State v. Hill7/5/2001
al occurred in admitting appellee's statement that he was not talking, those unaddressed assignments of error must be evaluated in their own right to determine their effect, if any, on the plain-error inquiry discussed above.
It is urged that this court should remand the cause to the court of appeals for further consideration in the event that this court reverses the judgment of the court of appeals on the issues that court found dispositive. We agree that remand is appropriate and necessary for a complete analysis under the plain-error doctrine. Therefore, we remand this cause to the court of appeals to consider the unaddressed assignments of error and to proceed as warranted to an assessment of plain error, in light of the resolution of those assignments of error that are pertinent to that inquiry.
For the foregoing reasons, we hold that when a court of appeals engages in a plain-error analysis, it must conduct a complete review of all relevant assignments of error in order to determine whether a manifest miscarriage of justice has occurred that clearly affected the outcome of the trial.
Accordingly, the judgment of the court of appeals is reversed in part, and the cause is remanded to the court of appeals for further proceedings.
Judgment reversed in part and cause remanded.
Douglas, F.E. Sweeney and Lundberg Stratton, JJ., concur.
Moyer, C.J., and Cook, J., concur in judgment.
Pfeifer, J., dissents.
Cook, J., concurring in judgment.
I agree with the majority that the instant case warrants reversal and a remand for further proceedings. I must respectfully disagree, however, with two aspects of the majority's analysis.
I.
The majority concludes in Part II(C) that " thorough review of the record reveals no hints of any prejudice to appellee flowing from the use of an anonymous jury." In that same section, the majority also states with no detailed analysis that "we would be hard-pressed to determine from this record that any error occurred in the seating of an anonymous jury." (Emphasis sic.) I would rather eliminate the need to analyze both whether error occurred and whether it was prejudicial by deciding that use of the anonymous jury is not plain error on the basis that the alleged error is not plain.
In my recent dissent in State v. McKee (2001), 91 Ohio St.3d 292, 299, 744 N.E.2d 737, 743, I noted that the United States Supreme Court has identified four considerations that apply to a plain-error inquiry:
"First and most fundamentally, there must be error, i.e., a deviation from a legal rule. [United States v. Olano (1993), 507 U.S. 725, 732-733, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 1777, 123 L.Ed.2d 508, 518.] Second, the error must be plain. To be plain, the error must be ` "clear" or, equivalently, "obvious." ` Id. at 734, 113 S.Ct. at 1777, 123 L.Ed.2d at 519, citing [United States v. Young (1985), 470 U.S. 1, 17, 105 S.Ct. 1038, 1047, 84 L.Ed.2d 1, 13, fn. 14]. Third, the error must affect substantial rights. In most cases, this means that the error must have affected the outcome of the trial. Olano, 507 U.S. at 734, 113 S.Ct. at 1777-1778, 123 L.Ed.2d at 519-520."
If a party satisfies the three foregoing conditions, a reviewing court then has the discretion to correct the plain error. McKee, 91 Ohio St.3d at 299-300, 744 N.E.2d at 743-744 (Cook, J., dissenting).
A reviewing court neither has to decide whether a party can satisfy each prong of the plain-error inquiry nor has to answer each prong in order. See Johnson v. United States (1997), 520 U.S. 461, 469-470, 117 S.Ct. 1544, 1550, 137 L.Ed.2d 718, 728-729 (declining
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