Case Title: State v. Weaver

Citation: 2022-Ohio-4371

Docket Number: 2021-0622

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 2022-12-08T00:00:00Z

Document:
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as State 
v. Weaver, Slip Opinion No. 2022-Ohio-4371.] 
 
                                                                
 
 
 
NOTICE 
This slip opinion is subject to formal revision before it is published in an 
advance sheet of the Ohio Official Reports.  Readers are requested to 
promptly notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of Ohio, 65 
South Front Street, Columbus, Ohio 43215, of any typographical or other 
formal errors in the opinion, in order that corrections may be made before 
the opinion is published. 
 
 
SLIP OPINION NO. 2022-OHIO-4371 
THE STATE OF OHIO, APPELLEE, v. WEAVER, APPELLANT. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it 
may be cited as State v. Weaver, Slip Opinion No. 2022-Ohio-4371.] 
Postconviction—A postconviction petitioner should be entitled to a fair and 
impartial fact-finder when an evidentiary hearing has been granted—When 
a record demonstrates bias or prejudice on the part of a fact-finder, an 
appellate court should reverse the trial court’s judgment—Court of 
appeals’ judgment reversed and cause remanded. 
(No. 2021-0622—Submitted April 27, 2022—Decided December 8, 2022.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Muskingum County, 
No. CT2019-0034, 2021-Ohio-1025. 
_____________________ 
O’CONNOR, C.J. 
{¶ 1} In 2016, after the death of her newborn, appellant, Emile Weaver, was 
found guilty of one count of aggravated murder, one count of gross abuse of a 
corpse, and two counts of tampering with evidence.  The trial court sentenced 
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Weaver to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the aggravated murder.  
At sentencing, Weaver’s trial counsel briefly mentioned the term neonaticide1 but 
failed to explain neonaticide and its applicability to Weaver’s case.  The Fifth 
District Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment of the trial court and Weaver’s 
sentence.  2017-Ohio-4374, 93 N.E.3d 178, ¶ 41 (“Weaver I”). 
{¶ 2} One year after her convictions, Weaver filed a petition for 
postconviction relief, arguing that her trial counsel was ineffective for failing to 
present evidence about neonaticide as a mitigating factor.  Applying the doctrine of 
res judicata, the trial court denied her petition for postconviction relief without an 
evidentiary hearing.  The Fifth District reversed the trial court’s judgment and 
remanded the matter to the trial court to conduct an evidentiary hearing.  2018-
Ohio-2509, 114 N.E.3d 766, ¶ 33 (“Weaver II”).  After a contentious evidentiary 
hearing, the trial court once again denied Weaver’s petition for postconviction 
relief, and the Fifth District affirmed the trial court’s judgment.  2021-Ohio-1025, 
¶ 50 (“Weaver III”). 
{¶ 3} Because the trial court’s decision denying Weaver’s petition for 
postconviction relief was unreasonable and arbitrary and not based on competent 
and credible evidence, we hold that the court abused its discretion in denying 
Weaver’s petition for postconviction relief.  And because the court of appeals held 
otherwise, we reverse its judgment and remand this case to the trial court to conduct 
a new sentencing hearing. 
 
1.  Over 50 years ago, the term “neonaticide” was identified and defined as the killing of an infant 
within 24 hours of childbirth.  See Oberman, Mothers Who Kill: Coming to Terms with Modern 
American Infanticide, 34 Am.Crim.L.Rev. 1, 22 (1996).  By focusing on the patterns and 
circumstances surrounding neonaticide, researchers explain that the act, generally perceived as 
“incomprehensible,” id. at 68, can be more fully understood both as “distinctly unlike more 
‘meditated’ homicides,” id. at 78, and as “more than isolated occurrences perpetrated by careless, 
ignorant, or indifferent women,” id. at 20.  Rather, in the context of social and cultural norms, 
researchers suggest that neonaticide can be understood as an act of desperation by young, unwed, 
and socially isolated women.  Id. at 23-24, 71. 
 
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I.  RELEVANT BACKGROUND 
A.  Trial and direct appeal 
{¶ 4} In the fall of 2014, Weaver returned as a sophomore to Muskingum 
University in New Concord, Ohio, where she lived in a campus sorority house.2  
After Weaver visited a wellness center to obtain birth control, the center reached 
out to her to let her know that she was pregnant, but Weaver testified that she had 
never looked at or read the message from the center.  Weaver also testified that she 
did not “completely” believe that she was pregnant, because she did not show the 
normal signs of pregnancy—specifically, she did not (1) gain weight, (2) have 
morning sickness or exhaustion, or (3) stop menstruating.  Throughout her 
pregnancy, Weaver consistently denied that she was pregnant when either her 
sorority sisters or other people asked, and she never told her mother.  At trial, 
Weaver explained that she had lied about her pregnancy because she was scared, 
“felt like [she] had no one,” and was “worried about * * * getting in trouble.”  
Weaver did, however, discuss her pregnancy with her boyfriend—whom she had a 
“rocky relationship” with—and he encouraged her not to tell anyone.  Weaver 
described him as “controlling and judgmental,” as well as “abusive.” 
{¶ 5} On April 22, 2015, believing that she was having a bowel movement, 
Weaver went to the sorority-house bathroom.  Shortly thereafter, she realized that 
she was in labor and silently, without assistance, delivered the baby into the toilet.  
Later that day, two sorority members discovered the baby in a trash bag lying next 
to the sorority house. 
{¶ 6} Weaver was charged in the Muskingum County Common Pleas Court 
with one count of aggravated murder in violation of R.C. 2903.01, one count of 
gross abuse of a corpse in violation of R.C. 2927.01(B), and two counts of 
 
2.  Because this appeal primarily focuses on Weaver’s trial counsel’s alleged failure to provide 
neonaticide evidence as a mitigating factor, we will not dive into the full description of Weaver’s 
trial and the underlying facts; but the Fifth District’s description may be found in Weaver I, 2017-
Ohio-4374, 93 N.E.3d 178, and Weaver II, 2018-Ohio-2509, 114 N.E.3d 766. 
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tampering with evidence in violation of R.C. 2921.12(A)(1).  A jury found her 
guilty of all counts.  At sentencing, defense counsel offered as mitigating evidence 
a short, cursory statement about neonaticide, but counsel did not explain that term 
or its potential impact on Weaver’s sentence.  The trial court merged the tampering-
with-evidence charges and sentenced Weaver to life in prison without the 
possibility of parole for aggravated murder, one year in prison for gross abuse of a 
corpse, and three years for tampering with evidence.  The trial court then ordered 
all the prison terms to be served consecutively to each other.  In support of this 
sentence, the trial court found that (1) Weaver lacked remorse, (2) her crimes 
harmed her sorority sisters, (3) her conduct consisted of “the worst form” of 
aggravated murder, and (4) her “relationship with the victim caused [the crime].” 
{¶ 7} On appeal, Weaver argued that the trial court had erred in imposing a 
sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole for aggravated murder 
and that this sentence was disproportionate to her conduct.  Weaver I, 2017-Ohio-
4374, 93 N.E.3d 178, at ¶ 22.  The Fifth District concluded that R.C. 2953.08(D)(3) 
barred it from reviewing Weaver’s life-without-parole sentence.  Id. at ¶ 21, 25.  As 
a result, the court of appeals declined to review the merits of Weaver’s claims 
regarding her life-without-parole sentence and affirmed the trial court’s judgment.  
Id. at ¶ 41.  We did not accept Weaver’s discretionary appeal.  151 Ohio St.3d 1510, 
2018-Ohio-365, 90 N.E.3d 950. 
B.  Postconviction proceedings 
1.  The trial court denied Weaver’s petition for postconviction relief without an 
evidentiary hearing 
{¶ 8} In 2017, Weaver filed a petition for postconviction relief (and two 
subsequent amended petitions), alleging that her trial counsel was ineffective for 
failing to present evidence about neonaticide as a mitigating factor.  In support of 
her petition, Weaver attached an article on neonaticide by Michelle Oberman, a 
former associate professor at DePaul University College of Law, and an affidavit 
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and report by Dr. Clara Lewis, a professor at Stanford University who has studied 
the social and cultural causes of neonaticide in America.  After reviewing the 
evidence and conducting a personal interview with Weaver, Dr. Lewis opined in 
her affidavit that Weaver’s case was “a typical example of contemporary 
neonaticide,” that her life-without-parole sentence was “disproportionately harsh 
when compared to sentences given to others convicted of this crime,” and that 
defense counsel’s failure to “introduce relevant information about the social and 
cultural causes of neonaticide” deprived the trial court of “information that would 
have provided context for understanding [Weaver’s] crime” and would have 
provided mitigating evidence. 
{¶ 9} In her report, Dr. Lewis explained that many people find it 
“impossible” to understand how and why a woman could commit neonaticide; but 
research reveals and psychiatrists explain that neonaticide is “patterned” and that 
women who commit neonaticide fit a particular profile.  For instance, Dr. Lewis 
noted that women who commit neonaticide “tend to be immature, isolated, worried 
about the judgment of others on issues ranging from sex to abortion to unwed 
motherhood” and they generally “receive no prenatal care, suffer from pregnancy 
denial, make no plans for their labor or delivery, and labor alone on toilets without 
medical care.”  And when the baby arrives, “their denial shatters and panic ensues,” 
leading these women to respond with “poorly concealed acts of desperation.”  Dr. 
Lewis emphasized that panic is “central” to cases involving neonaticide, which 
suggests that this crime is “not carefully planned.” 
{¶ 10} Dr. Lewis concluded that Weaver fit the typical personality and 
demographic profile and her actions followed the typical pattern, noting that 
Weaver’s social isolation, her immaturity, and her boyfriend’s insistence on secrecy 
during the pregnancy, as well as her sorority sisters’ actions, all reinforced her 
isolating behavior and denial of the pregnancy.  Accordingly, while Dr. Lewis 
acknowledged that Weaver deserved to be punished for her conduct, she 
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emphasized that presenting this existing body of research on neonaticide at 
Weaver’s sentencing “would have demonstrated that there are substantial grounds 
to mitigate her individual culpability.” 
{¶ 11} The trial court denied Weaver’s petition without an evidentiary 
hearing, concluding that her ineffective-assistance claim was barred by res judicata.  
Weaver appealed.  The Fifth District concluded that the trial court erred in finding 
Weaver’s ineffective-assistance claim barred by res judicata because the claim 
relied on evidence outside the record—i.e., Dr. Lewis’s affidavit and report—and 
therefore, could not have been presented on direct appeal.  Weaver II, 2018-Ohio-
2509, 114 N.E.3d 766, at ¶ 23.  It further found that Dr. Lewis’s affidavit and report 
“explained the psychiatric and cultural issues surrounding neonaticide far beyond 
counsel’s casual mention at the sentencing hearing, and provided information to 
contextualize the same actions which the court used to support the sentence of life 
without possibility of parole.”  Id. at ¶ 31.  It noted that this neonaticide evidence 
cut directly against the state’s arguments, which the trial court accepted, for 
imposing the harshest sentence available for aggravated murder.  Id.  The Fifth 
District accordingly reversed the trial court’s judgment denying Weaver’s petition 
for postconviction relief and remanded the case to the trial court to conduct an 
evidentiary hearing on her petition.  Id. at ¶ 33.  This court denied jurisdiction over 
the state’s discretionary appeal.  153 Ohio St.3d 1504, 2018-Ohio-4285, 109 
N.E.3d 1260. 
2.  After an evidentiary hearing, the trial court again denied Weaver’s petition for 
postconviction relief 
{¶ 12} On remand, the trial court held a two-day evidentiary hearing on 
Weaver’s petition for postconviction relief.  Dr. Lewis did not testify on Weaver’s 
behalf, but Dr. Diana Barnes, a psychotherapist specializing in women’s 
reproductive mental health, testified.  Dr. Barnes also evaluated Weaver’s case and 
produced a report, which was submitted as an exhibit during the hearing.  Notably, 
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when Weaver first offered Dr. Barnes’s expert testimony, the state did not object.  
Both Dr. Barnes’s testimony and her report largely focused on the interplay 
between neonaticide and pregnancy-negation syndrome, and her opinion that 
Weaver met the criteria for pregnancy-negation syndrome, which “elevates the 
risks for neonaticide following childbirth.” 
{¶ 13} At the hearing, Dr. Barnes explained that a “closely associated” 
precursor to neonaticide is “pregnancy negation,” a clinical syndrome that 
encompasses both the concepts of pregnancy denial and pregnancy concealment.  
She further explained that women with this syndrome will negate and detach from 
their pregnancies to the point that their bodies respond with fewer and less obvious 
physical signs of pregnancy, such as no morning sickness, no sensation of fetal 
movement, minimal or no weight gain, no recognition as to the start of labor, and 
continual spotting throughout the pregnancy.  Labor often takes these women by 
surprise, Dr. Barnes noted, and they usually construe the physical signs of labor as 
the need to have a bowel movement.  Dr. Barnes explained that these women 
generally fit the following profile: young, immature women who have suffered 
traumatic childhood events and who are experiencing social isolation and fear the 
reactions of others, often an abusive partner’s or a parent’s response to the 
pregnancy. 
{¶ 14} Dr. Barnes explained that during the birthing experience, a woman 
with pregnancy-negation syndrome will experience a dissociative state in which 
she feels that she lacks control over her behavior and as if she is just an observer of 
the events passing before her, not a participant.  Often, these women will, without 
assistance, deliver their baby into a toilet.  Dr. Barnes further explained that once 
the baby is delivered, panic often ensues for the women, which creates thoughts of 
disorganization and dissociation, which subsequently affects their decision-making 
process, leading to neonaticide.  Because women with pregnancy-negation 
syndrome distance themselves psychologically from the pregnancy for all nine 
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months, Dr. Barnes noted, they often act detached after the events of birth and 
neonaticide, which people may interpret as indifference. 
{¶ 15} Dr. Barnes opined that Weaver met the criteria for pregnancy-
negation syndrome.  She noted that Weaver fit the personality and demographic 
profile of a young, immature woman, that she lacked many of the expected 
pregnancy-related symptoms—Weaver had not gained weight and continued to 
menstruate—and her birthing experience began with the mistaken belief that she 
was having a bowel movement and involved an unassisted delivery of the baby into 
the toilet.  Based on her interview with Weaver and Weaver’s mother, Dr. Barnes 
also concluded that Weaver “grew up in a home that was critical, rejecting, 
withholding of love, [and] judgmental,” which established a belief for Weaver that 
“if you have a problem, you figure it out on your own, and you pretend that 
everything is okay.” 
{¶ 16} The fact that Weaver, after suffering deep internal vaginal 
lacerations and loss of blood during the birth, was discovered sitting cross-legged 
on her bed typing a term paper shortly after the birth, Dr. Barnes found, indicated 
her detachment from the reality of the situation.  Dr. Barnes also found the video 
of Weaver’s later interrogation as “noteworthy.”  Dr. Barnes believed that the 
interrogation video and Weaver’s scores on certain diagnostic tests demonstrated 
Weaver’s “capacity to remove herself from the external environment” and “go 
internally so that she [could] tolerate what [was] happening around her.”  Dr. 
Barnes testified that Weaver’s dissociative state during the delivery, the social 
isolation in her family and at the time of her pregnancy, and her childhood trauma 
also fit into the general profile of women with pregnancy-negation syndrome. 
{¶ 17} The state offered no expert testimony to rebut Dr. Barnes’s opinion.  
Rather, after cross-examining Dr. Barnes, the state called five of Weaver’s sorority 
sisters and one of her friends to the stand.  The state questioned the sorority sisters 
about how Weaver had been treated within the sorority, whether they had asked 
January Term, 2022 
 
9 
Weaver about the rumors of her pregnancy and what her reactions were to such 
questions, and how Weaver’s conduct had affected them personally. 
{¶ 18} Notably, the trial court asked two of Weaver’s sorority sisters for 
their opinions regarding the following statements made by Dr. Lewis—and quoted 
by the court of appeals in Weaver II, 2018-Ohio-2509, 114 N.E.3d 766, at ¶ 12: 
 
Birth takes hours.  It is a painful and noisy process.  Doing it alone, 
in silence, in a shared bathroom speaks to [Weaver’s] abject terror, 
as well as to her belief that she had no one she could trust.  Anyone 
might have averted this outcome by offering to help.  Instead, she 
was left alone. 
 
Neither of the sorority sisters agreed with Dr. Lewis’s statements. 
{¶ 19} Prior to closing arguments, the state moved to exclude Dr. Barnes’s 
report and strike her testimony, arguing that she failed to meet the criteria to be 
designated as an expert.  The trial court seemingly overruled the motion and the 
case proceeded to closing arguments.  After hearing from both sides, the trial court 
ruled from the bench and denied Weaver’s petition for postconviction relief.  In its 
ruling, the trial court found “the testimony of Dr. Barnes to be the most unusual 
testimony [it had] heard in 40 years from an expert.”  It took issue with several 
aspects of Dr. Barnes’s testimony, including that she would “bounce back and 
forth” between using the terms pregnancy concealment, pregnancy denial, and 
pregnancy negation, and that she used the “wrong” statistics in her report regarding 
the frequency of pregnancy negation.  The trial court also found that Dr. Barnes 
“was not an M.D., and [the court had] a hard time calling [pregnancy-negation 
syndrome] a diagnosis.” 
{¶ 20} Weaver again appealed to the Fifth District, which affirmed the trial 
court’s judgment denying Weaver’s petition for postconviction relief.  Weaver III, 
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2021-Ohio-1025, at ¶ 50.  The court of appeals rejected Weaver’s argument that 
the trial court was biased during the postconviction-relief hearing and found that 
although “the hearing was contentious,” the record lacked evidence that would 
“overcome the strong presumption that the trial court was free of bias or prejudice” 
against Weaver or that would establish that the trial court’s conduct denied Weaver 
her right to due process.  Id. at ¶ 40.  And by relying on the “well established” 
standard that an appellate court “may not substitute [its] own credibility 
determination for that of the trial court,” the Fifth District rejected Weaver’s 
challenge to the trial court’s findings discounting Dr. Barnes’s credibility.  Id. at 
¶ 47.  Accordingly, the Fifth District held that “the court’s decision finding trial 
counsel was not ineffective for failing to raise the issue of neonaticide in detail was 
not unreasonable, arbitrary, or unconscionable” and thus, the trial court did not 
abuse its discretion in denying Weaver’s petition for postconviction relief.  Id. at 
¶ 49. 
{¶ 21} We accepted Weaver’s discretionary appeal, which presents two 
propositions of law.  See 164 Ohio St.3d 1409, 2021-Ohio-2795, 172 N.E.3d 181.  
In her first proposition of law, Weaver argues that the level of deference an 
appellate court owes a trial court’s postconviction determination of a 
postconviction witness’s credibility is not as high as the level of deference it owes 
to a jury’s trial-witness-credibility determination.  In her second proposition of law, 
Weaver asserts that when a petitioner is granted a hearing on her petition for 
postconviction relief, she is entitled to a fair and impartial fact-finder and when the 
record demonstrates bias or prejudice on the part of the fact-finder, the appellate 
court should reverse the trial court’s judgment. 
II.  ANALYSIS 
{¶ 22} At the heart of Weaver’s propositions of law is a frustration with 
how the trial court resolved her petition for postconviction relief; specifically, that 
the trial court denied her petition based on its biases and personal attitude toward 
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the evidence, rather than based on a reasoned application of the standard for 
assessing ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims set forth in Strickland v. 
Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984).  In support of 
her arguments, Weaver cites several of the trial court’s actions, including its 
unsupported findings as to Dr. Barnes’s credibility, its inappropriate questioning of 
Weaver’s sorority sisters, and its swift decision from the bench.  Weaver also argues 
that the court of appeals “blindly” deferred to the trial court’s finding that Dr. 
Barnes was not credible and simply stated that it “may not substitute [its] own 
credibility determination for that of the trial court,” Weaver III at ¶ 47, instead of 
reviewing whether the trial court’s credibility determination was reasonable and 
supported by the record. 
{¶ 23} In short, Weaver contends that the above-described actions by the 
trial court deprived her of “a fair and impartial factfinder,” and the court of appeals’ 
blind deference deprived her of “meaningful appellate review.”  To remedy these 
errors, Weaver proposes that we overrule, either in part or in whole, our decision in 
State v. Gondor, 112 Ohio St.3d 377, 2006-Ohio-6679, 860 N.E.2d 77, and adopt 
a de novo standard of review in cases in which the postconviction-relief decisions 
“are not supported by competent and credible evidence” or when the same judge 
who presides over the petitioner’s trial also presides over the petitioner’s 
postconviction-relief proceedings. 
A.  We decline Weaver’s request that we overrule our decision in Gondor and 
adopt a de novo standard of review 
{¶ 24} In Gondor, this court plainly rejected a court of appeals’ application 
of a de novo review in reversing a trial court’s postconviction-relief findings and 
held that  abuse of discretion is the proper standard for reviewing such findings.  Id. 
at ¶ 58.  We explained that the term “abuse of discretion” connotes that “ ‘the 
court’s attitude is unreasonable, arbitrary or unconscionable.’ ”  Id. at ¶ 60, quoting 
State v. Adams, 62 Ohio St.2d 151, 157, 404 N.E.2d 144 (1980).  Stated differently, 
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an abuse of discretion involves more than a difference in opinion: the “ ‘term 
discretion itself involves the idea of choice, of an exercise of the will, of a 
determination made between competing considerations.’ ”  State v. Jenkins, 15 
Ohio St.3d 164, 222, 473 N.E.2d 264 (1984), quoting Spalding v. Spalding, 355 
Mich. 382, 384, 94 N.W.2d 810 (1959).  For a court of appeals to reach an abuse-
of-discretion determination, the trial court’s judgment must be so profoundly and 
wholly violative of fact and reason that “ ‘it evidences not the exercise of will but 
perversity of will, not the exercise of judgment but defiance thereof, not the exercise 
of reason but rather of passion or bias.’ ”  Id., quoting Spalding at 384-385. 
{¶ 25} We emphasized in Gondor that an abuse-of-discretion standard is 
especially appropriate in cases in which a petition for postconviction relief is based 
on a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel.  Id. at ¶ 53-56.  On direct appeal of 
a conviction, appellate courts generally review an ineffective-assistance-of-counsel 
claim de novo, which makes sense because “the issue originates at the appellate 
level” and “no trial court has held forth on the issue.”  Id. at ¶ 53.  Petitions for 
postconviction relief that are based on ineffective-assistance claims, however, 
begin at the trial-court level, and the trial court may hold a hearing and receive 
testimony on the very issue of ineffective assistance.  Id. at ¶ 54.  At that hearing, 
the trial court “sees and hears the live postconviction witnesses, and [it] is therefore 
in a much better position to weigh their credibility than are the appellate judges.”  
Id. at ¶ 55. 
{¶ 26} We further emphasized that permitting “de novo review by appellate 
courts would relegate the postconviction trial court to a mere testimony-gathering 
apparatus.”  Gondor, 112 Ohio St.3d 377, 2006-Ohio-6679, 860 N.E.2d 77, at ¶ 56.  
De novo review would effectively create “a clean slate on appeal,” which would 
create a burden on “the overall administration of justice in Ohio” because every 
postconviction petitioner would be encouraged to seek another day in court by 
appealing trial courts’ postconviction decisions.  Id.  Thus, we held that a trial 
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court’s decision on “a postconviction petition filed pursuant to R.C. 2953.21 should 
be upheld absent an abuse of discretion; a reviewing court should not overrule the 
trial court’s finding on a petition for postconviction relief that is supported by 
competent and credible evidence.”  Id. at ¶ 58. 
{¶ 27} In some cases, such as the present case, the evidence the trial court 
considers when determining whether to grant or deny a petition for postconviction 
relief includes expert-witness testimony.  Generally, “the weight to be given the 
evidence and the credibility of the witnesses are primarily for the trier of the facts,” 
State v. DeHass, 10 Ohio St.2d 230, 227 N.E.2d 212 (1967), paragraph one of the 
syllabus, and an appellate court should not substitute its judgment on such matters, 
State v. Walker, 55 Ohio St.2d 208, 212, 378 N.E.2d 1049 (1978); see also, State v. 
Waddy, 63 Ohio St.3d 424, 430, 588 N.E.2d 819 (1992). 
{¶ 28} Weaver emphasizes that our decisions in DeHass and Walker dealt 
with appellate review of a defendant’s convictions and therefore those decisions 
prohibit an appellate court from substituting its judgment for that of a jury’s.  
Because Weaver’s situation involves a postconviction hearing and a trial court’s 
finding on an expert witness’s credibility, she asserts that deference to the trial court 
as the trier of fact should not be “automatic” and that the evidence should be 
reviewed de novo.  In support of that argument, she points to the differences 
between judicial decision-making and jury decision-making, such as the fact that 
the rules of evidence prohibit an attorney from presenting evidence of a juror’s 
reasons for voting the way he or she did.  But, Weaver argues, judges are “often 
required to issue an opinion explaining their reasoning for the decisions that they 
make.” 
{¶ 29} These differences, however, are merely procedural and are irrelevant 
with regard to the primary reason for providing deference to the trier of fact: be it 
a jury or a trial judge, the trier of fact is “ ‘best able to view the witnesses and 
observe their demeanor, gestures and voice inflections, and use these observations 
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in weighing the credibility of the proffered testimony.’ ”  State v. Amburgey, 33 
Ohio St.3d 115, 117, 515 N.E.2d 925 (1987), quoting Seasons Coal Co. v. 
Cleveland, 10 Ohio St.3d 77, 80, 461 N.E.2d 1273 (1984); see also Gondor, 112 
Ohio St.3d 377, 2006-Ohio-6679, 860 N.E.2d 77, at ¶ 54.  Weaver also fails to 
address the policy issues discussed in Gondor weighing against de novo review, 
see id. at ¶ 56.  The reasons that justified the application of an abuse-of-discretion 
standard in Gondor are as relevant today as they were over a decade ago, and we 
therefore find Weaver’s request to overrule Gondor in favor of a de novo standard 
of review unpersuasive.  See Westfield Ins. Co. v. Galatis, 100 Ohio St.3d 216, 
2003-Ohio-5849, 797 N.E.2d 1256, paragraph one of the syllabus (explaining that 
this court may overrule its precedent when (1) “changes in circumstances no longer 
justify continued adherence to the decision,” (2) “the decision defies practical 
workability,” and (3) “abandoning the precedent would not create an undue 
hardship for those who have relied upon it”). 
B.  The trial court abused its discretion in denying Weaver’s petition for 
postconviction relief 
{¶ 30} With the abuse-of-discretion standard in mind, we turn to the trial 
court’s decision to deny Weaver’s petition for postconviction relief and the court 
of appeals’ decision to affirm the trial court’s denial.  The only issue before the trial 
court at the evidentiary hearing was whether Weaver’s trial counsel was ineffective 
for failing to present information concerning neonaticide as a mitigating factor.  
Weaver contends that the trial court denied her petition for postconviction relief 
without any objective consideration of her ineffective-assistance claim.  To 
demonstrate, she directs this court’s attention to the trial court’s unsupported 
findings regarding Dr. Barnes’s credibility, its “inappropriate” questioning of 
Weaver’s sorority sisters, and its nearly nonexistent application of Strickland, 466 
U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674. 
January Term, 2022 
 
15 
{¶ 31} The state and amicus curiae, the Ohio Attorney General, on the other 
hand, contend that the trial court was not biased or unreasonable in denying 
Weaver’s petition.  They maintain that after finding that Dr. Barnes was not credible 
based on objective reasons, the trial court simply determined that Weaver failed to 
meet her burden to establish that her counsel was ineffective for not elaborating on 
neonaticide during sentencing.  To resolve this case, we must review the trial 
court’s findings supporting its denial of Weaver’s petition for postconviction relief, 
beginning with the most significant: its finding that Dr. Barnes was not credible. 
1.  The trial court arbitrarily disregarded Dr. Barnes’s testimony 
{¶ 32} Weaver argues that the trial court abused its discretion when it 
disregarded Dr. Barnes’s testimony “without good reason.”  In support of her 
argument, Weaver directs this court’s attention to our decision in State v. White, 
118 Ohio St.3d 12, 2008-Ohio-1623, 885 N.E.2d 905. 
{¶ 33} In White, this court held that the trial court abused its discretion in 
determining that the petitioner had failed to establish an intellectual disability when 
the trial court did not provide “any rational basis grounded in the evidence for 
rejecting the uncontradicted testimony of two qualified expert witnesses in the field 
of psychology.”  Id. at ¶ 70.  We reasoned that while a “trial court is not required 
to automatically accept” an expert’s opinion, such an opinion “ ‘may not be 
arbitrarily ignored, and some reason must be objectively present for ignoring 
expert opinion testimony.’ ”  (Emphasis sic.)  Id. at ¶ 71, quoting United States v. 
Hall, 583 F.2d 1288, 1294 (5th Cir.1978).  We found no such objective reasons for 
the trial court’s decision to disregard the uncontradicted expert testimony in that 
case, noting that (1) the trial court had focused its attention on largely irrelevant 
anecdotal evidence, id. at ¶ 72, (2) no evidence was offered calling into doubt the 
reliability of the test administered by the experts, id., and (3) the trial court made 
no finding that the expert witnesses lacked either credentials or credibility, id. at 
¶ 73.  We therefore concluded that “[w]hile the trial court is the trier of fact, it may 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
16 
not disregard credible and uncontradicted expert testimony in favor of either 
perceptions of lay witnesses or of the court’s own expectations,” and that doing so 
demonstrated “an arbitrary, unreasonable attitude toward the evidence before the 
court and constitute[d] an abuse of discretion.”  Id. at ¶ 74. 
{¶ 34} It is true that, unlike in White, the trial court here found Dr. Barnes’s 
testimony “unbelievable and biased.”  But White holds that a trial court may not 
arbitrarily disregard an expert’s opinion and that “some reason must be objectively 
present” for doing so, id. at ¶ 71, be it a lay witness’s observations of the petitioner 
and a trial court’s own expectations of how an intellectually disabled person would 
behave, as in White, or a trial court’s unfounded and capricious credibility 
determination, as alleged here. 
{¶ 35} Additionally, although an appellate court must not reweigh the 
witness testimony when reviewing a trial court’s credibility determination, that 
does not mean it may skip reviewing a court’s credibility determination of a witness 
in the name of deference, as the court of appeals did here.  See Weaver III, 2021-
Ohio-1025, at ¶ 47, 49.  Had the Fifth District objectively reviewed the trial court’s 
determination that Dr. Barnes was “unbelievable,” it would have observed that the 
trial court’s representation of Dr. Barnes’s testimony as “unbelievable” was based 
on immaterial information, its own fundamental misunderstanding of neonaticide, 
and its own biases pertaining to the subject of Dr. Barnes’s testimony.  This is not 
a situation in which a reviewing court needs to guess at what informed a trial court’s 
view of an expert’s testimony.  Here, the trial court made its distaste for Dr. Barnes 
quite clear on the record. 
{¶ 36} Indeed, the trial court twice noted in its entry that Dr. Barnes was 
not a medical doctor.  Although it acknowledged that Dr. Barnes has a Ph.D. in 
psychology, the court nevertheless stated: “She can’t do some of the things she was 
asked to do with trying to apply brain trauma to the issues in this case because she’s 
not a medical doctor.”  The trial court further remarked, “[s]ince she’s not an MD, 
January Term, 2022 
 
17 
I have a hard time calling it a diagnosis; but her findings.”  As a general point, given 
that psychologists can and do make diagnoses, the trial court’s statements are ill-
informed.  And expertise in trauma and its application to the brain is not solely 
limited to medical doctors.  In fact, it is one of the topics psychologists deal with 
often in their practice.  See American Psychological Association, Trauma, 
https://www.apa.org/topics/trauma 
(accessed 
Sept. 
1, 
2022) 
[https://perma.cc/M42V-HRKA].  But beyond that, the trial court did not explain 
why the ability to apply “brain trauma” to the issues in this case weighed so heavily 
against believing Dr. Barnes’s expert opinion that Weaver met the criteria for 
pregnancy-negation syndrome.  Dr. Barnes testified about the numerous factors that 
must be taken into consideration, other than trauma, when determining whether a 
person meets the criteria for pregnancy-negation syndrome.  The trial court’s heavy 
reliance on this immaterial fact to completely disregard Dr. Barnes’s testimony 
suggests that the trial court misunderstood the subject of pregnancy-negation 
syndrome and its relation to neonaticide. 
{¶ 37} Further, the trial court characterized Dr. Barnes’s testimony as “the 
most unusual testimony [it had] heard in 40 years from an expert.”  This is not an 
objective basis to disregard an expert’s testimony.  The fact that the court itself is 
not familiar with the substance of an expert’s testimony is entirely unrelated to 
credibility; surely, countless trial-court judges hear expert testimony on subject 
matter with which they are completely unfamiliar.  To permit a court’s lack of 
familiarity with a topic to be a factor in assessing credibility would prejudice parties 
that are the first to present expert testimony on a subject matter or to present on a 
topic with which the trial court is unfamiliar.  Establishing an expert’s credibility 
should not depend on a mere hope that the trial-court judge has at least heard about 
a subject. 
{¶ 38} The trial court also found Dr. Barnes to be “unbelievable and 
biased,” noting at the evidentiary hearing that “she would bounce back and forth on 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
18 
what is [pregnancy] denial, what is [pregnancy] concealment,” and “when that 
didn’t work, she came up with a third name for her diagnosis or whatever you want 
to call it.”  The state points to these findings as evidence that the trial court 
supported its credibility determination regarding Dr. Barnes with objective 
evidence.  It asserts that the trial court’s findings that Dr. Barnes “changed things 
as [she] went along” and that she “gave an excuse for everything that she didn’t 
think went with her findings” are the findings that support its conclusion that she 
was not credible. 
{¶ 39} But those statements exemplify the trial court’s fundamental 
misunderstanding of Dr. Barnes’s testimony regarding “pregnancy negation,” a 
clinical syndrome encompassing both pregnancy denial and pregnancy 
concealment.  The trial court also failed to understand how pregnancy-negation 
syndrome is a “closely associated” precursor to neonaticide and that it “elevates the 
risks for neonaticide following childbirth.”  Dr. Barnes did not “bounce back and 
forth,” but rather explained several times during her testimony that pregnancy 
denial and pregnancy concealment are terms that “describe the same phenomenon 
with different intensity levels regarding the amount of conscious awareness 
throughout the pregnancy.”  The following characteristics are similar in both 
pregnancy denial and pregnancy concealment: (1) the physical manifestations or 
the behavioral strategies that the women with pregnancy denial or pregnancy 
concealment exhibit, (2) the absence of symptoms, (3) the personality and 
demographic profile of the women, and (4) the birth experience.  Consequently, the 
terms are generally used interchangeably, and pregnancy-negation syndrome serves 
as a term to describe not just women who are in denial of their pregnancy but also 
women who have knowledge of their pregnancy and conceal it.  Dr. Barnes 
emphasized again on redirect examination that the “current literature * * * talk[s] 
about [the terms] interchangeab[ly],” but what is important is not whether a woman 
falls in the category of pregnancy denial or concealment; it is whether she meets 
January Term, 2022 
 
19 
the criteria for pregnancy-negation syndrome, which elevates her risk for 
neonaticide following childbirth. 
{¶ 40} The above-described statements demonstrate that the trial court 
seemed to believe that Dr. Barnes was essentially making up her testimony as she 
went along, despite the fact that the personality profile and neonaticide patterns Dr. 
Barnes discussed and the terminology she used were supported by years of research, 
much of which was listed in the expert report that she provided to the court.  See, 
e.g., Amon, Putkonen, Weizmann-Henelius, et al., Potential Predictors in 
Neonaticide: The Impact of the Circumstances of Pregnancy, 15 Archives of 
Women’s Mental Health 167, 168 (2012) (“[N]early all studies concerning 
neonaticide have documented a near total lack of prenatal care, which has been 
explained by the denial and/or concealment of pregnancy.  * * * [T]herefore, 
concealment and denial of pregnancy describe the same phenomenon with different 
intensities of the defense mechanism”).  A personal disbelief of research is not an 
objective basis for discrediting an expert witness.  In fact, the trial court never 
indicated that its findings were based on any of the accepted indicators for making 
a credibility determination—i.e., demeanor, gestures, voice inflections, or other 
observations of Dr. Barnes.  See Amburgey, 33 Ohio St.3d at 117, 515 N.E.2d 925.  
Rather, the findings the trial court did make concerning Dr. Barnes were immaterial 
as to her credibility and demonstrated the court’s fundamental misunderstanding of 
neonaticide. 
{¶ 41} Not only did the trial court misunderstand the evidence pertaining to 
neonaticide and pregnancy-negation syndrome, but it demonstrated a willful refusal 
to consider such evidence.  This is illustrated by the trial court’s cavalier attitude 
toward the subject of neonaticide and the experts in that field, in conjunction with 
the trial court’s misunderstanding of the subject and its hurried decision from the 
bench.  Once Dr. Barnes finished testifying and was no longer available, the trial 
court openly questioned whether she was biased due to “her own experiences” with 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
20 
postpartum depression, a completely different condition from pregnancy-negation 
syndrome and neonaticide.  The trial court also stated that Dr. Barnes “has made 
her career in this area of law—or I don’t know, it’s not law.  But I see the previous 
expert had her Ph.D. in American Studies so at least in this case it was in 
Psychology.  But she’s not a medical doctor.”  (Emphasis added.)  After 
offhandedly dismissing Dr. Lewis’s credentials, the trial court next suggested that 
Dr. Barnes did not understand what neonaticide is: “Obviously, [Weaver’s trial 
counsel] was familiar with neonaticide.  [Dr. Barnes] wants to call it pregnancy 
denial in her opinions.”  (Emphasis added.)   
{¶ 42} We find that the trial court’s decision demonstrated its arbitrary 
disregard of Dr. Barnes’s uncontradicted expert opinion.  Furthermore, the trial 
court’s decision was based on an unfounded and capricious credibility 
determination and “an arbitrary, unreasonable attitude toward the evidence before 
[it],” White, 118 Ohio St.3d 12, 2008-Ohio-1623, 885 N.E.2d 905, at ¶ 74. 
{¶ 43} The state and amicus contend that several other exchanges during 
the hearing support the trial court’s credibility determination of Dr. Barnes, 
including (1) that she had submitted in her report an “incomplete and misleading” 
statistic on the occurrence of pregnancy concealment and pregnancy denial, (2) that 
she had testified in 22 cases, but never for the state, and (3) that she had received 
her certification in “perinatal mood disorders” only in the last month because that 
certification had not existed prior to that.  But Dr. Barnes made clear that she had 
never testified for the state because she had never been asked to.  Additionally, the 
fact that certification in “perinatal mood disorders” did not exist at the time of 
Weaver’s sentencing bears little relevance to Dr. Barnes’s credibility, because Dr. 
Barnes testified that she has been “doing this for almost 25 years” and the term 
neonaticide was “first coined in 1969.” 
{¶ 44} And Dr. Barnes did not place a “wrong” statistic in her report, as the 
trial court stated.  The trial court stated: “The facts and statistics put in there are 
January Term, 2022 
 
21 
wrong.  She acknowledged that they were wrong.  They didn’t fit this case.  The 
higher fact of one out of every 2,500 is after they’ve been pregnant for at least 22 
weeks.  And in this case, it was 30 some weeks.  So the wrong statistic was put in 
there to begin with.”  Dr. Barnes noted in her report that “[o]ne in 475 pregnancies 
are concealed/denied.”  During cross-examination, the state asked Dr. Barnes 
whether this statistic was accurate.  Dr. Barnes confirmed it was.  The state then 
asked her whether there were any parameters on that statistic.  Dr. Barnes explained 
that the “parameters are by 20 weeks, one in 475 pregnancies are concealed or 
denied” and that after 20 weeks, it is “one in 2,500.”  Not only did Dr. Barnes never 
acknowledge that the statistic was “wrong,” as the trial court represented, but she 
later explained that the reason she did not find it important to place the specific 
parameters in her report was because “the issue is not the number of pregnancies,” 
but rather “what occurs as a result of the concealment or denial”—i.e., the act of 
neonaticide.  Regardless, even if the trial court’s characterization of Dr. Barnes’s 
testimony were accurate, placing a “wrong” statistic in a report does not alone 
justify the trial court’s complete disregard of Dr. Barnes’s testimony on 
neonaticide.  This is especially true considering the other insufficiencies of the trial 
court’s decision; namely, its reliance on immaterial information, its 
misunderstanding of neonaticide, and its conduct during the hearing, which is 
described more fully below, all of which demonstrate the trial court’s consistent 
and unreasonable attitude toward the evidence. 
2.  The trial court inappropriately examined lay witnesses 
{¶ 45} The trial court’s arbitrary and unreasonable attitude toward the 
evidence during the hearing is further demonstrated by its utterly inappropriate 
questioning of the state’s witnesses.  Keeping in mind that the sole purpose of the 
evidentiary hearing was to determine whether Weaver’s counsel was ineffective for 
failing to present evidence concerning neonaticide as a mitigating factor, the state—
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
22 
instead of calling its own expert on the subject of neonaticide—chose to proffer the 
testimony of Weaver’s sorority sisters. 
{¶ 46} During Weaver’s evidentiary hearing, the trial court focused on the 
following statements that had been made by Dr. Lewis and quoted by the court of 
appeals in Weaver II, 2018-Ohio-2509, 114 N.E.3d 766, at ¶ 12: 
 
Birth takes hours.  It is a painful and noisy process.  Doing it alone, 
in silence, in a shared bathroom speaks to [Weaver’s] abject terror, 
as well as to her belief that she had no one she could trust.  Anyone 
might have averted this outcome by offering to help.  Instead, she 
was left alone. 
 
Inexplicably, the trial court asked two of Weaver’s sorority sisters for their personal 
opinions regarding Dr. Lewis’s belief that help from someone during Weaver’s 
pregnancy might have “averted this outcome.”  Not only are the sorority sisters’ 
opinions as to that statement wholly irrelevant for determining the ultimate issue of 
ineffective assistance of counsel, but the questioning demonstrates the trial court’s 
consistent attempt to base its decision on a personal and emotional view of 
Weaver’s actions rather than an impartial review of the evidence. 
{¶ 47} Perhaps even more outrageous is the fact that the court asked one of 
the sorority sisters whether she had believed that Dr. Lewis’s statement indicated 
that she and her sorority sisters were “personally responsible.”  When the witness 
responded, “Yeah,” the trial-court judge retorted, “That’s the way I think the [court 
of appeals] took it that sent this back.”  The trial-court judge’s personal opinion of 
the court of appeals’ decision and the suggestion to a witness that the court of 
appeals may have felt that the sorority sisters were responsible have no place in a 
proceeding by an impartial tribunal. 
January Term, 2022 
 
23 
3.  The trial court unreasonably denied Weaver’s ineffective-assistance-of-
counsel claim 
{¶ 48} In its entry denying Weaver postconviction relief, the trial court not 
only failed to cite the long-established test from Strickland, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 
2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674, but it provided a cursory and unreasonable analysis as to 
why Weaver’s counsel was effective.  To establish ineffective assistance, Weaver 
must show (1) that counsel’s performance was deficient, i.e., that counsel’s 
performance fell below an objective standard of reasonable representation, and 
(2) that counsel’s deficient performance prejudiced Weaver, i.e., that there is a 
reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s errors, the proceeding’s result would 
have been different.  See id. at 687-688; see also State v. Bradley, 42 Ohio St.3d 
136, 142, 538 N.E.2d 373 (1989).  Weaver is able to establish each prong of the 
ineffective-assistance analysis. 
{¶ 49} In this case, the trial court’s entry stated that the court would “not 
accept [Dr. Barnes’s] testimony as indicating that the defense counsel in this case 
was deficient for not presenting the information of neonaticide,” because counsel 
was “obviously” familiar with neonaticide and “presented the fact that it does 
exist.”  The entry further stated, “Did [Weaver’s trial attorney] throw in statistics 
and that sort of thing?  No.  And it would not apply unless you have the statistics 
that would give you what people convicted of aggravated murder and went [sic] to 
trial, plea negotiations, and everything else.”  Beyond the utter incoherence of that 
statement, the trial court failed to articulate why statistics were needed before 
Weaver could be found to fit the personality and demographic profile of pregnancy-
negation syndrome and neonaticide.  The trial court also failed to articulate what 
statistics would be necessary in a case involving neonaticide. 
{¶ 50} Indeed, defense counsel’s familiarity with the subject of neonaticide 
was never in question.  Counsel allegedly performed deficiently for failing to 
explain neonaticide and its applicability to Weaver’s case.  Specifically, defense 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
24 
counsel failed to (1) define the term “neonaticide” for the trial court, (2) explain the 
social and cultural causes of neonaticide and provide a personality and demographic 
profile of women who commit this act and the pattern of behaviors that are typical 
leading up to the crime, and (3) describe how Weaver and her actions fit into this 
profile and pattern, thereby contextualizing her actions as those of extreme panic 
rather than premeditation.  Counsel did nothing more than mention the term 
“neonaticide.” 
{¶ 51} Dr. Barnes’s testimony illustrated how necessary it was for 
pregnancy-negation syndrome and neonaticide to be explained before Weaver’s 
sentencing hearing.  As the court of appeals emphasized in Weaver II, 2018-Ohio-
2509, 114 N.E.3d 766, at ¶ 31, “[t]he affidavit and report * * * submitted with 
[Weaver’s] petition for postconviction relief explained the psychiatric and cultural 
issues surrounding neonaticide far beyond counsel’s casual mention at the 
sentencing hearing, and provided information to contextualize the same actions 
which the court used to support the sentence of life without possibility of parole.”  
Rather than acknowledge the court of appeals’ concerns, the trial court found 
counsel’s performance not to be deficient based on its own arbitrary disregard of 
Dr. Barnes’s testimony and the fact that counsel simply “presented the fact that 
[neonaticide] does exist.”  That is not an objective standard by which to measure a 
counsel’s performance. 
{¶ 52} We cannot conceive of any “reasonable professional judgment” that 
counsel might have exercised here by merely mentioning neonaticide, but not 
providing any context or potential impact of it at Weaver’s sentencing, especially 
in light of the two uncontradicted experts Weaver provided in the postconviction 
proceedings, who each have opined that Weaver’s case fits into the classic 
personality and demographic profile of women who commit neonaticide and that 
her actions were consistent with neonaticide patterns.  There is no evidence in this 
record suggesting that counsel made a strategic decision not to introduce detailed 
January Term, 2022 
 
25 
evidence of neonaticide as mitigating evidence.  See Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. 
510, 523, 123 S.Ct. 2527, 156 L.Ed.2d 471 (2003) (evaluating whether “the 
investigation supporting counsel’s decision not to introduce mitigating evidence of 
[the defendant’s] background was itself reasonable” [emphasis sic]).  Accordingly, 
we find that Weaver’s trial counsel’s failure to present evidence of neonaticide for 
the purpose of mitigating her culpability constituted deficient performance. 
{¶ 53} Next, we must review the prejudice prong of the analysis.  When 
assessing prejudice, a court determines whether “there is a reasonable probability 
that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would 
have been different.”  Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674.  
A reasonable probability is one that is “sufficient to undermine confidence in the 
outcome.”  Id.  Accordingly, Weaver must demonstrate that had she presented 
testimony of pregnancy-negation syndrome and neonaticide during her trial and 
sentencing hearing, there is a reasonable probability that she would have received 
a sentence other than life in prison without the possibility of parole. 
{¶ 54} The trial court’s entry does not specifically address the prejudice 
prong of the Strickland analysis.  The entry states: “The offense becomes a life 
sentence based upon the age of the victim.  You can’t get any younger than the 
victim in this case.  And you couldn’t have tried more times to kill this child than 
[Weaver] did throughout the nine months she was pregnant.  That was the Court’s 
finding at that point in time.  It’s still the Court’s finding at this time.  And the 
attorney did the best he could.”  We interpret these statements as the court finding 
that defense counsel’s performance was not prejudicial.  But the findings were 
made because the trial-court judge personally would not have credited the evidence 
of neonaticide when determining Weaver’s sentence and, therefore, this evidence 
would not have changed the trial-court judge’s mind regarding the life-without-
parole sentence that he had imposed on Weaver. 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
26 
{¶ 55} But “the test for prejudice is an objective one.”  White v. Ryan, 895 
F.3d 641, 670 (9th Cir.2018), citing Strickland at 695.  This means that any finding 
pertaining to the prejudice prong of the analysis “should be made objectively, 
without regard for the ‘idiosyncrasies of the particular decisionmaker.’ ”  Hill v. 
Lockhart, 474 U.S. 52, 60, 106 S.Ct. 366, 88 L.Ed.2d 203 (1985), quoting 
Strickland at 695.  We therefore do not find the trial court’s statements in the entry 
denying Weaver’s petition for postconviction relief to be conclusive that evidence 
of neonaticide would not have made any difference with Weaver’s sentence.  See 
Hall v. Washington, 106 F.3d 742, 752 (7th Cir.1997) (holding that even when the 
judge who presided over the petitioner’s original proceeding finds in a 
postconviction proceeding that the petitioner’s “additional evidence would not have 
changed his mind,” that finding is not a “conclusive” finding, because the evidence 
is “subject to the ‘unreasonableness’ review”). 
{¶ 56} Had Weaver’s counsel presented evidence pertaining to neonaticide, 
the trial court would have learned that there is a specific personality and 
demographic profile of women who commit neonaticide and that, as testified to by 
Dr. Barnes, it is “not considered a premeditated act,” but rather an act “within the 
context of extreme panic.”  The court would have also learned that women with 
pregnancy-negation syndrome distance themselves psychologically from the 
pregnancy and, as stated by Dr. Lewis in her report, may respond to the birth of the 
baby with “poorly concealed acts of desperation.” 
{¶ 57} The trial court would have also learned the specific details that 
allegedly placed Weaver into the personality and demographic profile of women 
who commit neonaticide—i.e., (1) that Weaver was young and immature and she 
continually negated her pregnancy to the point that her body responded with fewer 
physical signs of pregnancy and (2) that the circumstances surrounding her 
offenses—i.e., that her birthing experience began with the mistaken belief that she 
was having a bowel movement, that she had the baby alone in her sorority-house 
January Term, 2022 
 
27 
bathroom, and that she was detached during and after the birth—aligned with a 
more general pattern of cases involving neonaticide.  And the trial court would have 
been able to weigh this evidence against the state’s argument at sentencing that 
Weaver lacked genuine remorse both at the time she committed the offenses and 
during the investigation, that her relationship with the victim (the baby) had 
facilitated the offenses, and that there were “no grounds to mitigate” Weaver’s 
conduct. 
{¶ 58} The evidence detailed throughout this opinion provides a compelling 
narrative that could have framed Weaver’s actions not as premeditated, but those 
of desperation and panic from an immature and isolated young woman.  As 
explained by Oberman in her article Mothers Who Kill: Coming to Terms with 
Modern American Infanticide, there are several cases involving neonaticide in 
which the defendants received significantly lighter sentences than Weaver.  34 
Am.Crim.L.Rev. at 91-98 (providing neonaticide statistics regarding the varying 
sentences imposed for women convicted of similar crimes who fit within the 
personality profile of those who commit neonaticide, including one woman who 
was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to probation with 
counseling).  Although we express no view on whether this evidence indeed should 
result in a reduction of Weaver’s sentence, we conclude that there is a reasonable 
probability that her sentence would have been different but for defense counsel’s 
deficient performance.  See Rompilla v. Beard, 545 U.S. 374, 393, 125 S.Ct. 2456, 
162 L.Ed.2d 360 (2005), quoting Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 
L.Ed.2d 674 (“the likelihood of a different result if the evidence had gone in is 
‘sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome’ actually reached at 
sentencing”). 
C.  Judicial bias 
{¶ 59} The trial-court judge’s conduct detailed throughout this opinion not 
only demonstrates his arbitrary and unreasonable attitude toward the evidence 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
28 
before him, but also demonstrates that the trial-court judge had “ ‘a fixed 
anticipatory judgment’ ” regarding Weaver’s sentence.  State v. Dean, 127 Ohio 
St.3d 140, 2010-Ohio-5070, 937 N.E.2d 97, ¶ 48, quoting State ex rel. Pratt v. 
Weygandt, 164 Ohio St. 463, 132 N.E.2d 191 (1956), paragraph four of the 
syllabus.  It is settled law that a criminal proceeding before a biased judge “is 
fundamentally unfair and denies a defendant due process.”  State v. LaMar, 95 Ohio 
St.3d 181, 2002-Ohio-2128, 767 N.E.2d 166, ¶ 34, citing Rose v. Clark, 478 U.S. 
570, 577, 106 S.Ct. 3101, 92 L.Ed.2d 460 (1986).  Judicial bias has been described 
as “a hostile feeling or spirit of ill will or undue friendship or favoritism toward one 
of the litigants or his attorney, with the formation of a fixed anticipatory judgment 
on the part of the judge, as contradistinguished from an open state of mind which 
will be governed by the law and the facts.”  Pratt at paragraph four of the syllabus.  
Although “opinions formed by the judge on the basis of facts introduced or events 
occurring in the course of the current proceedings, or of prior proceedings” and 
“judicial remarks during the course of a trial that are critical or disapproving of, or 
even hostile to, counsel, the parties, or their cases” ordinarily do not constitute a 
basis for bias, if those judicial opinions or remarks “reveal such a high degree of 
favoritism or antagonism as to make fair judgment impossible,” judicial bias is 
demonstrated.  Liteky v. United States, 510 U.S. 540, 555, 114 S.Ct. 1147, 127 
L.Ed.2d 474 (1994). 
{¶ 60} Weaver was entitled to have her petition for postconviction relief 
heard and decided by an impartial tribunal.  See Moore v. State, 118 Ohio St. 487, 
161 N.E. 532 (1928), paragraph one of the syllabus.  The trial-court judge’s conduct 
extensively detailed throughout this opinion illustrates that he was not impartial at 
Weaver’s evidentiary hearing.  The trial-court judge willfully refused to consider 
the evidence of neonaticide and chose to focus on irrelevant information to deny 
her petition, including inserting his personal opinion of the court of appeals’ 
decision in Weaver II, 2018-Ohio-2509, 114 N.E.3d 766, and inappropriately 
January Term, 2022 
 
29 
solicitating Weaver’s sorority sisters’ feelings toward that decision.  Also, in the 
entry denying Weaver’s petition for postconviction relief, the trial-court judge 
stated: “There was a previous one of these types of cases in this county three or four 
years before. It happened on the same street that this one happened, that there was 
a different charge, a different sentence much lighter than this sentence.”  The trial-
court judge never clarified the significance of this previous case, but his flippant 
reference to it and subsequent departure from that reference suggests that the trial-
court judge found that previous case to be personally distasteful. 
{¶ 61} In lieu of a proper legal analysis, the trial-court judge made 
dismissive statements about Weaver that did not pertain to the issue at hand: “The 
Court is required to sentence based upon what [Weaver] is convicted of and taking 
anything else [into] mitigation, age, this, that, and the other, prior history, she had 
none.”  (Emphasis added.)  The trial-court judge concluded by echoing the same 
facts, sometimes verbatim, that supported his decision at Weaver’s original 
sentencing to impose a sentence of life without parole.  Specifically, at the original 
sentencing hearing, the trial-court judge stated: (1) “You can’t get any younger than 
this victim,” (2) “It’s aggravated murder based upon the age of the victim,” and 
(3) “[W]hat I find in this case is that for a number of months, you tried over and 
over to take that baby’s life.”  Likewise, in denying Weaver’s petition for 
postconviction relief, the trial-court judge stated: “The offense becomes a life 
sentence based upon the age of the victim.  You can’t get any younger than the 
victim in this case.  And you couldn’t have tried more times to kill this child than 
she did throughout the nine months she was pregnant.  That was the Court’s finding 
at that point in time.  It’s still the Court’s finding at this time.”  These statements 
indicate that the trial-court judge wanted to punish Weaver not only for the offenses 
with which she was charged, but for her behavior throughout her pregnancy, which 
he found to be personally reprehensible. 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
30 
{¶ 62} When the trial-court judge’s conduct and statements from Weaver’s 
evidentiary hearing are viewed together and against the backdrop of the same trial-
court judge’s original sentencing of Weaver, his denial of Weaver’s petition for 
postconviction relief without an evidentiary hearing, and his expressed frustration 
with the court of appeals for reversing that decision, it is clear that he did not hold 
an “open state of mind,” Pratt, 164 Ohio St. 463, 132 N.E.2d 191, at paragraph four 
of the syllabus, toward Weaver’s petition for postconviction relief but rather viewed 
it with a “fixed anticipatory judgment,” id., and had already decided that Weaver 
was going to serve a prison sentence of life without parole.  This glaring denial of 
due process can only be remedied by a new sentencing proceeding that is conducted 
in conformity with the Constitution.  The issue regarding the trial-court judge’s bias 
against Weaver will not be remedied by this court remanding this case to that same 
trial-court judge for a new sentencing hearing at which Weaver would bear the 
burden of establishing the existence of mitigating evidence and at which the 
presiding trial-court judge has previously demonstrated a fixed anticipatory 
judgment regarding Weaver’s sentence.  See Harvard v. Florida, 459 U.S. 1128, 
1136, 103 S.Ct. 764, 74 L.Ed.2d 979 (1983) (Marshall, J., dissenting); see also In 
re I.R.Q., 8th Dist. Cuyahoga No. 105924, 2018-Ohio-292, ¶ 26 (remanding the 
case to the trial court with instructions that a different judge be assigned to 
adequately protect the appellant’s due-process rights on remand). 
III.  CONCLUSION 
{¶ 63} For the foregoing reasons, we reverse the judgment of the Fifth 
District Court of Appeals and remand the cause to the trial court for a new 
sentencing hearing and for assignment to another trial judge of that court. 
Judgment reversed  
and cause remanded. 
_________________ 
DONNELLY, STEWART, and BRUNNER, JJ., concur. 
January Term, 2022 
 
31 
DEWINE, J., dissents, with an opinion joined by KENNEDY and FISCHER, JJ. 
_________________ 
DEWINE, J., dissenting. 
{¶ 64} A majority of this court rejects the credibility determinations of the 
judge who presided over Emile Weaver’s postconviction-relief hearing, concluding 
that the judge displayed bias against Weaver and consequently violated her due-
process rights.  Yet rather than remand for a different judge to hold a new 
evidentiary hearing on Weaver’s petition for postconviction relief, the majority 
determines to reach the merits of her petition here.  Then, applying its own view of 
the evidence, the majority second-guesses the strategy employed by Weaver’s 
original attorney and concludes that he provided constitutionally deficient 
representation to Weaver during her sentencing hearing.  It, thus, vacates her 
sentence and orders that she be sentenced anew. 
{¶ 65} I disagree with the majority’s characterization of some of the judge’s 
findings after the postconviction-relief hearing and with its determination that the 
judge’s comments during the hearing show that he was biased against her.  
Moreover, even if we were to fully credit the evidence presented by Weaver in 
support of her petition for postconviction relief, that evidence still fails to establish 
that she was deprived her constitutional right to the effective assistance of counsel.  
I therefore dissent from the majority’s judgment vacating her sentence and 
remanding for a new sentencing hearing. 
Weaver has failed to demonstrate ineffective assistance of counsel 
{¶ 66} In 2015, Weaver gave birth to a baby in a bathroom in the sorority 
house where she lived.  She placed the baby in a trash bag and took the bag to an 
outside garbage can, where the body was later discovered by her housemates.  A 
jury found Weaver guilty of aggravated murder, abuse of a corpse, and tampering 
with evidence.  The court sentenced her to life without parole. 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
32 
{¶ 67} Weaver filed a petition for postconviction relief, asserting that her 
attorney was ineffective for not presenting evidence at the time of her sentencing 
to explain the circumstances that contribute to the crime of neonaticide.  
(Neonaticide is a term that describes the act of killing one’s baby within the first 24 
hours of life.)  The trial court denied the petition for postconviction relief after an 
evidentiary hearing.  This case involves an appeal from that decision. 
  
{¶ 68} To establish a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, Weaver was 
required to show that her trial attorney’s representation was deficient and that she 
was prejudiced as a result.  See Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687-688, 
694, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984).  To meet the deficient-performance 
prong of the test, the petitioner must show that “ ‘counsel’s representation fell 
below an objective standard of reasonableness.’ ”  Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 
86, 104, 131 S.Ct. 770, 178 L.Ed.2d 624 (2011), quoting Strickland at 688.  “A 
court considering a claim of ineffective assistance must apply a ‘strong 
presumption’ that counsel’s representation was within the ‘wide range’ of 
reasonable professional assistance,” id., quoting Strickland at 689, and the 
petitioner will overcome that presumption only by showing “that counsel made 
errors so serious that counsel was not functioning as the ‘counsel’ guaranteed the 
defendant by the Sixth Amendment,” id., quoting Strickland at 687. 
{¶ 69} Weaver asserted in her petition that her trial attorney’s performance 
was deficient because he “failed to identify, introduce, or admit any evidence at 
sentencing regarding” the incidence of neonaticide.  The majority agrees, struggling 
to find any justification for counsel’s decision not to present evidence on the topic 
of neonaticide at sentencing.  But when we actually look at the record, the reason 
for the decision is fairly obvious: Weaver’s primary defense at trial was that she 
hadn’t killed the baby. 
{¶ 70} At trial, Weaver testified that she had been lying to her friends and 
family about not knowing that she was pregnant.  She explained that she had been 
January Term, 2022 
 
33 
“too scared” to tell her mom about her pregnancy.  And she recounted that her 
friends were gossiping about another college student that had gotten pregnant, and 
she “didn’t want to be that person” that they talked about. 
{¶ 71} Weaver conceded that she was guilty of abuse of a corpse and 
tampering with evidence based on the manner in which she disposed of the baby’s 
body.  But she consistently denied having intentionally suffocated the baby.  
Instead, she claimed that the baby died of natural causes shortly after birth, before 
Weaver placed her inside the garbage bag. 
{¶ 72} The defense maintained this position in closing arguments.  
Additionally, the defense suggested that even if Weaver had been mistaken in her 
belief that the baby had already died, Weaver was at most guilty of reckless 
homicide based on her failure to seek medical attention for the child. 
{¶ 73} The evidence presented at Weaver’s postconviction hearing 
supported a theory that she experienced a clinical syndrome known as pregnancy 
negation, which causes expectant mothers to fail to perceive that they are pregnant 
and elevates the risk that they will commit neonaticide.  The majority criticizes 
defense counsel for raising the issue of neonaticide at sentencing without providing 
evidence that Weaver experienced a negated pregnancy.  But this misunderstands 
the reason that counsel discussed neonaticide in the first place.  Defense counsel 
did not raise the issue to explain Weaver’s actions or to diminish her culpability for 
the offense.  Rather, defense counsel referred to neonaticide in support of his 
argument that a severe prison sentence would be unlikely to deter others from 
committing the same crime. 
{¶ 74} Evidence that Weaver had been experiencing pregnancy negation 
might have provided an explanation for Weaver’s perceptions and behavior before 
and after the birth of her child.  But that is not the defense that counsel employed 
at trial.  In reviewing Weaver’s ineffective-assistance claim, the majority looks at 
the sentencing hearing in isolation, rather than in the context of the entire trial.  As 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
34 
a result, the majority holds that counsel was ineffective for failing to present an 
entirely new theory of the defense during sentencing—one that would have required 
a concession of factual guilt when his client still intended to challenge her 
convictions on appeal.  That is the height of Monday-morning quarterbacking. 
{¶ 75} Expecting counsel to change the defense’s entire theory of the case 
at sentencing is, by itself, a tall order.  But here, the majority demands even more.  
It says defense counsel should have presented evidence at sentencing undermining 
Weaver’s own testimony at trial.  And the evidence the majority expects defense 
counsel to have provided includes expert assessments of Weaver’s case, like those 
presented in support of her postconviction-relief petition.  So the majority would 
apparently have had defense counsel subject Weaver to interviews to assess 
whether she was in a state of pregnancy negation at the time she killed her baby—
even though she testified under oath that she hadn’t killed the baby.  Defense 
attorneys across the state, take heed. 
Conclusion 
{¶ 76} For all the time the majority spends criticizing the trial judge’s 
findings, its own review of Weaver’s ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim is 
cursory and incautious.  Because Weaver has failed to demonstrate that her trial 
attorney performed deficiently, I would affirm the judgment of the Fifth District 
Court of Appeals upholding the trial court’s judgment denying Weaver’s 
ineffective-assistance claim brought in her postconviction-relief petition. 
KENNEDY and FISCHER, JJ., concur in the foregoing opinion. 
_________________ 
 
Ronald L. Welch, Muskingum County Prosecuting Attorney, and Taylor P. 
Bennington, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellee. 
 
Timothy Young, Ohio Public Defender, and Rachel Troutman, Michelle 
Umaña, and Renee Monzon, Assistant Public Defenders, for appellant. 
January Term, 2022 
 
35 
 
Dave Yost, Attorney General, Benjamin M. Flowers, Solicitor General, 
Michael J. Hendershot, Chief Deputy Solicitor General, and Zachery P. Keller, 
Deputy Solicitor General, urging affirmance for amicus curiae, Attorney General 
Dave Yost. 
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