[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as State

v. Bellamy, Slip Opinion No. 2022-Ohio-3698.]

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-3698

THE STATE OF OHIO, APPELLANT, v. BELLAMY, APPELLEE.

[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it 

may be cited as State v. Bellamy, Slip Opinion No. 2022-Ohio-3698.]

Criminal law—Crim.R. 16(K)—Crim.R. 16(K) precludes an expert witness from 

testifying only at the trial commencing fewer than 21 days after the 

disclosure of the expert’s written report—Court of appeals’ judgment 

reversed in part and cause remanded.

(No. 2021-0481—Submitted March 29, 2022—Decided October 19, 2022.)

APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Delaware County,

No. 19 CAA 08 0048, 2021-Ohio-40.

__________________

DONNELLY, J.

{¶ 1} This discretionary appeal from a judgment of the Fifth District Court 

of Appeals presents us once again with the opportunity to construe Crim.R. 16(K).

That rule ordinarily precludes an expert’s testimony “at trial” if the party offering 

the evidence has failed to provide to the opposing party, at least 21 days before 
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trial, a written report summarizing the expert’s testimony. The issue in this case is 

whether the phrase “at trial” means only at the trial commencing fewer than 21 days

after the disclosure of the report or also at a retrial following a reversal and remand 

for failure to comply with the rule. We hold that Crim.R. 16(K) precludes an expert

witness from testifying only at the trial commencing fewer than 21 days after the 

disclosure of the expert’s written report.

BACKGROUND

{¶ 2} In 2018, a 16-year-old girl disclosed to her mother that the mother’s

ex-husband, Eric Bellamy, appellee, had sexually abused the girl when she was six

and seven years old. Appellant, the state of Ohio, indicted Bellamy for various sex 

crimes in January 2019. As part of discovery, the state timely disclosed to 

Bellamy’s counsel the name and curriculum vitae of its expert witness, Stuart 

Bassman, Ed.D. However, the state failed to provide Bellamy’s attorney with the 

expert’s report until July 17, six days before trial. In that report, Dr. Bassman noted 

that he had not interviewed either the defendant or the victim but was retained to 

explain why victims delay disclosing sexual abuse and how offenders groom their 

victims.

{¶ 3} The trial began on July 23, 2019. Bellamy’s counsel did not move to 

exclude Dr. Bassman’s testimony until after the lunch recess on July 24, right 

before the expert was to testify. The trial court overruled the defense’s motion but 

gave Bellamy’s counsel time to speak with Dr. Bassman before he testified. The

expert testified, and defense counsel cross-examined him. Bellamy also testified. 

The jury found Bellamy guilty on all counts, and on August 1, the trial court 

sentenced him to 28 years to life in prison.

{¶ 4} Bellamy appealed, asserting that the trial court had erred in allowing 

Dr. Bassman to testify even though the state had not provided “good cause” for its 

delayed disclosure of his report. In March 2020, this court issued State v. Boaston,

160 Ohio St.3d 46, 2020-Ohio-1061, 153 N.E.3d 44, in which we held that
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3

“Crim.R. 16(K) removes a trial court’s discretion and requires the exclusion of 

expert testimony when a written report was not disclosed in accordance with the 

rule.” Id. at ¶ 60.

{¶ 5} Applying the holding in Boaston and finding that allowing Dr.

Bassman to testify was not harmless error, the Fifth District Court of Appeals

vacated the trial court’s judgment and remanded the case to the trial court for a new

trial. 2021-Ohio-40, ¶ 48. The court of appeals added that the new trial must be 

“without the testimony of Dr. Bassman,” id., even though Bellamy had not asked 

for that sanction. The court of appeals overruled the state’s motion for 

reconsideration, citing the plain language of Crim.R. 16(K). The state appealed, 

and we accepted the state’s following proposition of law for review: “When a 

conviction is overturned on appeal due to the late disclosure of an expert witness, 

Rule 16(K) does not require that testimony from said expert witness must be

excluded at a new trial on remand.” See 163 Ohio St.3d 1492, 2021-Ohio-2270, 

169 N.E.3d 1287.

LAW

{¶ 6} Crim.R. 16 governs discovery in criminal cases. Its purpose is “to 

provide all parties in a criminal case with the information necessary for a full and 

fair adjudication of the facts, to protect the integrity of the justice system and the 

rights of defendants, and to protect the well-being of witnesses, victims, and society 

at large.” Crim.R. 16(A). Discovery concerning expert-witness reports is governed 

by Crim.R. 16(K). That provision reads:

An expert witness for either side shall prepare a written

report summarizing the expert witness’s testimony, findings,

analysis, conclusions, or opinion, and shall include a summary of

the expert’s qualifications. The written report and summary of

qualifications shall be subject to disclosure under this rule no later
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than twenty-one days prior to trial, which period may be modified

by the court for good cause shown, which does not prejudice any

other party. Failure to disclose the written report to opposing

counsel shall preclude the expert’s testimony at trial.

The state asserted that its failure to comply with the rule was an oversight and

Bellamy did not dispute that assertion, but there was no “good cause shown” by the 

state for the trial court to modify the 21-day deadline.

{¶ 7} Before Boaston, many trial courts did not apply the Crim.R. 16(K)

sanction of automatic exclusion of the expert-witness testimony when the rule was 

violated. See Boaston, 160 Ohio St.3d 46, 2020-Ohio-1061, 153 N.E.3d 44, at 

¶ 51. Instead, they invoked Crim.R. 16(L)(1), which provides trial courts with the 

authority to “make orders regulating discovery not inconsistent with [that] rule.” 

Boaston at ¶ 53. In the case of a discovery violation, some courts read that

provision to allow them to tailor a remedy “as it deems just under the 

circumstances,” Crim.R. 16(L)(1); see Boaston at ¶ 53. In Boaston, this court held 

that Crim.R. 16(K) removed that discretion. Id. at ¶ 54-55.

{¶ 8} The issue before us now is the reach of Crim.R. 16(K)’s remedy for 

its violation. The rule provides that a failure to disclose an expert’s written report 

to opposing counsel “shall preclude the expert’s testimony at trial.” Id. But the 

parties disagree about how many trials the rule controls. The court of appeals and 

Bellamy believe that Crim.R. 16(K) compels the exclusion of Dr. Bassman’s

testimony at retrial because allowing him to testify will give the state a benefit for 

violating Crim.R. 16(K). By violating the rule, says Bellamy, the state will be able 

to finagle a “super continuance” while Bellamy remains incarcerated. The state, on 

the other hand, notes that no other Ohio court of appeals has interpreted Crim.R.

16(K) the way the Fifth District has. The state also asserts that the plain language 

and context of the rule compel the conclusion that “at trial” can only mean the 
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5

original trial, because a retrial could be hundreds of days after disclosure of the 

expert’s report and the defendant would no longer be prejudiced by initially 

receiving the report fewer than 21 days before trial.

{¶ 9} We agree with the state. This court promulgated the Rules of 

Criminal Procedure as authorized by the Ohio Constitution. See Ohio Constitution, 

Article IV, Section 5(B) (“The supreme court shall prescribe rules governing 

practice and procedure in all courts of the state * * *”). If a court rule is 

unambiguous, it is to be applied as written. Erwin v. Bryan, 125 Ohio St.3d 519,

2010-Ohio-2202, 929 N.E.2d 1019, ¶ 22. No reliance on sources other than the text 

of a rule is necessary to interpret the rule if the text’s meaning is obvious. See Black 

v. United States, 561 U.S 465, 475, 130 S.Ct. 2963, 177 L.Ed.2d 695 (2010) (Scalia, 

J., concurring in part and concurring in the judgment).

{¶ 10} We find the text’s meaning to be obvious here. First, Black’s Law 

Dictionary defines the terms “trial” and “retrial” differently. A “trial” is a “formal 

judicial examination of evidence and determination of legal claims in an adversary 

proceeding.” Id., 1812 (11th Ed.2019). A “retrial” is a “new trial of an action that 

has already been tried.” Id. at 1575. In promulgating Crim.R. 16(K), we

specifically named trials and not retrials.

{¶ 11} Second, it is difficult to see how a defendant’s interests are advanced 

by prohibiting at retrial the testimony of an expert whose testimony and report are 

known to the defense, while allowing the testimony of an expert with whom the 

defense is unfamiliar. Barring the testimony of a particular expert to punish a 

noncompliant party does not advance the purpose of Crim.R. 16(A) to ensure “a 

full and fair adjudication” and in some circumstances it might be harmful to the 

defense.

{¶ 12} Additionally, we do not view the prosecutorial gamesmanship that 

defense counsel fears as a likely outcome of our holding. The procedural history

of this case is unusual in that defense counsel did not object to the expert’s 
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testimony until the trial was already underway. Midtrial, a continuance was not 

possible. We had not yet decided Boaston at the time of the trial, but as the state 

points out, a pretrial objection and a continuance will be the customary sequence of 

events now that this court has settled the law on this issue.

{¶ 13} In a fair system of criminal justice, no party should be ambushed by 

evidence that was not provided with ample time for review prior to a proceeding. 

As noted above, courts are committed to “a full and fair adjudication of the facts, 

to protect the integrity of the justice system and the rights of defendants, and to

protect the well-being of witnesses, victims, and society at large,” Crim.R. 16(A). 

Excluding admissible evidence at a retrial—when the defense has had full notice of 

such evidence—does not serve these interests of the justice system. Crim.R. 16(K) 

and 16(A) were intended to be compatible.

CONCLUSION

{¶ 14} For these reasons, we hold that Crim.R. 16(K) precludes an expert

witness from testifying only at the trial commencing fewer than 21 days after the 

required disclosure is made and does not preclude otherwise admissible expert 

testimony at a defendant’s retrial. We therefore reverse the portion of the Fifth 

District Court of Appeals’ judgment precluding Dr. Bassman’s testimony, and we 

remand the case to the trial court for retrial.

Judgment reversed in part

and cause remanded.

O’CONNOR, C.J., and KENNEDY, FISCHER, DEWINE, STEWART, and 

BRUNNER, JJ., concur.

_________________

Melissa A. Schiffel, Delaware County Prosecuting Attorney, and 

Christopher E. Ballard, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellant.

Campbell Law, L.L.C., and April F. Campbell, for appellee.
January Term, 2022

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Steven L. Taylor, urging reversal for amicus curiae, Ohio Prosecuting 

Attorneys Association.

_________________