Ohio Supreme Court upholds manslaughter conviction decades after infant was injured

The Ohio Supreme Court has upheld the involuntary manslaughter conviction of a man who was charged 16 years after the death of a woman whose devastating injuries dated back to infancy.

The case, State v. Wilson, involves Scott Wilson and a victim identified by the courts as “Hannah” to protect her privacy.

Hannah was born in November 1984. When she was only a few weeks old in January 1985, Wilson shook her, causing severe brain trauma. He was initially charged with felonious assault. A jury acquitted him of that charge but convicted him of the lesser offense of misdemeanor assault, which required a finding that he had recklessly caused Hannah serious physical harm. Wilson served six months in jail.

Hannah never recovered from the injuries. According to the Supreme Court, she suffered significant medical problems for the rest of her life, leaving her immobile and unable to care for herself. She died on December 1, 2006, after spending her final month in a nursing home. An autopsy determined her death was caused by encephalopathy resulting from the long-term effects of blunt-force trauma to her head. A second specialist who examined her brain reached the same conclusion.

Records show the Clermont County Prosecutor’s Office (which is east of Cincinnati) was notified of Hannah’s death in 2006, but no new charges were filed at the time. The case resurfaced in 2022 for an unusual reason: Wilson asked a court to seal the record of his old misdemeanor assault conviction. While reviewing the file, an assistant prosecutor discovered Hannah’s autopsy report, prompting prosecutors and the Clermont County Sheriff’s Office to investigate her death.

A Clermont County grand jury indicted Wilson in December 2022 on involuntary manslaughter and reckless homicide charges. The reckless homicide count was later dismissed at the state’s request. After losing a motion to have the case dismissed, Wilson pleaded no contest to involuntary manslaughter, was found guilty and was sentenced to two years in prison.

Wilson’s appeal centered on the extraordinary delay. He argued that waiting 16 years after Hannah’s death to indict him violated his right to due process because some witnesses had died and records from the original investigation, trial and Hannah’s later medical care were no longer available.

The Ohio Supreme Court disagreed.

The justices concluded Wilson could not show that the missing witnesses or records would have provided evidence that was favorable and important to his defense. The court characterized his claims about how the lost evidence might have helped him as speculative. Because he failed to establish that the delay actually prejudiced his defense, the court upheld his conviction.

The ruling also has implications beyond Wilson’s case. The court overturned more than 40 years of Ohio precedent governing delays before criminal charges are filed. Going forward, a defendant challenging such a delay on due-process grounds must prove both that the delay actually harmed the defense and that prosecutors intentionally delayed filing charges to gain a tactical advantage. Missing evidence must be shown to have been favorable, material and not merely duplicative of other evidence.

Not every justice agreed with changing Ohio law. Justices Patrick Fischer and Jennifer Brunner agreed Wilson’s conviction should stand but objected to using his case to overturn decades of precedent, saying the change was unnecessary to decide his appeal.

The Supreme Court ultimately affirmed the decision of the Twelfth District Court of Appeals, leaving Wilson’s involuntary manslaughter conviction in place.