## Facts

- Richard Darnell Beaver was charged in Ohio with the murder of Fred Butler, and the state also pursued a firearm specification.
- At Beaver’s trial, multiple witnesses testified they were at or near a party when they heard gunshots.
- Butler ran inside after the shots and stated that Beaver had shot him.
- A witness and a police officer testified that Butler had a bullet hole in his chest.
- Medical testimony showed Butler underwent about seven hours of emergency surgery, was placed in the intensive-care unit, and required assistance breathing.
- Butler died 25 days after the shooting.
- The coroner testified the cause of death involved shock, respiratory failure, organ failure, and sepsis; the coroner had not yet issued an official verdict and therefore could not state at trial that the death was a homicide.
- At the close of the state’s evidence in the first trial, Beaver moved for a judgment of acquittal under Crim.R. 29(A), arguing the state had not presented sufficient evidence that the gunshots proximately caused Butler’s death; the trial court denied the motion.
- Beaver presented evidence that he acted in self-defense and requested a jury instruction on felonious assault as a lesser included offense of murder; the trial court instructed on murder, felonious assault, the firearm specification, and self-defense.
- The jury acquitted Beaver of murder but could not reach a unanimous verdict on felonious assault, and the trial court declared a mistrial on the felonious-assault count.
- Beaver sought to bar retrial on double-jeopardy grounds; the trial court denied relief.
- On retrial, Beaver was convicted of felonious assault with a firearm specification and received an indefinite prison term for the assault plus a consecutive term for the firearm specification.
- Beaver appealed, challenging (among other things) the denial of his Crim.R. 29(A) motion in the first trial, the retrial after the hung jury, and claimed instructional and weight-of-the-evidence errors.

## Issues

1. Did the trial court err in the first trial by denying Beaver’s Crim.R. 29(A) motion for acquittal on murder based on alleged insufficient proof that the shooting proximately caused Butler’s death?
2. Did the Double Jeopardy Clause bar a retrial for felonious assault where the first jury acquitted on murder but failed to reach a verdict on the lesser included offense?
3. Did the trial court commit reversible error in giving or wording challenged jury instructions (including the felonious-assault lesser-included instruction and aspects of self-defense), where the defense requested or failed to object to certain instructions?
4. Was Beaver’s felonious-assault conviction against the manifest weight of the evidence in light of his self-defense claim?

## Decision

- The court of appeals affirmed Beaver’s conviction and sentence for felonious assault with a firearm specification.
- The trial court properly denied Beaver’s Crim.R. 29(A) motion in the first trial because the state presented evidence from which a jury could reasonably find proximate causation between the shooting and Butler’s death, even though medical testimony was cautious and the coroner had not issued an official homicide verdict at trial.
- Retrial on felonious assault did not violate double jeopardy because the first trial ended in a mistrial on that count due to a hung jury, so jeopardy did not terminate on the unresolved lesser offense.
- Claims of error tied to the felonious-assault instruction were rejected where the instruction was requested by the defense (invited error), and additional instructional challenges were rejected where they were waived or did not rise to plain error.
- The conviction was not against the manifest weight of the evidence; the jury was entitled to reject Beaver’s self-defense account.

## Legal Principles

- A Crim.R. 29(A) motion is properly denied when, viewing the evidence most favorably to the state, reasonable minds could reach different conclusions on whether each element was proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
- Proximate cause in a homicide prosecution may be established through a combination of medical testimony and surrounding facts; the jury may draw reasonable inferences from the sequence of injury, treatment, complications, and death, even when expert testimony is stated in cautious terms and an administrative classification (such as an “official verdict”) is not yet issued.
- A mistrial declared because the jury cannot reach a verdict does not end jeopardy on the unresolved charge; retrial on that charge is generally permitted.
- An acquittal on a greater offense does not bar retrial on a lesser included offense when the jury deadlocks on the lesser offense and a mistrial is declared as to that lesser offense.
- Under the invited-error doctrine, a defendant who affirmatively requests an instruction generally may not claim on appeal that giving that instruction was reversible error.
- Failure to object to jury instructions at trial typically forfeits all but plain-error review on appeal.
- Manifest-weight review considers the whole record and the factfinder’s role in judging credibility, reversing only when the factfinder clearly lost its way and created a manifest miscarriage of justice.

## Conclusion

State v. Beaver affirmed a felonious-assault conviction obtained after a second trial, holding that the state’s first-trial evidence permitted a jury finding that the shooting proximately caused the victim’s death, that a hung jury on the lesser included offense allowed retrial despite an acquittal on murder, and that the challenged instructions and the jury’s rejection of self-defense did not justify reversal.


State v. Beaver, 119 Ohio App. 3d 385 (1997)