State v. Walker

2016-Ohio-8295 (2016)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

Antwon was killed during a bar fight that took place in the early morning hours at a Cleveland night club. Antwon and Ivor Anderson arrived at the club and they then began to drink and socialize. They were on the dance floor when Robert Steel, who also was dancing, began to twirl a glass of champagne in the air. Some of Steel's champagne spilled on Antwon, who responded with a remark. After dancing a bit longer and talking to a friend who was drinking champagne from a bottle, Steel began to talk to a group of people who were not identified at trial. D, Derrell Shabazz, and Otis Johnson were in a different area of the club, drinking and intermittently stopping to chat with one another. Johnson made his way over to Steel and the others, followed a minute later by D and Shabazz. The group talked on and off for the next nine minutes, repeatedly looking in the direction of Antwon. A melee began at 2:11 a.m. when Steel ran at Anderson from behind and hit him with a champagne bottle that glanced off Anderson and hit Eunique Worley in the forehead. Once Steel started the fight, others became involved. D joined in, hitting Antwon and throwing a bottle at him. Eventually, D slipped and fell on Antwon, and Shabazz slipped and fell on D. All three recovered and stumbled in different directions: Antwon moved away from the fight, D went out of the cameras' view to the corner of the room behind a pillar, and Shabazz went over to Johnson, who, apparently by mistake, was hitting a member of their own group. A woman who had joined in the fight shoved Anderson backward, propelling the group to the corner where D had gone. The video footage shows a gunshot flash a few seconds later with everyone in the club scattering. Walker appeared from the other side of the pillar fumbling with his waistband, and he and Shabazz hurried out of the area together. Antwon was shot in the back from a distance of one to two feet by a .45-caliber bullet, which passed through his chest. He died soon after. The Grand Jury indicted D and Shabazz for aggravated murder, felony murder, having weapons while under a disability, and six counts of felonious assault. The jury acquitted D of the felonious-assault counts pertaining to Worley but found him guilty of aggravated murder, felony murder, and four counts of felonious assault, and the trial court found him guilty of having a weapon while under a disability. D appealed arguing that his aggravated-murder conviction was not supported by sufficient evidence. The appellate court agreed that the state had failed to establish that D acted with prior calculation and design. There was no evidence that D and Antwon knew one another, that the shooting occurred from a spontaneous eruption of events, and that there was no evidence that D gave thought to choosing the murder site beforehand. The court reversed the conviction for aggravated murder but upheld the convictions for felony murder and the remaining offenses and remanded the matter to the trial court for resentencing. P appealed. Shabazz also appealed and the court overturned the convictions but affirmed Shabazz's two remaining felonious-assault convictions, which were based on the use of champagne bottles.