Ohio Supreme Court, 1997

The court upheld Ohio’s direct-to-supreme-court appeal system for capital cases against Eighth Amendment, equal protection, and due process challenges, and concluded that it had jurisdiction to review the entire case.

The court reversed the court of appeals because the civil plain-error doctrine did not permit reversal based on an issue Davidson had not timely raised at trial. It held that criminal conduct does not categorically bar recovery for injuries caused by excessive force, found insufficient evidence for a self-defense…

The court held that circumstantial evidence, including brandishing a firearm and implicitly threatening its use, can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a firearm was operable or readily capable of being rendered operable.

The court held that Ohio’s custody-modification statute requires a change in circumstances but does not impose a separate “substantial change” threshold; the change must be meaningful rather than slight or inconsequential.

The court reversed summary judgment for the attorneys in a legal-malpractice action, holding that clients need not invariably prove they would have prevailed in the underlying matters and that a summary-judgment movant cannot shift the burden with a conclusory assertion that the opposing party lacks evidence.

The court held that a person attacked in her own home by a cohabitant with an equal right to be there has no duty to retreat before using lethal force in self-defense. It also held that the trial court properly instructed the jury on battered woman syndrome by directing it to consider the evidence in applying the…