[Cite as State v. Ladson, 2016-Ohio-7781.]

Court of Appeals of Ohio

EIGHTH APPELLATE DISTRICT 

COUNTY OF CUYAHOGA 

JOURNAL ENTRY AND OPINION 

No. 104091

STATE OF OHIO

PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE 

vs. 

MARCUS LADSON

DEFENDANT-APPELLANT 

JUDGMENT: 

AFFIRMED

Criminal Appeal from the 

Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas 

Case No. CR-15-599880-A 

BEFORE: S. Gallagher, J., Jones, A.J., and E.T. Gallagher, J. 

RELEASED AND JOURNALIZED: November 17, 2016 
ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT 

Allison S. Breneman 

1220 West 6th Street 

Suite 303 

Cleveland, Ohio 44113 

ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE

Timothy J. McGinty 

Cuyahoga County Prosecutor 

By: Anna Woods 

 Zachary M. Humphrey 

Assistant Prosecuting Attorneys 

Justice Center - 9th Floor 

1200 Ontario Street 

Cleveland, Ohio 44113 
SEAN C. GALLAGHER, J.: 

{¶1} Marcus Ladson was sentenced to 16.5 years for improperly discharging a 

firearm into habitation, having a weapon while under disability, receiving stolen property, 

drug possession, and aggravated menacing. All the individual, maximum sentences were 

imposed consecutively, although only a $250 fine was imposed for the misdemeanor 

aggravated menacing count. We affirm. 

{¶2} Most of the underlying facts are undisputed. In January 2015, a third party 

reported her 9 mm handgun stolen. The night before, her husband borrowed her car and 

was unaware of the fact that the handgun had been left in the back. The husband drove 

Ladson from a bar in the early morning hours and stopped at a convenience store along 

the way. The husband went inside, while Ladson remained with the running vehicle. 

Ladson was the only other person in the vehicle the night the handgun disappeared, 

although there is a claim that some other individuals milled about the car in the 

convenience store parking lot. 

{¶3} Two months later, on the night of the incident, the victim in this case ran 

from her apartment to where her mother was staying in another building within the same 

complex. The victim appeared scared and distraught, telling her mother that Ladson 

came to the apartment to continue an argument they had earlier in the evening and that 

Ladson fired shots up through the apartment window. The victim’s mother called the 

police. Officers immediately responded and found Ladson in the victim’s back bedroom. 

 The handgun, the same one reported stolen in January, was found in the clothes hamper 
in Ladson’s immediate vicinity. A spent shell casing was found outside the apartment, 

and there were bullet holes in the window and ceiling. The bullet trajectory matched the 

location where the shell casing was recovered outside the apartment. The handgun found 

near Ladson was the weapon used to fire the recovered shell casing, and the weapon 

tested positive for gunshot residue. Ladson also tested positive for gunshot residue. 

{¶4} Ladson disputes the victim’s account of the evening. After Ladson and the 

victim colluded in a recorded jail-house telephone call, the victim was reluctant to testify 

at trial. She largely claimed she did not remember what had happened, and that Ladson 

was invited over and did not shoot at the apartment. The victim’s trial testimony 

contradicted her statement to police officers, given on the night of the attack, and the 

statements made to her mother in an excited state immediately following the shooting. 

The state unsuccessfully attempted to refresh the victim’s recollection, with her prior 

written memorandum contained in the police report, through leading questions that were 

answered in the negative. 

{¶5} The jury convicted Ladson of improperly discharging a firearm into 

habitation, with an associated one- and three-year firearm specification, having a weapon 

while under disability, receiving stolen property, drug possession, and aggravated 

menacing. The trial court sentenced Ladson to an aggregate term of 16.5 years of prison 

— eight years on the discharging into habitation count, three years on the firearm 

specification, three years on the having weapon while under disability count, 18 months 

on the receiving stolen property count, one year on the drug possession count, and 

imposed a $250 fine for the misdemeanor aggravated menacing count. All prison terms 

were imposed to be consecutively served after the trial court made the R.C. 2929.14(C)(4) 

findings, which are not challenged in this appeal. 

{¶6} Ladson appealed, claiming his conviction is against both the manifest weight 

and the sufficiency of the evidence, that the trial court erred in allowing the jury to use the 
victim’s written statement during its deliberations, and that the trial court abused its 

discretion in imposing the sentences to be served consecutive to one another under State 

v. Kalish, 120 Ohio St.3d 23, 2008-Ohio-4912, 896 N.E.2d 124. We can summarily 

dispel the latter two claims. 

{¶7} The victim’s written statement was not introduced into evidence, nor did it 

accompany the evidence into the deliberation process. Ladson also does not cite any 

authority in support of his argument regarding the victim’s testimony as required under 

App.R. 16(A)(7). He included generic references to Evid.R. 611(C), providing that 

leading questions on direct are discouraged, and Evid.R. 613, the rule governing 

impeachment through self-contradiction, but it is not entirely clear how those rules 

impacted the trial evidence from the arguments presented. Without arguments in support 

of any error, we must overrule the assigned error. 

{¶8} We are also required to overrule the sentencing argument because appellate 

courts cannot review a final sentence for abuse of discretion under R.C. 2953.08(G) and 

State v. Marcum, 146 Ohio St.3d 516, 2016-Ohio-1002, 59 N.E.3d 1231, ¶ 10. Even if 

we considered Ladson’s claim under our authority to review the maximum sentence 

imposed on the highest degree offense for which sentences were imposed under R.C. 

2953.08(A)(1), Ladson primarily asks for us to review his sentence to determine whether 

the trial court failed to consider the appropriate sentencing factors, under R.C. 2929.11 

and 2929.12, with respect to the imposition of consecutive sentences, and upon 

considering those factors to conclude that the 16.5 years of prison is too long. The trial 
court expressly considered all relevant sentencing factors, and R.C. 2929.11 through 

2929.12 are only applicable to the imposition of an individual sentence, imposed upon an 

individual count. State v. Kirkman, 8th Dist. Cuyahoga No. 103683, 2016-Ohio-5326, ¶ 

9 (the legislature’s indication that the section only applies to the imposition of a single 

felony sentence must be construed as limiting the application of the statutory section to 

sentences imposed on a single offense, not the consecutive nature of the service). The 

trial court was not required to consider those factors in determining whether the sentences 

should be served consecutively. Id. 

{¶9} This is not to say that a trial court cannot be guided by the sentencing factors 

within the scope of consecutive sentencing. A trial court imposing a consecutive 

sentence could be reviewing many of the same facts and considerations outlined in the 

principles of sentencing under R.C. 2929.11 and the seriousness and recidivism factors of 

R.C. 2929.12 when making the findings required by R.C. 2929.14(C)(4). The likelihood 

that those principles, facts, and considerations play a role in the imposition of consecutive 

sentencing, however, is not an invitation to require that they be listed or weighed in 

consideration of the fact that R.C. 2929.14(C)(4) contains no such requirement in contrast 

to other sections of the Revised Code. See, e.g., R.C. 2929.20(J) (“[a] court shall not 

grant a judicial release under this section to an eligible offender who is imprisoned for a 

felony of the first or second degree * * * unless the court, with reference to factors under 

section 2929.12 of the Revised Code” makes specific findings). The trial court must 

make the findings, and we can only exercise our authority under R.C. 2953.08(G) if we 
can clearly and convincingly find that the record does not support the trial court’s 

findings. Appellate panels cannot be transformed into second-tier sentencing courts, 

reconsidering the weight given to any one factor in order to arrive at a different decision 

on whether to impose consecutive sentences. 

{¶10} In this case, Ladson has not asked us to review to determine whether the 

findings are supported by the record. Instead, he limited his argument to whether the 

trial court abused its discretion by imposing his sentences to be consecutively served. As 

a result, even if we considered the arguments presented under the standard of review set 

forth in R.C. 2953.08(G), we are compelled to conclude that the imposition of 

consecutive sentences under R.C. 2929.14(C)(4) is not otherwise contrary to law and the 

findings underlying the consecutive sentences are supported by the record. 

{¶11} Finally, we find no merit to Ladson’s arguments regarding the weight of the 

evidence. In his manifest weight of the evidence argument, Ladson challenges the 

credibility of the victim and one of the police officers. The remaining testimony from 

the 11 other witnesses was not challenged on credibility grounds. Instead, Ladson claims 

the undisputed evidence was insufficient to sustain the conviction. Because the 

arguments are related, we will address them as one with the understanding that each 

presents a different and distinct review. 

{¶12} When reviewing a claim challenging the manifest weight of the evidence, 

the court, reviewing the entire record, must weigh the evidence and all reasonable 

inferences, consider the credibility of witnesses, and determine whether, in resolving 
conflicts in the evidence, the trier of fact clearly lost its way and created such a manifest 

miscarriage of justice that the conviction must be reversed and a new trial ordered. State 

v. Thompkins, 78 Ohio St.3d 380, 387, 678 N.E.2d 541 (1997). Reversing a conviction 

as being against the manifest weight of the evidence should be reserved for only the 

exceptional case in which the evidence weighs heavily against the conviction. Id.

{¶13} A claim of insufficient evidence raises the question whether the evidence is 

legally sufficient to support the verdict as a matter of law. Id. In reviewing a 

sufficiency challenge, “[t]he relevant inquiry is whether, after viewing the evidence in a 

light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the 

essential elements of the crime proven beyond a reasonable doubt.” State v. Jenks, 61 

Ohio St.3d 259, 574 N.E.2d 492 (1991), paragraph two of the syllabus. 

{¶14} We do acknowledge that one police officer mistakenly included a statement 

in his report that the handgun found near Ladson had a full magazine and one round in the 

chamber, meaning the weapon had not been discharged or had been reloaded. During 

trial, the officer acknowledged that he made a mistake; however, he claimed his trial 

testimony — that the weapon lacked one round when found — was accurate. Although 

this does affect the police officer’s credibility, there was ample evidence that the handgun 

found near Ladson was recently discharged and the spent shell casing recovered at the 

scene was fired from that particular handgun. Coupled with the evidence of gunshot 

residue found on both Ladson and the handgun, the officer’s mistake does not render the 
conviction as being against the manifest weight of the evidence. The jury was free to 

consider the officer’s acknowledged mistake in conjunction with the remaining evidence. 

{¶15} Further, even if we accept Ladson’s version of the victim’s trial testimony 

and deem her statements as an indication that she never saw Ladson shoot the handgun 

and was never in fear of his actions, there was overwhelming, credible evidence of 

Ladson’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt from every other witness. The victim’s mother 

related how the victim was hysterical and afraid as she recounted how Ladson had shot at 

the apartment with the victim inside — all of which was admitted as substantive evidence 

of guilt through exceptions to the hearsay rule to support the aggravated menacing 

conviction.1

 Importantly, the victim’s mother also explained that the apartment did not 

have any bullet holes in it before that night, for the purposes of the discharging a firearm 

into habitation conviction.2

 The victim’s mother was the named tenant and lived in the 

apartment. She established that none of the tenants of the apartment owned or possessed 

a handgun, a fact bolstered by the victim’s undisputed agreement, driving the reasonable 

inference that Ladson brought the weapon into the apartment, establishing Ladson’s 

 1

 R.C. 2903.21(A) provides that no person shall knowingly cause another to believe that the 

offender will cause serious physical harm to the person or property of the other person. State v. 

Goodwin, 10th Dist. Franklin No. 05AP-267, 2006-Ohio-66, ¶ 25-26 (merely displaying a weapon 

supports a conviction for aggravated menacing where the victim believed the appellant was about to 

cause serious physical harm).

2

 R.C. 2923.161(A)(1) provides that no person shall knowingly discharge a firearm into an 

occupied structure that is a permanent or temporary habitation of any individual.
having a weapon while under disability.3

 The testifying police officers also connected 

Ladson to the handgun — Ladson was the only person who was both found in the vicinity 

of the recently discharged weapon and had the opportunity to steal the weapon after it was 

left unattended in the car on the night of the theft, which establishes the receiving stolen 

property charge.4

 Ladson also tested positive for gunshot residue, which supports the 

inference that he fired the gun at the victim as she stood in the apartment, for the purposes 

of establishing each separate conviction. Ladson’s conviction for each count is not 

against the sufficiency of the evidence.5

 

{¶16} We affirm. 

It is ordered that appellee recover from appellant costs herein taxed. The 

court finds there were reasonable grounds for this appeal. 

It is ordered that a special mandate issue out of this court directing the common 

pleas court to carry this judgment into execution. The defendant’s conviction having 

been affirmed, any bail pending appeal is terminated. Case remanded to the trial court 

for execution of sentence. 

 3

 R.C. 2923.13(A)(3) provides that no person shall knowingly acquire, have, carry, or use any 

firearm if the person has been convicted or is under indictment for any felony offense involving illegal 

possession, use, sale, administration, distribution, or trafficking in any drug. Ladson has not 

challenged the evidence proving his disability. 

4

 R.C. 2913.51(A) provides that no person shall receive, retain, or dispose of property of 

another knowing or having reasonable cause to believe that the property was obtained through theft.

5

 Although Ladson was also convicted of drug possession, no argument was advanced with 

regard to the weight of the evidence in support of that conviction. 
A certified copy of this entry shall constitute the mandate pursuant to Rule 27 of 

the Rules of Appellate Procedure. 

SEAN C. GALLAGHER, JUDGE 

EILEEN T. GALLAGHER, J., CONCURS; 

LARRY A. JONES, SR., A.J., CONCURS IN JUDGMENT ONLY