege, which, if found by the jury, would nullify the criminal charge. She agreed with the Seventh District that the explanation would have provided the link needed to acquit Bradley.

Dispute in Home Leads to Shooting
Bradley employed Burch as a contractor for projects at Bradley’s house in Martins Ferry. On the day of the shooting, Bradley sent a text message firing Burch. Burch went to Bradley’s house to retrieve tools he had left behind, and the two men started to argue. Burch took an air compressor from the house to his car and returned to grab more tools.

Video and audio of the encounter were captured by a neighbor’s security camera. Burch was armed when he entered the house, and during his return to collect more of his tools, Bradley alleged that Burch made a motion with his arms indicating he was going to grab his gun. The video showed that Burch did not touch his gun during the incident, but the audio recorded Burch threatening Bradley.

Bradley fired six shots at Burch, hitting him five times. Two of the bullets crossed the street, striking two homes. Neighbor Jessi House testified that a bullet hit her house, but no one from the other house testified at Bradley’s trial. House said she witnessed the aftermath of the shooting and saw Bradley standing in the street holding a gun, and Burch running to a neighbor’s porch two houses away.

Self-Defense Instruction Discussed
Prior to the trial, the Belmont County Prosecutor’s Office and Bradley’s defense attorney agreed that the trial judge should present the jury with a self-defense instruction. The instruction stated the “defendant claims to have acted in self-defense to all three of these charges.” The trial judge also defined “privilege” as “an immunity, license, or right conferred by law, bestowed by express or implied grant, arising out of status, position, office, or relationship, and growing out of necessity.”

During the closing arguments, Bradley’s attorney told the jurors that Bradley’s self-defense claim applied to shooting into the homes.

“One of the elements, though, is ‘without privilege.’ If you believe that he was acting in self-defense or that they failed to prove that he wasn’t, then he had the privilege to shoot into the habitation,” the attorney stated.

The jury found Bradley not guilty of felonious assault, but guilty of the two charges of improperly discharging a firearm.

Bradley appealed to the Seventh District, which found there was insufficient evidence to support his conviction for the count related to shooting into the home where no one testified about the shooting. As to the count regarding shooting into House’s residence, the Seventh District found the trial court committed “plain error” by not giving an instruction on “transferred self-defense,” and vacated his conviction.

The prosecutor’s office appealed the decision to the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court Analyzed Jury Instructions
Justice Deters explained that Bradley never asked the trial judge to instruct the jury that the privilege of self-defense, which applied to the felonious assault charge, transferred to the other related charges. Since he did not raise the issue in the trial court, the appeals court could only overrule the trial court if it found the judge committed “plain error,” Justice Deters wrote.

The opinion explained that a “plain error” is an obvious error that must affect the outcome of the trial.

The Supreme Court found the Seventh District was incorrect for two reasons. First, the appellate court failed to conclude that the trial judge made an error under current law. The opinion stated that neither the Supreme Court nor the Seventh District has ever addressed whether the self-defense privilege transfers to other offenses.

The Court noted the concept of transferred intent has existed in Ohio law for decades. The Court explained the concept with the example that if a perpetrator has designed a plan to kill someone, and as a result, kills someone other than the victim, the intent to kill is transferred from the target to the actual victim. The same murder charge can be brought against the perpetrator as if the targeted victim was killed.

But the Court has never decided whether this principle applies to a claim of self-defense. Because there is no statute or case law that supports the theory, the trial court did not commit a clear error by failing to instruct the jury about the theory, the opinion stated.

Bradley argued that since the jury acquitted him of the assault charge, then it believed he acted in self-defense. And had the jury been told the privilege that applied to the assault charge also applied to the other offenses, the jury would not have found him guilty, Bradley maintained.

“The problem with that argument is that we have no way of knowing why the jury found the way it did,” the opinion stated.

The Court noted the trial judge did instruct the jury that self-defense applied to all the offenses, and Bradley’s attorney stated in closing arguments that the self-defense claims applied to shooting into the houses. The Court ruled that Bradley failed to prove that an additional instruction on transferred intent would have led to a different outcome.

Trial Court Failed to Adequately Explain Charge, Dissent Maintained
In her dissent, Justice Brunner explained that the trial court’s failure had nothing to do with the theory of transferred intent, but rather the lack of instruction on how the self-defense privilege applied to the charge for shooting into the house.

The statute under which Bradley was convicted already contains a privilege, and if the privilege applies, “there is no need for anything to transfer,” she wrote.

“The plain error occurred when the trial court failed to explain to the jury that self-defense is a privilege under R.C. 2923.161(A)(1),” she stated.

The law makes shooting into a habitation a crime only if Bradley was “without privilege to do so.” If the jury was told self-defense is a privilege for the purpose of the crime of shooting into the home, it would have affected the outcome, she concluded.

2024-1715. State v. Bradley, Slip Opinion No. 2026-Ohio-3771.

View oral argument video of this case.

Please note: Opinion summaries are prepared by the Office of Public Information for the general public and news media. Opinion summaries are not prepared for every opinion, but only for noteworthy cases. Opinion summaries are not to be considered as official headnotes or syllabi of court opinions. The full text of this and other court opinions are available online.