Background
Joe Phelps Jr. was prosecuted after shooting A.A. multiple times inside A.A.’s Dayton home. A.A. testified that Phelps shot him from behind and took a bag of heroin. Phelps admitted firing the shots but claimed self-defense, testifying that A.A. threatened to sexually assault him and that he grabbed A.A.’s gun before shooting as A.A. turned toward rooms containing other firearms.
A jury convicted Phelps of attempted murder, aggravated burglary, aggravated robbery, two counts of felonious assault, and related firearm specifications, while acquitting him of improperly discharging a firearm into a habitation. After the jury was discharged, the trial court obtained a jury waiver from Phelps, received evidence of his prior convictions, and found him guilty of having weapons while under disability and two repeat-violent-offender specifications. The court imposed an aggregate prison term of 33 to 38½ years and ordered Phelps to enroll in Ohio’s violent offender database.
The Court’s Holding
The Second District held that the jury did not lose its way in rejecting Phelps’s self-defense claim. The jury could credit A.A.’s account and conclude that Phelps created the violent encounter or lacked a bona fide belief that he faced imminent danger when he shot an unarmed man multiple times in the back. The court therefore affirmed the attempted-murder, aggravated-burglary, aggravated-robbery, and felonious-assault convictions.
The court vacated the weapons-under-disability conviction because Phelps did not waive a jury before or during trial as required by Ohio Criminal Rule 23(A). Jeopardy attached when the jury was empaneled, and the State’s trial evidence addressed the weapons charge even though it was not submitted to the jury. Once the jury trial ended, the trial court could not obtain an effective waiver for that charge; moreover, the written waiver had not been filed before the court received additional evidence and entered its finding of guilt.
The court also reversed the portion of the judgment requiring violent-offender-database enrollment because the trial court failed to give all required statutory advisements before sentencing. It remanded for the proper notifications, an opportunity for Phelps to move to rebut the enrollment presumption, and a nunc pro tunc entry reflecting that the attempted-murder and aggravated-robbery sentences were consecutive. Phelps’s aggregate prison term remains 33 to 38½ years.
Key Takeaways
- A felony defendant’s jury waiver must occur before trial or, with the required approval and consent, during trial; a waiver obtained after the jury has been discharged has no legal effect.
- A jury may reject self-defense based on its credibility determinations and circumstantial evidence, including evidence that the defendant shot an unarmed victim in the back and left with drugs and a gun.
- A sentencing court must timely provide every advisement required for violent-offender-database enrollment, including the right and procedure to rebut the statutory presumption.
Why It Matters
The decision underscores that an informal plan to try a weapons-under-disability charge to the judge cannot replace the defendant’s timely, personal jury waiver. Courts and counsel must complete the statutory and procedural waiver requirements before or during trial, even when bifurcation is intended to prevent jurors from learning of a prior conviction.
The ruling also confirms that violent-offender-database advisements are mandatory. A court’s general reference to registration duties or a possible hearing does not satisfy the statute when the defendant is not told how to challenge the enrollment presumption and what may follow from a successful challenge.