Opinion ID: 6325455
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Bethel’s first postconviction petition

Text: {¶ 10} Bethel filed a timely petition for postconviction relief under R.C. 2953.21 in February 2005. The trial court dismissed the petition, and the court of appeals affirmed. State v. Bethel, 10th Dist. No. 07AP-810, 2008-Ohio-2697, ¶ 67. We did not accept jurisdiction over Bethel’s discretionary appeal. 122 Ohio St.3d 1502, 2009-Ohio-4233, 912 N.E.2d 107. 2. Bethel’s first motion for leave to file a motion for a new trial {¶ 11} In 2009, Bethel filed a motion for leave to file a motion for a new trial, along with the new-trial motion itself. He alleged that the state had violated Brady by suppressing an investigation report created in 2000 containing information that an ATF agent had received about Langbein. Bethel alleged that he obtained a copy of the report in 2008 through a public-records request to the Columbus Police Department. {¶ 12} According to the report, an inmate at the Franklin County jail, Shannon Williams, said that Langbein (who had been in the jail) told him that he had been “involved in a homicide with an individual who is now incarcerated at the Federal Penn., Ashland, KY, where the victim was shot seventeen times. Williams added that Langbein said that the other individual who was arrested was the driver following the homicide.” Bethel argued that Chavis was incarcerated in a federal 4 January Term, 2022 prison in Kentucky in 2000, so Langbein’s statement to Williams amounted to a confession that Langbein—not Bethel—had committed the murders with Chavis. {¶ 13} The trial court denied Bethel’s motions, and the court of appeals affirmed. State v. Bethel, 10th Dist. No. 09AP-924, 2010-Ohio-3837. The court of appeals noted, among other things, that it was “speculative as to whether Langbein’s statements [were] referring to the homicides at issue” because he referred to only one victim and Reynolds and Hawks were not shot 17 times, either individually or collectively. Id. at ¶ 21. We did not accept jurisdiction over Bethel’s discretionary appeal. 132 Ohio St.3d 1513, 2012-Ohio-4021, 974 N.E.3d 112. 3. Bethel’s second motion for leave to file a motion for a new trial and successive postconviction petition {¶ 14} In 2018, Bethel filed a second motion for leave to file a motion for a new trial along with a combined new-trial motion and successive postconviction petition. Bethel argued that the state had suppressed another investigation report— called “Summary 86”—that he said also implicated Langbein in the murders of Reynolds and Hawk. Summary 86 recounts a 2001 interview of Ronald Withers, who was incarcerated in the Franklin County jail at the time. Withers told investigators that while they were both in the jail, Chavis told him that he had been involved in a murder but that “when [Chavis] shot the individual [the victim] was already dead.” Summary 86 states that “Chavis told Withers that his cousin was the other shooter, and his cousin is also incarcerated.” {¶ 15} The trial court found that it lacked jurisdiction over Bethel’s successive postconviction petition and denied Bethel’s motion for leave and motion for a new trial. The court of appeals affirmed. We accepted jurisdiction over Bethel’s appeal. 159 Ohio St.3d 1487, 2020-Ohio-4232, 151 N.E.3d 633. Amicus curiae, the Innocence Network, has filed a merit brief urging this court to reverse the judgment of the court of appeals. 5 SUPREME COURT OF OHIO