New Criminal Opinions, 11th District Criminal Case Update

Get The Legal Help You Need

It’s been a light few weeks after the last quarterly avalanche. The 11th didn’t release any new criminal opinions last week.  The week before that saw only a pro se appeal of a case that wasn’t even finished yet, so the Court just dismissed the appeal as premature.  If you are interested in the legalese translation: there was no final appealable order, therefore the appellate court had no jurisdiction.

State v. Aziz-Hakim, 2014-Ohio-3006.
The sole criminal (or in this case, juvenile) opinion this week was In Re: M.S., 2014-Ohio-3184.  After the court granted an emergency temporary custody request, it adjudicated the child Abused and Dependent.  The Department of Job and Family Services took custody of the child and implemented a case plan.  Fast forward a couple years and things still weren’t going well.  JFS asked for permanent custody, which the trial court granted.

Mother raises a manifest weight argument, but the burden of proof is lower for the Government than in a criminal trial, so it’s an even harder argument to make.  The other issue is a question of whether it was ethical for the child’s counselor to offer a recommendation regarding visitation.  The Court says that it was ethical, but even if it wasn’t that wouldn’t make the testimony inadmissible.  Judgment affirmed.  Grendell, Cannon, Westcott.

Scroll to Top
Skip to content