No decisions of note out of the Ohio Supreme Court, not even a nice disciplinary case or two to munch on, so let’s get straight to the courts of appeals decisions:

On the civil side, The 6th District reverses the grant of a motion in limine and summary judgment in a malpractice case, holding that simply because the plaintiff’s doctor was in a different specialty from the defendant did not allow exclusion of his expert testimony.  The 1st District holds that the Juvenile Court could assess GAL fees against the parents in a custody fight, but couldn’t hold them in criminal contempt for not paying them.  The 8th District reverses a summary judgment and holds that a non-compete covenant for a physician is not automatically invalid as against public policy. 

In criminal cases, the 9th District affirms a conviction for tampering with evidence where the defendant threw drug evidence away as he fled from the police.  The 3rd District upholds a community control sentence in a conviction for gross sexual imposition against an appeal from the state that the presumption for imprisonment should have been invoked.  The 9th District also holds that a court need not determine that the child is competent before admitting his statements made for purposes of medical treatment under 803(4); this issue is currently pending before the Ohio Supreme Court.  The 4th District upholds the trial court’s decision to shackle the defendant during trial; the decision’s a little questionable (one judge dissented), but it has a decent review of the law on the subject.

I Think They Covered This in Criminal Procedure:  One of the assignments of error in State v. Hall was that the defendant’s conviction of attempted rape was against the manifest weight of the evidence. 

The defendant had pled guilty.

This week, I’ll take another look at what remains of judicial review of sentencing post-Foster, and do a quick-and-dirty review of the new forfeiture law.  Catch you then.