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State v. Hill7/5/2001
Criminal law - Use of anonymous juries - Appellate review - When court of appeals engages in a plain-error analysis, it must conduct a complete review of all assignments of error in order to determine whether a manifest miscarriage of justice has occurred that clearly affected the outcome of the trial.
Submitted January 30, 2001
I. Facts and Procedural History
On September 15, 1997, Harry Sisco was shot and killed in front of his home on South Broad Street in Lancaster, Ohio. Defendant-appellee, Clifton Hill, the stepson of Harry Sisco, was indicted on September 25, 1997, on one count of aggravated murder with two firearms specifications, one count of grand theft of a motor vehicle, one count of fleeing and eluding, and one count of having weapons while under disability with a firearm specification. Appellee pled not guilty to the charges, and a lengthy jury trial, in which thirty-five witnesses testified, commenced on September 1, 1998.
Testimony at trial established that appellee and Harry Sisco had been involved in an argument at approximately 5:00 p.m. on September 15, 1997, and that appellee had made threats against Harry Sisco. Several witnesses testified that the argument had left Harry Sisco shaken and frightened.
After the argument, appellee went to a bar, where the bartender heard appellee talking to his mother on the telephone and making threats against Harry Sisco. While appellee was at the bar, he showed an acquaintance a rifle shell and asked the acquaintance if he thought it would be effective to "take him out." On cross-examination, the witness stated that he thought the "him" referred to in the question was Richard Sisco, Harry Sisco's cousin. (Richard Sisco and appellee had recently had some disagreements, and those disagreements had apparently sparked the argument between Harry Sisco and appellee earlier in the day.)
From the bar, appellee spoke to his girlfriend, B.J. Avery, on the telephone and asked her to come to the bar and to bring her car. Avery drove her black Ford Probe to the bar and gave appellee her car keys. At about 5:30 p.m., appellee drove to the home of Terry Chandler and borrowed a box of ammunition and a .243 Remington bolt-action rifle with a scope.
Shortly before the murder, several people saw a small black car (identified by at least one witness as a Ford Probe) drive by Harry Sisco's home. One of those people, Harry Sisco's next-door neighbor Betty Lehman, saw and spoke to Harry Sisco at about 6:35 or 6:40. Lehman observed that Harry Sisco was upset and looked pale. When Lehman told Harry Sisco that he didn't look good and asked him what was wrong, Harry Sisco mentioned the fight he had had with appellee that afternoon and that appellee had threatened him. Harry Sisco also told her that he was afraid of appellee. Lehman, who had known Harry Sisco for fifteen years, thought that was odd because she had found him to be a person who was not afraid of anybody.
While Lehman was speaking to Harry Sisco, he pointed out a small black car driving by on the street and told her that appellee was inside. Lehman observed that Harry Sisco was "scared to death" at this point. She told him that she didn't want to get in the middle of anything, and urged him to call 911. Lehman then returned to her own home, got in her car, and started to back out of her garage to run an errand.
After she had backed out of her garage, Lehman heard a loud blast but was not sure what it was. She continued onto the street and stopped at a red light nearby. Then she saw people, including one person who was acting "frantically," in the front yard of Harry Sisco's house. Lehman parked her car
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