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7th District: Psychotropic medications did not affect guilty plea
TRACEY BLAIR
Legal News Reporter
Published: December 12, 2019
Psychotropic medications did not affect a defendant’s ability to enter an intelligent, knowing and voluntary guilty plea in a case about a violent break-in, the 7th District Court of Appeals recently ruled.
Boyd Johnson was convicted in June 2018 in Columbiana County Common Pleas Court of two counts of aggravated burglary and two counts of felonious assault.
Court records indicate that Johnson attempted to break into an East Liverpool apartment on Nov. 28, 2016, with a knife and threatened the occupant. After his unsuccessful attempt to enter the apartment, he tried to enter a second apartment occupied by two other residents. Although the residents attempted to barricade their door, Johnson managed to cut the lock with his knife. While inside, he slashed one of the residents on the arm and breast and stabbed the other resident through his liver before fleeing the area.
Johnson confessed to the crime after police showed the video of him committing the acts, but claimed he could not remember anything about the encounter. He admitted to being under the influence of alcohol and non-prescription pills at the time.
Johnson pleaded guilty as charged in March after two competency evaluations concluded he was competent to stand trial. At the plea hearing, he told the judge he was taking several psychotropic medications to treat posttraumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.
At the first part of the bifurcated sentencing hearing, the prosecutor presented a statement from a representative for one of the victims who had endured six operations and expected to undergo at least three more in the future.
At the second part of the hearing, Johnson, who had a criminal record of violent misdemeanors, asked for a four year prison sentence. However, the judge adopted the state’s recommended nine-year sentence (with 560 days of jailtime credit) and banned him from weapons for life.
On appeal, Johnson argued the trial court committed plain error in accepting his guilty plea without conducting a sufficient inquiry into whether his psychotropic medications prevented him from knowingly, intelligently and voluntarily entering the plea.
Johnson claimed the trial court only asked him whether he was taking the medications as prescribed before accepting his plea. The state argued there are no specific requirements that a trial court is bound to when conducting the colloquy.
“Here, the trial court judge asked appellant if he was taking the medications as prescribed and told appellant multiple times the court wanted to ensure that appellant’s medications were not affecting his ability to understand the proceedings,” 7th District Judge Cheryl L. Waite said in her opinion. “Appellant consistently replied that he understood the proceedings and that he sought to change his plea from not guilty to guilty. The state contends that several Ohio appellate courts have upheld similar colloquys.”
Waite noted that Johnson’s case was similar to State v. Parks, a 2019 Sixth District case in which a defendant was taking psychotropic medications at the time of the plea hearing for a variety of mental health issues. In Parks, the trial court inquired as to whether he was taking the medications as prescribed by his doctor, and the defendant responded yes. The trial court did not conduct any further inquiries into the defendant’s mental health. The Sixth District held that the defendant’s history of mental health issues, alone, was insufficient to render his plea involuntary.
“The instant case is closely aligned with Parks,” Waite wrote. “In both cases, the trial court asked what mental health problems the defendant suffered from and whether the defendant was taking the psychotropic medications as prescribed. The trial court went a step further in the instant case as it inquired whether appellant was under a doctor’s care, which he was, and whether he was engaged in counseling, which he had been for the past 16 years.”
Waited added there is nothing in the record to suggest that Johnson did not understand the proceedings.
Appellate judges Gene Donofrio and David A. D’Apolito concurred. The case is cited State v. Johnson, 2019-Ohio-4541.