State of Ohio v. Jeffrey Wogenstahl, Case No. 2023-0945
First District Court of Appeals (Hamilton County)

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Was Law Presuming That Murder Happened in Ohio Constitutional?

State of Ohio v. Jeffrey Wogenstahl, Case No. 2023-0945
First District Court of Appeals (Hamilton County)

ISSUES:

• Was R.C. 2901.11(D), as written in 1991, unconstitutional because it created a presumption that a crime takes place in Ohio even if it can’t be reasonably determined which state the crime occurred?

• Were the trial and appellate attorneys ineffective because they didn’t challenge the constitutionality of the statute?

BACKGROUND:
In 1991, 10-year-old Amber Garrett was abducted from her home in Harrison, Ohio, and murdered. Her body, stabbed and beaten, was discovered just across the Ohio-Indiana border in Bright, Indiana.

Jeffrey Wogenstahl, a man Amber’s mother knew for several weeks before the girl disappeared, was indicted for aggravated murder, kidnapping, and aggravated burglary. In 1993, a Hamilton County jury found Wogenstahl guilty of the crimes. The trial court sentenced him to death.

Wogenstahl challenged his convictions and death sentence to the First District Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court of Ohio, and the U.S. Supreme Court. Those appeals were unsuccessful.

Request to Reopen Appeal Accepted
Wogenstahl filed a motion with the Supreme Court of Ohio in 2015 asking to reopen his appeal. He alleged that the trial court in Ohio didn’t have the authority – jurisdiction – to hear his case because the prosecutor didn’t prove that Amber was murdered in Ohio. The Supreme Court accepted the appeal.

In a 2017 decision, the Supreme Court found that it couldn’t be determined whether Amber was murdered in Ohio or Indiana. The Court ruled, though, that because a 1991 state law allowed the presumption that the murder occurred in Ohio, the trial court had jurisdiction to hear the case.

In 1991, R.C. 2901.11(D) stated, “When an offense is committed under the laws of this state, and it appears beyond a reasonable doubt that the offense or any element thereof took place either in Ohio or in another jurisdiction or jurisdictions, but it cannot reasonably be determined in which it took place, such offense or element is conclusively presumed to have taken place in this state for purposes of this section.”

A concurring opinion in the 2017 decision stated that Wogenstahl’s attorneys didn’t raise the issue in the appeal whether the statute was constitutional. It was reasonable to question the statute’s constitutionality and the Court should have asked the parties to address the issue before deciding the case, the opinion concluded.

Courts Asked to Review Constitutionality of State Law
In response to the 2017 ruling, Wogenstahl filed motions with the Court in May and August of 2018, asking it to address whether R.C. 2901.11(D) was constitutional. The Court denied both requests.

Wogenstahl asked the First District Court of Appeals to reopen his appeal. The First District denied the request in June 2023, determining that the issues raised had already been fully litigated. Wogenstahl appealed to the Supreme Court of Ohio, which must hear direct appeals in death penalty cases.

Man Contends That Law Eliminates State’s Duty to Prove Crimes
Citing a U.S. Supreme Court decision, Wogenstahl argues that a state law is unconstitutional when it creates a mandatory presumption that relieves the state from proving the elements of an alleged offense. R.C. 2901.11(D) allowed a presumption that a crime took place in Ohio even if it couldn’t be reasonably determined where the crime occurred. Wogenstahl contends that the law absolved the state of its burden of proof and, in this case, violated his right to due process.

“The statute’s mandatory presumption usurped the jury’s factfinding duty, essentially allowing the State a ‘free pass’ to prosecute an offense without establishing that it even had jurisdiction. This is blatantly unconstitutional …,” his brief argues.

He asserts that the Court can hear this reopened appeal after the typical deadlines because the question of a court’s jurisdiction can never be waived and can be challenged at any time. The prosecutor has argued that the issue of the statute’s constitutionality has already been litigated. Wogenstahl disagrees, maintaining that no court has decided the constitutionality claim on the merits.

Wogenstahl also argues that the state’s lack of evidence about where the murder occurred should have alerted his trial and appellate attorneys to research further, which would have identified the unconstitutionality of the law. He contends that his attorneys failed to provide effective counsel.

State Counters That Legal Issues Have Already Been Decided
The Hamilton County Prosecutor’s Office responds that this appeal presents issues that were previously litigated, so it is prohibited by the legal principle called res judicata. The prosecutor notes that the Supreme Court in its 2017 decision concluded that the Ohio trial court had jurisdiction to consider the murder case. Had the Supreme Court found that the constitutionality of R.C. 2901.11(D) was relevant at that time, it would have asked the parties to submit briefs on the issue or ruled on the claim in its decision, the prosecutor contends.

The prosecutor also maintains that Wogenstahl has argued that the statute relieved the state of its burden to prove jurisdiction. That view is flawed, because jurisdiction isn’t an element of an offense, the prosecutor contends.

The prosecutor argues the request to reopen the appeal was not timely. Wogenstahl relies on the jurisdiction question to support the appeal because that claim can be raised at any time, the prosecutor maintains. If the constitutionality of R.C. 2901.11(D) hasn’t yet been resolved, “this does not demonstrate good cause for not raising the issue when this Court reopened the appeal in 2016,” the prosecutor’s brief contends. Wogenstahl has no right to keep applying to reopen his direct appeals, the prosecutor concludes.

– Kathleen Maloney

Docket entries, memoranda, briefs (including amicus briefs), and other information about this case may be accessed through the case docket.

Contacts
Representing Jeffrey Wogenstahl from the Ohio Public Defender’s Office: Kimberly Rigby, kimberly.rigby@opd.ohio.gov

Representing the State of Ohio from the Hamilton County Prosecutor’s Office: Philip Cummings, phil.cummings@hspros.org

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