Felony murder review

The Athens News last Wednesday had an article about “a highly publicized criminal case from Athens County that may be used to test the way Ohio courts sentence criminals who commit felonies during which someone gets killed.

“The Athens County Prosecutor's Office has asked the Ohio Supreme Court to review an appellate court's ruling in a case stemming from a 2009 shootout in New Marshfield. A statewide prosecutor's organization has added its support, suggesting that the case of Abdifatah Abdi raises a very important legal issue, which could affect how courts across the state handle felony cases in which someone dies as a predictable result of a violent crime a bank robbery, for example, in which a bank guard is shot to death.” (Athens Co. document )(Ohio Prosecutors’ brief)

The victim in the case wasn’t even shot with Abdi’s gun, according to attorney Heaven DiMartino of the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association, but “What's at issue in Abdi's case,” the article points out, “is whether a person charged with so-called "felony murder" can be given a separate sentence for the "underlying felony" that allowed the felony murder charge to be filed in the first place. In Ohio, as in other states, a person who commits a violent felony in which someone gets killed can be charged with murder, regardless of whether the defendant actually killed someone himself.” ( See Revised Code 2941.25 )

“In a decision issued this past July, the article says, “the 4th District Court of Appeals rejected most of the arguments by defense attorney Russell Bensing on why Abdi should have his conviction overturned. It did find merit, however, in Bensing's claim that Abdi should not have been sentenced separately for the robbery and the murder that resulted from it, because these two charges were essentially based on the same set of actions, and therefore qualified as ‘allied offenses of similar import.’”

The December 2010 State v. Johnson ruling by the Ohio Supreme Court significantly changed the rules on "merging" felony offenses, suggesting that offenses based on the same set of actions and intentions by the criminal can't be sentenced separately. Clarifying the meaning of the Johnson ruling is the main reason why Athens County Prosecutor Keller Blackburn is asking the Supreme Court to review the Abdi decision.

Blackburn and the prosecutors association feel the 4^th. District misapplied Johnson in its consideration of the above case.