## Facts

- Joseph Williams was involved in a fight at a bar.
- Police cited Williams for disorderly conduct based on the incident.
- Four days later, Williams was arrested on a complaint charging him with attempted aggravated murder in connection with the same bar fight.
- The disorderly-conduct case proceeded first; Williams appeared in court, entered a no-contest plea, was found guilty, and paid the fine imposed by the court.
- After Williams’s disorderly-conduct conviction and payment of the fine, a grand jury indicted him for attempted murder arising out of his participation in the bar fight.
- Williams moved to dismiss the attempted-murder indictment before trial, arguing that the Double Jeopardy Clause barred the prosecution because disorderly conduct was a lesser included offense of attempted murder.
- The trial court denied the motion, concluding that disorderly conduct is not a lesser included offense of attempted murder, and Williams appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether disorderly conduct is a lesser included offense of attempted murder (or attempted aggravated murder) under Ohio law such that a prior disorderly-conduct conviction bars a later attempted-murder prosecution arising from the same incident.

## Decision

- The appellate court affirmed the trial court’s denial of Williams’s motion to dismiss.
- The court held that disorderly conduct is not a lesser included offense of attempted murder (and, as framed by the case, attempted aggravated murder).
- Because the offenses are not the same offense for double-jeopardy purposes, Williams’s prior disorderly-conduct conviction did not bar the subsequent attempted-murder indictment.

## Legal Principles

- A later prosecution is barred by double jeopardy only if it is for the same offense as the earlier prosecution; “same offense” is evaluated by comparing statutory elements rather than the factual overlap between the two charges.
- Under Ohio’s lesser-included-offense analysis, the purported lesser offense must be such that the greater offense, as defined by its statutory elements, cannot be committed without also committing the lesser offense.
- If each offense contains at least one element that the other does not, they are not in a greater/lesser relationship and are not the same offense for double-jeopardy purposes.
- A conviction based on a no-contest plea followed by the imposition and satisfaction of a sentence constitutes a completed prior prosecution for double-jeopardy analysis, but it bars a later prosecution only if the later charge is the same offense (including a true lesser included offense).

## Conclusion

The court allowed the attempted-murder case to proceed because, even though both charges arose from the same bar-fight incident, disorderly conduct and attempted murder have different statutory elements and disorderly conduct is not a lesser included offense of attempted murder; therefore, Williams’s prior misdemeanor conviction did not prohibit the later felony prosecution on double-jeopardy grounds.


State v. Williams, 1990 WL 47451 (1990)