Court of Appeals affirms felonious assault conviction of Hillsboro woman
The Fourth District Court of Appeals has upheld the conviction of a Hillsboro woman found guilty of felonious assault following a jury trial last year.
As previously reported, a jury found Jennifer M. Baker, 61, guilty of the second-degree felony charge of felonious assault following a trial in Highland County Common Pleas Court April 27.
The jury found Baker guilty of felonious assault and not guilty of a lesser finding of aggravated assault stemming from a “sudden passion or in a sudden fit of rage.”
The state alleged that on or about Oct. 28, 2022, Baker called the Highland County Sheriff’s Office reporting that she had fired a shotgun at a truck driving by her home, which she believed to be driven by an ex-boyfriend of her daughter. She reported that the driver later came back and fired shots out of the truck.
During the trial, Highland County Prosecutor Anneka Collins told the jury that on Oct. 28, 2022 at about 2 in the morning,” Baker used her 12-gauge shotgun to “open fire” on a truck sitting “on a township road.”
The ammunition “made contact with that truck clear from the front headlight, clear down the passenger side, clear around the tailgate, almost to the driver’s side,” Collins said. As a result, the passenger window was “shattered.”
The victim — who was not in fact the daughter’s ex-boyfriend — was later arrested for firing shots at Baker’s property. According to court records, he pleaded guilty in January to a bill of information charging him with felonious assault and failure to comply with the order or signal of a police officer. The victim was sentenced to 59 months, or nearly five years, in prison, according to court records.
Baker was sentenced in June 2023 to a minimum of two years in the Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville. Under the Reagan Tokes Law, the sentence could be as long as three years. The 12-gauge shotgun shotgun used during the offense was also ordered to be forfeited.
As of this article’s posting, Baker has not served any prison time, pending the appeal in this case, after Highland County Common Pleas Court Judge Rocky Coss granted a motion to stay the execution of her sentence.
Baker, who was represented by attorney Jim Boulger at trial and Katie Bowling in her appeal, presented two assignments of error upon appeal: that “the trial court erred in prohibiting [Baker] from admitting evidence to meet her burden of production for a self-defense instruction;” and that Baker “was denied effective assistance of counsel.”
The decision and judgment entry, written by Court of Appeals Judge Michael Hess and filed with the Highland County Clerk of Courts on Tuesday, Feb. 27, overruled both assignments of error and affirmed Baker’s judgment.
According to the Court of Appeals entry, Baker “contends the trial court erred when it prohibited her from presenting evidence that she was acting in self-defense when she fired her shotgun at a passing vehicle. She argues that she should have been able to introduce evidence about the history between her and her daughter’s boyfriend, who she mistakenly believed was driving the vehicle that drove by her house.”
Baker also argues that her attorney “failed to proffer the evidence about the history between herself and her daughter’s boyfriend,” and “that because the evidence was related to her burden to produce evidence she acted in self-defense, she was prejudiced because she was unable to assert the defense of self-defense.”
The Court of Appeals disagreed with Baker’s arguments of self-defense.
“We find that Baker produced insufficient evidence that she was acting in self-defense when she fired shots at a pickup truck on a public roadway as it was traveling past her house,” Hess wrote in the appellate court entry. “Therefore, evidence of her adult daughter’s boyfriend[’s] alleged prior acts of violence were not relevant and were properly excluded by the trial court.”
Later in the entry, Hess added that there are “both objective and subjective considerations” involved to legally support a claim of self-defense, neither of which Baker met, according to the appellate ruling.
“Baker’s belief that she was in immediate danger of death or great bodily harm must be objectively reasonable, and she must have an honest belief that she faced such danger,” Hess wrote. “Baker testified that she heard a truck’s engine revving, went outside, and fired her shotgun at a vehicle passing by on a public roadway. Baker did not see the driver, and she was not threatened physically or verbally by the driver prior to her firing at it. The driver was not on her property or driving in her direction as if to run her over, but rather was driving past and away from her property. Thus, Baker’s belief was not objectively reasonable.”
Hess said that Baker “testified that she believed the driver was” her daughter’s boyfriend, but “was unsure why [he] was there.”
“Baker failed to present any evidence that she had an honest subjective belief that she or her daughter were in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm,” Hess wrote. “Baker also failed to establish that she fired at the pickup as it drove by as her only option to escape harm. To the contrary, she testified she shot at the pickup truck to get him to … ‘go away.’”
Hess added that this “‘mistake of fact’ she claims occurred does not excuse her behavior.
“Even if [the boyfriend] had been the driver, she was not justified in shooting at the vehicle,” the appellate court decision says. “In other words, Baker would be guilty of felonious assault even if the situation were as she believed.”
Hess concluded that Baker “failed to produce legally sufficient evidence that she was acting in self-defense,” was “not entitled to assert the affirmative defense of self-defense,” and that “because the victim here was not [the boyfriend], evidence of [their] history was irrelevant.”
Similarly, for Baker’s argument about her counsel’s failure to proffer evidence of her history with her daughter’s boyfriend, the Court of Appeals found that “failure to do so did not affect the outcome of the proceeding,” while “even if Baker’s attorney had proffered evidence … the evidence was properly excluded.”
Baker’s appeal also argued that the state “failed to produce sufficient evidence to support all the elements of felonious assault,” saying “there was no evidence that she intended to cause physical harm to the driver,” and that are attorney should have made a Rule 29 motion for acquittal.
In response, Hess wrote, “We find that the state produced sufficient evidence that Baker committed felonious assault, therefore her counsel’s failure to move for a Crim.R. 29 acquittal would have been futile.”
Later in the entry, Hess concluded, “Sufficient evidence supports Baker’s conviction. Baker knowingly fired a shotgun twice at a vehicle traveling on the public roadway in front of her house. Even if we assume her sole purpose was to ‘scare the driver’ as she argues in here brief, her ‘purpose’ is not relevant. She was aware that under such circumstances she probably will cause physical harm to the driver.
“When we construe this evidence in a light most favorable to the prosecution, a rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the offense proven beyond a reasonable doubt.”
According to the judgment entry, Baker’s stay of execution of sentence and release upon bail will be “temporarily continued for a period not to exceed 60 days upon the bail previously posted,” in order to “allow [Baker] to file with the Supreme Court of Ohio an application for a stay during the pendency of proceedings in that court. If a stay is continued by this entry, it will terminate at the earlier of the expiration of the 60-day period or the failure of the appellant to file a notice of appeal with the Supreme Court of Ohio in the 45-day appeal period.
“Additionally, if the Supreme Court of Ohio dismisses the appeal prior to expiration of 60 days, the stay will terminate as of the date of such dismissal.”
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