The Ohio Supreme Court has upheld the denial of a new trial for Joseph McAlpin, a death row inmate convicted of two murders during a robbery at a Cleveland used-car dealership. As reported by Court News Ohio, the Court found that McAlpin, who filed his request in 2019, did not adhere to the requisite procedural rules. Despite his subsequent attempts to rectify the filing errors, the unanimous ruling stated that the corrections in 2020 did not retroactively mend his initial mistake.
According to the Supreme Court, a request for a new trial beyond 120 days of conviction involves a two-step process that McAlpin failed to follow. Chief Justice Sharon L. Kennedy, in her explanation, stated that McAlpin's direct new trial request without first obtaining leave from the trial court was procedurally incorrect, "Because McAlpin did not follow that process, former Judge Brian Corrigan correctly denied McAlpin’s motion for a new trial," she said in a statement obtained by Court News Ohio.
McAlpin represented himself at his 2019 trial and was sentenced to death following his conviction of aggravated murder. Upon seeking a new trial based on new evidence, a then-untimely filed motion in August 2019 was rejected by the trial judge. The Eighth District Court of Appeals had upheld this decision, although on differing grounds, and subsequently, the Supreme Court directed the matter back to the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court for further consideration of his 2020 filings.
During the period when the request for a new trial was pending, McAlpin had filed a motion for leave in February 2020 as prescribed by the procedural rules, followed by a "supplemental" motion in April 2020, "The April 2020 motion was almost identical to the August 2019 motion and contained McAlpin’s reasoning for why he believed he deserved a new trial," according to the court’s documentation, as obtained by Court News Ohio. Despite the fact that his motions were filed out of sequence, McAlpin contended that Judge Corrigan should have interpreted them in alignment with the state's processes for a new trial request. However, the Eighth District disagreed with McAlpin's stance, finding that he had not provided proof that he was unavoidably prevented from discovering the new evidence within the 120-day limit.
While the Supreme Court did not assess McAlpin's claim that the Eighth District overstepped by dismissing his 2020 efforts, it refocused the matter on whether he could prove he was unavoidably prevented from discovering evidence in the required timeframe. This particular detail will now be determined by the common pleas court as it undertakes a review of McAlpin's motions afresh. Justice Kennedy, in her opinion, stressed the importance of proper legal procedure: "Accordingly, based on the evidence in the record, McAlpin did not seek leave to file the motion for new trial at issue in this appeal," according to Court News Ohio.
