Court of Appeals Decision Released on June 17, 2013

The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Appellate District released one decision on June 17, 2013. The decision was State v. Leyda, 2013-Ohio-2495 and was an appeal from a decision of the Wayne County Municipal Court. Mr. Leyda appealed from his conviction for domestic violence. He raised three assignments of error. The first was that his counsel was ineffective for not attempting to present evidence of his wife's alleged prior bad acts. The second was that the trial court was guilty of judicial misconduct. The third was that the conviction should be overturned because there was no physical evidence corroborating the oral testimony of his wife. The Court of Appeals rejected all three assignments of error. Judge Belfance wrote a separate concurring opinion in which she stated that she would affirm because Mr. Leyda was relying on evidence outside of the trial court's record. 

Wadsworth Man Found Not Guilty of Domestic Violence

James P. Skala of Mills Street in Wadsworth, Ohio, was found not guilty of Domestic Violence, a third degree felony, by a jury in Judge Collier's court last week. Mr. Skala was charged with a third degree felony because the indictment alleged that he had two prior convictions for Domestic Violence.