[Cite as State v. Chambers,
2024-Ohio-3341.]
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF OHIO
SIXTH APPELLATE DISTRICT
LUCAS COUNTY
State of Ohio Court of Appeals No. L-23-1068
Appellee/Cross-appellant Trial Court No. CR0202202751
v.
Bryan Chambers
DECISION AND JUDGMENT
Appellant/Cross-appellee Decided: August 30, 2024
…
Julia Bates, Lucas County Prosecuting Attorney, and
Angela M. Zavac, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellee/cross-appellant.
Anthony J. Richardson, II, for appellant/cross-appellee.
…
MAYLE, J.
{¶ 1} Appellant/cross-appellee, Bryan Chambers, appeals the March 16, 2023
judgment of the Lucas County Court of Common Pleas sentencing him following his
conviction of felonious assault and kidnapping, claiming that the trial court improperly
excluded evidence that he was reasonably disciplining his son, there is insufficient
evidence to support his convictions, and the court should have merged his convictions at
sentencing. Appellee/cross-appellant, the state of Ohio, also challenges Chambers’s
sentence because the trial court imposed a definite prison term for a qualifying second-
degree felony instead of the statutorily required indefinite prison term. Although the trial
court acted within its discretion by excluding reasonable parental discipline as a defense,
Chambers’s convictions are supported by sufficient evidence, are not against the manifest
weight of the evidence, and are not allied offenses of similar import, the trial court erred
by imposing a definite sentence for the felonious assault conviction, so we affirm in part,
reverse in part, and remand the case for resentencing.
I. Background and Facts
{¶ 2} Chambers was indicted on one count each of kidnapping in violation of R.C.
2905.01(A)(3), a first-degree felony, and felonious assault in violation of R.C.
2903.11(A)(1), second-degree felony.1 The charges arose from allegations that
Chambers took his son, V.L., out of school when he was not supposed to, put V.L. in the
back seat of his car with the child locks engaged so that the doors would not open from
the inside, drove V.L. to his house, and beat V.L., causing injuries including a fractured
wrist bone, petechiae from strangulation, and heavy bruising.
A. Pretrial issues
{¶ 3} Two pretrial motions are relevant to this appeal. First, Chambers filed a
request for a jury instruction on reasonable parental discipline that required the jury to
find him not guilty of felonious assault if it found that he was reasonably disciplining
1
He was also indicted on one count of domestic violence that was dismissed before trial.
2.
V.L. at the time of the incident. In response, the state asked the court to deny
Chambers’s request because causing serious physical harm to a child—as required for a
felonious assault conviction—goes beyond the scope of reasonable parental discipline. It
also pointed out that the instruction was unnecessary as a matter of law because
Chambers would not be entitled to the instruction if the jury found that he caused serious
physical harm to V.L. and would be found not guilty if the jury found that he did not
cause serious physical harm to V.L.
{¶ 4} Second, the state filed a motion in limine to exclude the testimony of Shawn
Mahone Sr., who runs a behavior-modification boot camp program that V.L. attended in
2021. The state argued that V.L.’s interactions with Mahone were not relevant to the
events of October 7, 2022, and that any testimony Mahone could offer about V.L.’s
behavior months before the incident had no bearing on whether Chambers kidnapped and
assaulted V.L. In response, Chambers said that Mahone would testify about V.L.’s prior
“disciplinary behavior,” V.L.’s prior enrollment in the boot camp program, and
Chambers contacting him about a month before the incident to reenroll V.L. in the boot
camp. This would show that Chambers’s actions on October 7 constituted reasonable
parental discipline, and excluding Mahone’s testimony would prevent him from
presenting evidence of his affirmative defense.
{¶ 5} The trial court held a hearing on the parties’ motions. At the hearing,
Chambers argued that the context surrounding his actions on October 7 was important;
V.L.’s disciplinary issues, poor performance in school, and involvement in Mahone’s
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program were all relevant to how Chambers handled things that day. He argued that,
although V.L. suffered a broken arm, there was no allegation that he intentionally broke
V.L.’s arm and the medical records indicated that there could be another explanation for
the break, so it was unlikely that the state could show that he intended to cause serious
physical harm. The fact that V.L. also had nonserious physical injuries, when combined
with the lack of intent, made the reasonable parental discipline instruction proper.
{¶ 6} In response, the state argued that case law does not support using reasonable
parental discipline as a defense to a charge of felonious assault. It took the position that
“if evidence is produced that there is serious physical harm, the [reasonable parental
discipline] instruction is not warranted.” It also pointed out that V.L.’s injuries were all
part of the same course of conduct, and V.L.’s broken wrist was not the only serious
physical harm that occurred during that course of conduct. Chambers also allegedly
strangled V.L., which the state believed was additional serious physical harm.
{¶ 7} Regarding Mahone’s testimony, the state argued that V.L.’s participation in
the boot camp was too far removed from the events of October 7, 2022—he was there
about 17 months before—and was not relevant to whether Chambers kidnapped or caused
serious physical harm to V.L. It also claimed that Chambers’s attempts to reenroll V.L.
in the program was nothing more than an inquiry (i.e., it was not evidence that V.L. was
enrolled in the program), which was also irrelevant to the charges against Chambers.
{¶ 8} The court denied Chambers’s request for the reasonable parental discipline
jury instruction. It determined that “[c]ausing serious physical harm to a child is by its
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very nature unreasonable discipline and therefore, the defense of reasonable parental
discipline could never logically apply.” It also noted that there was no precedent for
using the instruction in a felonious assault case. The court granted the state’s motion to
preclude Mahone’s testimony. Although the court believed that his testimony would be
relevant to a reasonable parental discipline defense, as it stood, Mahone’s testimony
“would bolster a defense not available to . . .” Chambers, so the testimony was irrelevant
and inadmissible. The court clarified that the parties could present and discuss V.L.’s
discipline issues at trial; it was only excluding a witness with irrelevant testimony about
something that happened 17 months before the incident underlying this case.
B. Trial
1. State’s case
{¶ 9} Chambers’s case was tried to a jury in February 2023. The state presented
the testimony of V.L., the victim; Emily Johnson, the assistant principal at V.L.’s school;
Jeffrey Roberts, a security and resource officer at V.L.’s school; Jenae James, James’s
stepdaughter, and Elizabeth Starr, three of Chambers’s neighbors; Shaliah Lacy, V.L.’s
mother; officer Kerry Hayes and detective Lisa Fauver of the Toledo Police Department;
and Natalie Jones, a forensic nurse.
a. School witnesses
{¶ 10} Around 10:00 a.m. on October 7, 2022, Johnson, the school’s assistant
principal, received a call that there was a student in the bathroom with a cellphone. As
she was looking for the student, whom she identified as V.L., a teacher told her that he
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had gone out the front door. When she reached the lobby, she saw a car in the parking lot
that was “rocking . . . [t]he back passenger door was open and the car was physically
moving back and forth.” The rocking lasted for a couple of seconds, and she did not see
anyone in the car. After seeing the car, Johnson went to the office to figure out what was
going on.
{¶ 11} Johnson explained the process for informing a student that someone has
come to pick them up. Generally, the adult comes to the office and signs the sign-out
sheet, the front office calls the teacher, the teacher alerts the student, and the student
comes to the front office to meet the adult. Chambers signed V.L. out for an
“appointment” at 10:12 a.m.
{¶ 12} As Johnson continued walking toward her office, she saw a man “walk out,
go back to the car and then take off.” She thought the situation was “obviously
strange[,]” so she radioed Roberts, the safety, security, and resource officer, to discuss
what she had seen. Moments later, their conversation was interrupted by Lacy coming
into the office. Johnson described her as “very nervous, very fraught.” At the time,
Johnson knew that Lacy had temporary custody of V.L., but did not know why. Despite
that, she believed that the school had an obligation to allow Chambers to take V.L. from
the school because he was V.L.’s parent and guardian, and the school did not have
anything saying that they were not allowed to release V.L. to him.
{¶ 13} Soon after arriving, Lacy left the school. Johnson and Roberts decided to
report the situation to Lucas County Children Services (“LCCS”) but were interrupted
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when Lacy and V.L. returned to the school. When they returned, V.L. looked “[b]eaten
up.” Johnson said that his nose was bleeding, his lips were swollen, he had bruising on
his abdomen, his face was bleeding, and he was cradling his arm. The nurse’s aide at the
school took pictures of V.L.’s injuries. In those pictures, Johnson pointed out blood on
V.L.’s face, bruising on his whole torso, and redness on his stomach. He did not have
those injuries when he left the school with Chambers. V.L. left the school in an
ambulance. Johnson estimated that five to 15 minutes elapsed between her seeing the car
in the parking lot rocking and V.L. returning to school with Lacy. Later, Johnson and
Roberts finished their report to LCCS. V.L. returned to school the following Monday,
but Lacy unenrolled him from the school shortly after.
{¶ 14} On cross, Johnson said that V.L. did not tell his teacher or anyone in the
front office that he did not want to leave with his dad that day, and no teachers forced
V.L. to leave with his dad.
{¶ 15} Roberts testified that he is in charge of daily security at the school. He
described V.L. as a “pencil thin[,]” quiet kid who was not “on [his] radar” as a kid who
always got in trouble.
{¶ 16} The state played surveillance video from the morning of October 7 that
showed the front exterior of the school. On the video, Roberts identified the car V.L. left
in. The video shows Chambers pulling up in front of the school, parking, and walking
into the building. A little over four minutes later, Chambers comes out of the building
pulling a resistant V.L. toward the car by his arms, wrists, and shirt. As they struggle,
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V.L. drops to the ground, but Chambers picks him up and eventually gets him in the back
seat of the car. Chambers briefly crawls in with him, which is when the car shifts side to
side a couple of times—what Johnson described as “rocking”—before crawling out and
closing the door.
{¶ 17} After getting a call from Johnson that something “didn’t seem right” when
a student left, Roberts was starting to review the security footage when Lacy and V.L.
returned to the school. He said that V.L.’s “[f]ace was bloodied [and] he was scraped
up.” He and the school nurse treated V.L.’s injuries while someone called the police.
{¶ 18} Roberts called 911 after Lacy and V.L. arrived at the school. On the 911
call that the state play for the jury, Roberts told the dispatcher that a student’s father had
picked the student up from the school and was “beating him in the parking lot;” the
student’s mother came to the school, left to file a police report, drove past the father’s
house, saw the father beating the student, and brought the student back to the school; and
EMS was already at the school checking the student, but he was “severely beat.” He
confirmed to the dispatcher that it was the student’s father who had beaten him.
{¶ 19} After the ambulance took V.L. to the hospital, Roberts and Johnson
reported the incident to LCCS.
{¶ 20} On cross, Johnson admitted that he would not be contacted about a
student’s grades. He was aware that V.L. had been in an “altercation” at the school and
was suspended for three days as a result. Sometime after October 7, Roberts was asked
to review video footage to see if Chambers was on school property. He did not see
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Chambers or his vehicle on the surveillance video. V.L. was the person who alleged that
Chambers was at the school. V.L. also made a second unfounded allegation that
Chambers was at the school.
b. Doorbell camera video
{¶ 21} Chambers has a doorbell video camera that faces his driveway. The state
presented two sets of videos from the doorbell camera as exhibits. One set includes the
videos that the police obtained from the service provider when they executed a search
warrant. The other set includes the videos that Siti Dotson-Chambers, Chambers’s wife,
downloaded from the camera’s service provider and gave to police.
{¶ 22} The search warrant obtained nine videos that do not contain timestamps. In
the first video, Chambers’s car pulls out of the driveway. In the second, he backs into the
driveway, opens the back door of the car, leans into the back seat, and says, “Which way
do you want to go? Go this way or that way?”
{¶ 23} The third video begins with V.L. struggling with Chambers, who is holding
him by the wrists and dragging him toward the door of the house. The camera clearly
shows V.L.’s face a few seconds into the video, and he does not appear to have any blood
on him. V.L. partially breaks away from Chambers and the two stumble across the
driveway to the neighbor’s lawn, falling to the ground as they do so. Most of V.L. is not
visible in the frame at this point, but Chambers positions himself on his knees straddling
the child and places his right hand on the ground. Before putting his right hand on the
ground, he uses it to pull a cellphone out of V.L.’s left hand. Although Chambers’s left
9.
hand is not visible at first, he eventually shifts so that his left hand is seen pushing against
V.L.’s forehead, pinning his head to the ground. His right hand appears to be holding
V.L.’s left wrist against the ground. V.L. is crying during most of the video, although he
is quiet for a few seconds while he is on the ground and Chambers’s left hand is not
visible to the camera. V.L. also says “get off me” and “I’m not supposed to be with you”
while he is on the ground and Chambers is straddling him. The video lasts 30 seconds.
{¶ 24} In the fourth video, Chambers and V.L. are in Chambers’s driveway near
the door to the house. V.L. is lying on his back in the driveway and Chambers is on his
knees straddling V.L.’s torso. Chambers is holding a cellphone in his right hand over his
head. He says what sounds like “are you going to have this bitch at school” before
throwing the phone to the ground in the vicinity of V.L.’s head. V.L. is crying and
talking throughout this video. The video lasts 13 seconds.
{¶ 25} The fifth video begins with Chambers and V.L. very near the doorbell
camera. Chambers has his arms wrapped around V.L.’s torso and is pulling him toward
the house. V.L. breaks away from Chambers and stumbles across the driveway toward
the neighbor’s lawn. He trips in the process and lands on his back. As he is falling, his
face is briefly in the frame and his mouth appears bloody. While V.L. is on the ground,
Chambers is standing and leaning over him. He says something that sounds like “keep
your ass still.” Around the time that V.L. is stumbling, a woman in the background
begins screaming. Shortly after, Starr runs up and screams at Chambers, “Bryan, what
are you doing? Bryan, what are you doing? Stop.” Chambers turns to look at Starr the
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first time she yells, stands up the second time she yells, and backs away from V.L., turns
toward the house, throws up his hands, and walks toward the house the third time she
yells. When Chambers backs away from him, V.L. gets up, steps away from Chambers,
waits a couple of seconds, walks behind Chambers to grab the cellphone from the
driveway, and then runs out of the frame. Until Starr screams at Chambers, V.L. is
crying. Soon after V.L. exits the frame, the woman screaming in the background stops
and a silver car speeds down the street away from Chambers’s house. Chambers watches
the car drive away then turns back to face the area where Starr was briefly visible on the
video and says, “He wrestlin’ with me. Shit.” The video lasts one minute and 13
seconds.
{¶ 26} The sixth video shows Chambers backing his car further into the driveway.
The seventh video shows Chambers walking from the house to his car and back while on
the phone. The camera picked up parts of his conversation including, “I couldn’t even
get him in the house,” “we outside tusslin’ and shit,” and “the neighbors come out.” In
the eighth video, Chambers walks out of the house and gets in his car while talking on a
headset. Much of what he says is unintelligible. The final video shows a mail carrier
delivering mail.
{¶ 27} Dotson-Chambers gave the police five videos from the doorbell camera.
Four of them have audio and include timestamps. The video that does not have
timestamps or audio is a cellphone screen recording. Three of Dotson-Chambers’s
videos match videos from the search warrant. The video that begins at 10:20:16 a.m. and
11.
ends at 10:20:46 a.m. corresponds with the third video from the search warrant. The
video that begins at 10:24:10 a.m. and ends at 10:24:22 a.m. corresponds with the fourth
video from the search warrant. And the video that begins at 10:28:03 a.m. and ends at
10:29:13 a.m. corresponds with the fifth video from the search warrant.
{¶ 28} The video that begins at 10:25:49 a.m. and ends at 10:27:56 a.m. is not in
the search warrant videos. In this video, Chambers and V.L. are in the driveway near the
doorbell camera. The video starts with Chambers standing with his legs straddling V.L.,
who is lying on the driveway. Chambers is bent at the waist with his hands in front of
him. The camera angle makes it difficult to tell whether his hands are on his knees or on
some part of V.L.’s body. He squats down and begins talking to V.L., but he is speaking
softly and there is a dog barking in the background, which makes what he is saying
mostly unintelligible. During the first 50 seconds of the video, in response to Chambers,
V.L. says “I’m not,” “no, I haven’t,” “dad,” “no, you’re not,” and “I’m not supposed to
be with you.” Around the 50-second mark, V.L. starts making noises that sound like
coughing. A few seconds later, Chambers says something about V.L. “crying.”
Chambers’s arms and hands are between his knees the entire time he is squatting.
{¶ 29} At one minute and eight seconds into the video, Chambers stands up and
leans over V.L. again. Chambers’s left hand is barely in the frame but looks like it is
positioned near V.L.’s neck or upper chest, and V.L. is either coughing or crying.
Chambers’s right hand is not visible. While Chambers is standing there, he and V.L.
apparently discuss Chambers’s and Lacy’s custody arrangements. V.L. does not seem to
12.
have any difficulty speaking. The whole time, V.L. insists that he is supposed to be with
Lacy and that “the judge gave mom papers . . .” about V.L.’s custody. After about 40
seconds of this, Chambers begins saying “okay, you can stay at her house, but you still
will be held responsible for what” but he abruptly cuts himself off midsentence when
V.L. again says “but I’m not supposed to be with you.” At this point, Chambers hits or
smacks V.L. in the face or head. It is difficult to tell exactly what happens due to the
camera angle. He yells at V.L. to “shut that shit up” as he grabs the child by his right
wrist and the front of his shirt near the collar to drag him into the house. V.L. begins
screaming and crying when Chambers hits him, which continues until the end of the
video.
{¶ 30} The final video—the screen recording—shows 53 seconds from the second
half of the video that begins at 10:25:49 a.m. (i.e., it starts when Chambers is standing
and bending over V.L. and ends at the same time as the 10:25 video), but without any
audio.
c. Lacy’s testimony
{¶ 31} Lacy is V.L.’s mother. She described him as a small, loving kid who is
“rambunctious, jumping all over the place, loves video games.” Chambers is V.L.’s
father, but she and Chambers did not have any formal custody arrangements for V.L. and
his brother, W.L. (“brother”), until a few years before this incident. She said that V.L.
was having some behavioral issues so Chambers offered to have V.L. live with him,
while brother lived with Lacy. That lasted for about two months before Chambers
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brought V.L. back to Lacy. About a year later, in November 2019 or 2020, Chambers
decided he wanted V.L. to live with him again. At that point, V.L. was fine with the
custody arrangement. However, at the end of December 2022, V.L. ran away from
Chambers’s home.2 He was only gone for a few hours and Lacy found him nearby later
that day. Lacy reported that he ran away because “he was being mistreated and he was
scared of being beat again.” She took him home with her, and the next day, she went to
the juvenile court to get an emergency custody order to “have [V.L.] in [her] home until
we figure out what’s going on.” According to Lacy, V.L. knew of the custody situation,
and she believed that Chambers knew of it as well because he acted like he knew the
custody arrangements were different. She said that they had several phone conversations
about it, she was taking V.L. to and from school, and she had asked to pick up V.L.’s
belongings from Chambers’s house.
{¶ 32} The morning of October 7, Lacy received a call from V.L. According to
her, he said “‘mom, I need you to come get me. I’m in the bathroom at school and my
dad is here to pick me up and I’m scared.’” She said that he sounded “terrified.” She got
to the school about six minutes after he called, but he was already gone. When she found
out from office staff that V.L. was gone, she “lost it” because she had given them
paperwork and let them know that she was “afraid that Bryan is going to beat this child.”
2
Although Lacy said V.L. ran away in December 2022, the rest of her testimony and the
other evidence in the case reflects that he ran away before the October 7, 2022 incident
underlying this case, not after.
14.
{¶ 33} Someone at the school told her she should make a police report. When she
passed Chambers’s street on the way to the police station and saw his car in the driveway,
she drove toward the house and called 911. The state played the call for the jury. In it,
Lacy reports that she is having a dispute with her child’s father, she is at the father’s
house, she has a court order saying that the child is to remain in her custody, the child
called from school crying to tell her that his father was there to get him, and she was
scared for the child’s safety. She tells the dispatcher that Chambers lives at the house.
After giving the dispatcher Chambers’s name, Lacy begins screaming. Most of what she
is screaming is unintelligible, but she clearly says “please” repeatedly. When the
dispatcher asks her what is happening, Lacy tells her that “he’s hitting him,” “my son is
screaming,” “come now,” and “my neighbor saw him.” Lacy also reports that V.L. is
bleeding, but that she has him in her car and that she is taking him to the police station.
She later tells the dispatcher that she is going to V.L.’s school. She says that “he beat
[V.L.] up” and that V.L. was bleeding from his face. She is crying and sounds distraught
throughout the call.
{¶ 34} When she pulled up to the house, Lacy saw Chambers and V.L. outside
“tussling” and V.L. crawling on the ground trying to get away and “screaming with all
his might.” She also saw Chambers “doing a lot of the beating . . . .” Lacy said that she
was “frantic” on the 911 call because “the way that the situation is with [her] and
[Chambers], to run up there, he was going to knock [her] out anyway, . . .” she was
scared, she was unsure of what to do, and she needed help.
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{¶ 35} Chambers’s neighbors came outside after Lacy started screaming, and Lacy
thought it was “like something clicked” for Chambers and he stopped. When that
happened, she told V.L. to run and get in the car. Once he was in the car, Lacy took him
back to the school because he was bleeding “profusely,” she “really couldn’t think
straight[,]” and the school, which was about “three streets” from Chambers’s house, was
the first place she thought to go. V.L. was acting hurt, stunned, shocked, and lethargic.
{¶ 36} When they got back to the school, Lacy took V.L. into the office. She told
the staff that she needed help and “that this was going to happen.” Someone took V.L. to
the nurse’s office where he was cleaned up and pictures of his injuries were taken while
they waited for the police and medical help to arrive.
{¶ 37} Although an ambulance took V.L. to the hospital, Lacy was unable to go
with him because she had to pick brother up from school. Later, she joined V.L. at the
hospital, and learned that he was diagnosed with petechiae, “several bruises, busted nose,
[and] busted lip.” He also received a referral to an orthopedic surgeon for a wrist injury.
According to Lacy, the emergency room “knew something was wrong” with V.L.’s wrist,
“but they didn’t have the equipment to diagnose it.” The orthopedic surgeon later
diagnosed him with a right wrist fracture “with a foreign object inside.” He wore a cast
for a month and the object is still in his wrist. The cast made his life more difficult
because he needed assistance showering and was unable to write to do his schoolwork.
He is right-handed, so any “daily living tasks” were difficult for him. Since the incident,
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V.L. is “not doing very well.” He is “emotional” and his “self-worth has been destroyed
because [he] loves his father.”
{¶ 38} Finally, the state showed Lacy some text conversations between her,
Chambers, and Dotson-Chambers. In a message from September 28, 2022, Chambers
wrote “V.L. still will answer[.]” Lacy interpreted that to mean that even though V.L. was
gone, Chambers “was still going to whoop him, he was still going to beat him.”
{¶ 39} On cross, Lacy explained that until she got the emergency temporary
custody order, V.L. lived with Chambers during the week and brother lived with her
during the week, and the children spent the weekends together alternating between her
house and Chambers’s house. This was “[s]omewhat” because of Lacy’s difficulties with
disciplining V.L.
{¶ 40} Regarding the emergency order awarding Lacy temporary custody of V.L.,
Chambers’ attorney presented Lacy with a docket sheet from the juvenile court showing
that Lacy’s motion was served on “mother,” Chambers filed a motion for a continuance
because he had COVID, the juvenile court magistrate held a hearing the same day that
Chambers filed his motion for a continuance, and the magistrate’s decision granting
emergency temporary custody was mailed to Chambers the same day he filed his motion
for a continuance. Lacy said that she “talked to [Chambers] verbally” about the
emergency custody order. She did not remember texting Chambers that he was not
allowed to have any contact with V.L. but said that she “told him that.”
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{¶ 41} When defense counsel questioned Lacy about V.L.’s medical history, she
acknowledged that his records from the emergency room did not show any wrist fractures
or malalignment. However, his medical records from the orthopedic surgeon showed a
distal pole scaphoid fracture, including findings of one x-ray said that V.L. had a
“[h]ealed a distal pole scaphoid fracture.” Lacy said that V.L. did not play sports, he did
not hurt his wrist before October 7, and she did not recall a time when he fell off a
skateboard and she returned him to Chambers with a wrap around his wrist. She also
acknowledged that V.L. has asthma, which sometimes causes him to cough. V.L. was in
counseling before this incident with his father. She was not taking him to counseling
when he was living with Chambers, so she did not know how frequently he was going to
appointments when he did not live with her full-time.
d. V.L.’s testimony
{¶ 42} V.L. was 14 years old at the time of trial. He testified that he has ADHD,
and that he sometimes gets in trouble at school for talking to his classmates.
{¶ 43} On October 7, 2022, V.L. was living with his mother. Before that, and
before he ran away, he was living with Chambers; Dotson-Chambers; brother; and B.C.,
his younger sister (“sister”). He claimed that Chambers and Dotson-Chambers treated
him worse than they treated brother and sister. Specifically, when brother was not at the
house on weekends, Chambers “beat” V.L., and Chambers and Dotson-Chambers
“always give [sister] what she wanted and even if she didn’t, they always blamed [him]
and beat [him].” He said that both sister and brother were sometimes around when he
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was hit. V.L. did not like living with Chambers because Chambers “kept beating” him.
He claimed that he ran away because he “didn’t want to get beat anymore.” He went to
Lacy’s house because he felt safer there.
{¶ 44} The state showed V.L. several text messages from Chambers’s phone to
V.L.’s phone number. Among them was a message that said “[y]ou getting whooped[.]”
Chambers had “whooped” V.L. before, and V.L. was scared it would happen again.
There was also a message that said “I’m beating yall ass put the dog on the cage[.]” The
day V.L. ran away, Chambers sent a message that said “[s]on you just made it worse[.]”
The last message, sent about a week before Chambers got V.L. from school, said “[e]njoy
yourself while you can[,]” which scared V.L. Although he was living with Lacy at that
point, he was scared of Chambers “coming for” him and beating him.
{¶ 45} On October 7, V.L.’s teacher told him that his father was at the school to
pick him up. When he learned that, he called Lacy from the bathroom. He went to the
bathroom so that neither Chambers nor the teachers would see him. He thought that
Chambers was there to “pick [him] up and beat [him].” After V.L. called Lacy, a teacher
took him up front. When he got there, Chambers “opened the door and grabbed [him].”
He appeared angry, but V.L. did not know why. He did not want to leave school and did
not want to go with Chambers. According to V.L., he was not supposed to be with
Chambers and did not have an appointment scheduled that day.
{¶ 46} When he and Chambers got to the car, Chambers “threw” V.L. in the back
seat. As V.L. described it, Chambers “picked [him] up and stuffed [him] in the car.”
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Chambers hurt V.L. when he grabbed him. Chambers initially climbed in the back seat
with him and “banged [V.L.’s] head on the door.” He was not really able to fight back
because Chambers is much bigger than him. Altogether, he estimated that Chambers hit
his head 10 to 15 times. Although he tried, V.L. could not open the doors to get out of
the car because the child locks were on. After closing the back door of the car, Chambers
got in the driver’s seat and drove away from the school. V.L. described him as “being
mean[,]” insulting V.L., and saying that “he couldn’t wait to get [V.L.], he said he
couldn’t wait to do this.” Chambers drove home. V.L. did not want to go because he
knew that Chambers “was going to beat” him, but he did not have a choice and could not
escape.
{¶ 47} When they got to the house, Chambers “dragged” V.L. out of the car and
when V.L. tried to run, Chambers “tackled” him. V.L. was scared when Chambers
tackled him. After tackling V.L., Chambers attempted to choke him by putting both of
his hands around V.L.’s neck.
{¶ 48} After this, the exact sequence of events is not entirely clear from V.L.’s
testimony. V.L. testified that Chambers first choked him by putting both of his hands
around V.L.’s neck, then punched him in his chest and face. At one point, he and
Chambers were on the ground. Chambers kept him on the ground by sitting on him and
holding his arms down. Next, Chambers started punching V.L. more. Then, V.L. said
that when Chambers finished choking him “[h]e switched to his forearm and put his arm
around [V.L.’s] neck . . . .” V.L. had trouble breathing and asked Chambers to stop.
20.
After that, Chambers stopped choking V.L. and “got tired and stopped punching [V.L.].”
Although Chambers stopped choking and punching V.L., he continued to hold V.L.’s
arms so that V.L. could not escape. This is when V.L. told Chambers that he was not
supposed to be with Chambers, and Chambers responded that he had “papers” in the
house. V.L. did not want to go into the house because he was scared.
{¶ 49} Eventually, some of Chambers’s neighbors came outside and yelled at
Chambers to stop. Although it took Chambers a while, he eventually stopped hurting
V.L. This enabled V.L. to escape with Lacy. V.L. reiterated that he did not want to be
with Chambers that morning but did not feel free to leave and was physically unable to
get away because Chambers is much bigger than him.
{¶ 50} When he and Lacy left Chambers’s, they went back to school. At the
school, someone took pictures of “what [Chambers] did to . . .” him and called an
ambulance. V.L.’s face was bloody, which happened because Chambers punched him in
the face. Before leaving school with Chambers that morning, V.L. did not have any
injuries to his neck, bruises on his chest, or pain in his wrist.
{¶ 51} When the ambulance arrived at school, it took him to the hospital. While
he was there, someone took more pictures of his injuries. He said that his “whole body”
hurt. His right wrist hurt because Chambers “put his hands on it when [V.L.] was on the
ground.” V.L. was eventually diagnosed with a broken wrist, which required him to wear
a cast. He did not like wearing the cast because it prevented him from doing things he
liked to do and his hand hurt inside of it. At trial, V.L. showed the jury “a bump and a
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black dot with red marks” on his wrist that he did not have before the morning of October
7, 2022.
{¶ 52} On cross-examination, V.L. discussed one of his former schools. He said
that he got in trouble at that school, including being involved in a fight and talking in
class. He denied that there was a time when he ran away from that school, which
required a teacher to make sure that he stayed in the building.
{¶ 53} At the school he was attending on October 7, he was getting Bs, Cs, and
Ds, but denied getting any Fs. He described these as “[f]air” grades and said Chambers
cared a lot about his grades. Although he denied getting into trouble at school, when
Chambers’s attorney questioned him about specific incidents, he admitted to “throwing a
glacier at the wall outside[,]” bringing his cellphone to class a few times, reading a book
or comic book instead of paying attention in class, and sneaking food into class. He
denied falling asleep in class, falling out of his seat in class, being written up for a
uniform violation, or stealing food from the school.
{¶ 54} V.L. denied ever falling off a skateboard and hurting his wrist.
{¶ 55} V.L. said that he did not tell his teachers that he did not want to leave
school with Chambers and denied telling the nurse at the hospital that he made that
statement to his teachers. He also denied calling Lacy from the car. He said his
statement to the hospital nurse that Chambers tore his school sweatshirt off of him and he
could not find it was true. He was only wearing the shirt when he ran away from
Chambers because he had put it back on.
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{¶ 56} V.L. clarified that “beating” meant that Chambers “would get his belt and
beat [V.L.] whenever he got mad at [V.L.] for anything.” He recalled telling a forensic
interviewer that Chambers had hit him with a belt over 100 different times. However,
despite attending counseling sessions without Chambers present once a week, he had not
disclosed that abuse to his counselor.
{¶ 57} Regarding text messages from Chambers, Chambers’s attorney had V.L.
read a series of messages from June 4 that began with the message from Chambers’s
phone to V.L.’s phone number that says “[y]ou getting whooped[.]” That message was
sent at 9:56 p.m. The next message, sent at 9:57 p.m., says “I told you not to argue with a
eight year old[.]” The following message, also sent at 9:57 p.m., says “[o]h more fun for
me[.]” The final message from Chambers’s phone, sent at 9:58 p.m., says “[d]on’t get on
your phone or the computer[.]” Soon after, a message from V.L.’s phone number was
sent to Chambers’s phone. This message says “[sister] I know this u dad don’t text he
calls[.]” V.L. confirmed that sister was eight years old and admitted that the message
telling him not to be on his phone or computer came from sister.
e. Neighbor witnesses
{¶ 58} Three of Chambers’s neighbors also testified. James, one of Chambers’s
next-door neighbors, testified that she knew V.L. and described him as a quiet, polite, and
respectful kid. About a month before October 7, she received a text message in a
neighborhood group chat from Dotson-Chambers asking everyone to check their doorbell
cameras because V.L. had run away.
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{¶ 59} The morning of October 7, James was in her kitchen when she heard some
“kind of high-pitched” screaming. She assumed that it was coming from her
stepdaughter and her friend upstairs, so she did not “really think much of it.” When she
realized that it was not the girls making noise, she and the girls went outside to
investigate. James saw Chambers and V.L. in their front yard, saw another neighbor on
her porch, and noticed that some type of “altercation” was happening. Although it was
“sort of a blur[,]” she remembered that V.L. was trying to get away from Chambers.
When she first came outside, she thought that V.L. was “in the motion of getting up. So
he wasn’t exactly on the ground, but he was not fully up.” During the incident, James
turned around briefly, and when she turned back V.L. was running away. He looked
“terrified.” She did not notice whether V.L. had any injuries to his face. James also saw
a car pull up in front of the house and heard the woman in the car screaming.
{¶ 60} James’s teenaged stepdaughter testified that she and her friend were in her
upstairs bedroom when she heard “screaming and loud noises.” Although the noises
were quiet at first, she eventually looked out the window and saw “the next door
neighbor, him and his son. They were arguing and he was like on top of him.” She
clarified that “Bryan was on top of the little boy.” She said that “[h]is hands were on the
ground while he was sitting on top of him like . . . he was trying to hold himself above
him, if that makes sense.” However, she later said that she could not remember whether
Chambers’s hands were on the ground or on V.L.’s body. V.L. was lying on the ground
and it looked like his mouth was red, but she could not remember what V.L. was doing
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beyond lying there. She estimated that Chambers was on top of V.L. for around 10
minutes.
{¶ 61} Stepdaughter and her friend eventually went back to what they were doing.
Later, they went back to the window and saw Chambers trying to “drag” V.L. into the
house and “being rough with him[,]” which prompted them to run outside. Once they
were outside, stepdaughter saw that another neighbor was screaming, V.L. had gotten
loose, and Lacy was on the other side of the street in her car. V.L. ran to Lacy and they
“sped off.”
{¶ 62} Finally, Starr, Chambers’s other next-door neighbor, testified. She
described V.L. as skinny, on the tall side for his age, very kind, and considerate.
{¶ 63} Starr saw Chambers that morning as she was walking back from taking her
children to the bus stop. He told her that it was going to be a good day because he was
going to see his boys at school.
{¶ 64} Between 10:00 and 10:30 a.m., she heard “blood curdling screaming” from
outside. She looked out and saw that Lacy was screaming from her car. She also saw
Chambers and V.L. next to Chambers’s driveway. Chambers was “standing over [V.L.]
with his hands on him . . . bent down.” V.L. was lying on the ground motionless; he was
not fighting back or resisting. Starr thought that V.L. “could not be getting air . . . [and]
was in grave danger.” She did not believe that what she saw was an appropriate
interaction between a parent and child.
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{¶ 65} Starr ran toward Chambers and V.L. and screamed at Chambers three times
to try to get him away from V.L. She said “Bryan, stop, Bryan, what are you doing, and
Bryan, stop.” After Starr screamed at him, Chambers stepped away from V.L. When
V.L. stood up, he had blood on his face. At that point, V.L. ran to his mother’s car, and
they drove away. After V.L. and Lacy left, Chambers twice said “‘He came on to me
first.’” Starr said that she went outside and got involved that day “[b]ecause nobody
deserves any level of violence like that, no matter what.”
{¶ 66} Starr knew that Chambers and Dotson-Chambers had a doorbell camera at
their house. She saw some video from that morning but said that it “didn’t show
anything that happened that [she] saw.” She thought that it “looked to [her] like [Dotson-
Chambers] had or somebody had edited videos and cut out certain parts of them.”
{¶ 67} As the prosecutor reviewed the doorbell camera video with her, Starr said
that she had seen only three of the videos before trial, and some of the videos that the
state played included footage that was cut out of the videos that Dotson-Chambers sent
her.
{¶ 68} On cross, Starr admitted that, although she had seen that Chambers had
V.L. “pinned down,” she did not see Chambers hitting or dragging the child. Nor did she
hear V.L. tell Chambers to stop hitting, punching, or choking him. She also admitted that
she had met with and reviewed the videos with the prosecutors but refused to meet with
the defense attorney. On the video that begins at 10:25:49 a.m., Starr heard Chambers
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and V.L. talking on the video. Specifically, she heard V.L. say “no, I haven’t” and “dad,
dad, I’m not supposed to be with you[.]”
f. Police witnesses
{¶ 69} Hayes is one of the officers who responded to V.L.’s school on a report of
an assault involving a student. By the time he got to the school, the other responding
officers were mostly finished with the call, but he discussed the incident with them and
saw pictures of V.L.’s injuries.
{¶ 70} Later that day, Hayes heard that another officer who had been at the school
was going to Chambers’s house, so he went there to assist. As he was leaving the house,
he saw what appeared to be drops of blood on the steps near the driveway, which he
photographed. Hayes heard the other officer at the scene ask Chambers about the blood
on the step but could not hear Chambers’s answer. Although Hayes could not “recall
specifically” what the other officer said in response, he testified that it was “oh, that’s his
blood or oh, that’s your son’s blood.”
{¶ 71} Detective Fauver, who investigated this case, was called to the hospital by
another TPD officer who suspected that the case involved a felony. She thought that V.L.
“looked beat up.” She described him as “tired, exhausted, broken, battered, beat . . .
[t]raumatized.” She did not press him too much for information to avoid further
traumatizing him. Later, she was present during his forensic interview. During his
interview, he seemed sad and traumatized, and his arm was in a sling.
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{¶ 72} After visiting the hospital, Fauver went to Chambers’s house. As she and
the officer with her were leaving, they noticed the blood on the porch. According to her,
the officer with her said, “‘Is that blood?’ And [Chambers] stated, ‘That’s my son’s
blood.’”
{¶ 73} As part of her investigation, Fauver reviewed the surveillance video from
the school. Although V.L. did not appear to be fighting Chambers as he was getting in
the car, he “looked afraid like he did not want to go with this man.”
{¶ 74} Regarding the video footage from the doorbell camera, Fauver said that she
learned about the existence of the doorbell camera from LCCS. Once she knew about the
camera, she tried to get the video footage. She contacted the camera’s service provider,
which told her that the account for Chambers’s house is in Dotson-Chambers’s name and
that she would need a warrant to access the video. Eventually, she got a warrant and the
video, but it was not time stamped and it was different from the footage that Chambers
eventually provided in discovery. Fauver explained that any footage from the doorbell
camera could be deleted once it is downloaded from the cloud and any footage that is not
requested from the service provider is deleted from the cloud after 72 hours. When she
eventually received footage from the service provider, she thought that “there was
minutes missing” from the footage.
{¶ 75} On cross, Fauver said that she reviewed Jones’s report from the hospital
and saw that V.L. told someone at school that he was scared to go with Chambers but
they made him go anyway, which contradicted his trial testimony.
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{¶ 76} When Fauver decided to charge Chambers, she knew that he was V.L.’s
custodial parent, but also knew that Lacy had been awarded possession of V.L.
Chambers’s counsel pointed out that Fauver had testified at an earlier hearing in the case
that Lacy had custody and Chambers did not have custody of V.L. because of abuse
allegations, despite understanding that possession and custody are different, all of which
Fauver admitted. At the time she filed charges, she knew that Lacy had given her and the
school a copy of the order awarding Lacy possession of V.L. During the investigation,
Fauver learned that Dotson-Chambers was served with a copy of the juvenile court’s
order and that Chambers emailed the juvenile court to request a continuance of the
hearing. After walking through the juvenile court’s docket and some of the filings from
that case with Chambers’s attorney, Fauver admitted that Chambers was not personally
served with the order awarding Lacy possession of V.L., which was mailed to
Chambers’s home address on the same day it was granted. However, on redirect, Fauver
read a text message that Chambers sent to Dotson-Chambers on September 15 showing
that he knew Lacy had filed for custody of V.L. The next day, Fauver saw that he sent
Dotson-Chambers a text that said “I will get him i got a plan[.]”
{¶ 77} Finally, Fauver said that it looked like V.L. was pulling away from
Chambers as they were leaving the school but not like he was fighting Chambers. When
counsel asked what Fauver would do “[i]f an arrestee was doing that, . . .” Fauver said
that she would “charge them with resisting.”
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g. Jones’s testimony
{¶ 78} Jones is a forensic nurse who treated V.L. at the hospital and testified as an
expert in forensic nursing. When V.L. arrived at the emergency room in the ambulance,
he was “pretty serious, very solemn. And he made a statements [sic] of anxiety.” V.L.
reported that Chambers had come to school to pick him up and “initially started hitting
him because he had run away and his grades were bad.” V.L. claimed that Chambers
“drug him to his car and threw him in the back seat, then climbed in and was smashing
his head on the door.” When V.L. tried to get away after they got to Chambers’s house,
Chambers “threw him to the ground, sat on top of him and strangled him using two hands
at first and told him he would continue to strangle him if he tried to get away.” V.L. was
trying to get Chambers off of his neck when Chambers switched to using his forearm to
apply pressure to V.L.’s neck. At this point, a neighbor “was pleading to get him to stop .
. .[,]” which is when V.L. was able to get away and run to Lacy’s car.
{¶ 79} V.L. also reported that Chambers “punched him in the face when he was on
top of him and he was covered in blood[,]” but when in the sequence of events this
happened is unclear. He also claimed that Chambers ripped his school sweatshirt off of
him at some point and that the sweatshirt was currently missing.
{¶ 80} Jones’s physical examination of V.L. found numerous injuries, which she
photographed and documented in his medical records.
{¶ 81} On V.L.’s head, Jones documented tenderness at the back of his head;
bruising on the right and left sides of his jaw; dried blood inside his nose and on his lips;
30.
and petechiae on the soft and hard palates on the roof of his mouth. On V.L.’s neck, in
addition to linear abrasions on the front and back, Jones documented several injuries that
she found significant: (1) abrasions on the right side of the neck that included “multiple
small linear and crescent shaped . . .” areas of redness; (2) an area of red, crescent-shaped
abrasions on his lower left jaw; (3) “a 9 centimeter patterned red abrasion to left neck in
diagonal formation[;]” and (4) four red, crescent-shaped abrasions at the base of the left
side of his neck above the collarbone, three of which were in a semicircle. Below V.L.’s
neck, Jones documented bruises in the middle of his abdomen, above his belly button,
and on the right side of his chest; abrasions on the back of his right hand, palm of his
right hand, right knee, left wrist, back of his left hand, and left knee; tenderness on his
right hip; and dried blood under his fingernails.
{¶ 82} The state also presented Jones’s photographs of V.L.’s injuries, including
some that she took using a contrast filter designed to make the injuries more visible.
Although some of the bruises and abrasions were indistinct and difficult to see, the
pictures clearly show dried blood in V.L.’s nose, petechiae in his mouth, and areas of
crescent-shaped abrasions on his neck.
{¶ 83} Regarding the significance of the findings on V.L.’s head and neck, Jones,
who has received training about strangulation, explained that a person can be strangled
“by forearm, by hands, by ligatures or something wrapped around their neck.” There are
often “absolutely no signs, no injuries” with strangulation, so diagnosis is made “by
history if the patient is reporting any pressure to the anterior lateral portion of the neck.”
31.
When Jones gets a history from a child who was strangled, she wants to know how they
were strangled, how long the strangulation lasted, if they think they lost consciousness,
and who the perpetrator was. It is important for her to find out who the perpetrator is to
make sure that the hospital is not discharging the child to a potentially unsafe
environment.
{¶ 84} In addition to clues in a patient’s history, there are some specific physical
injuries indicative of strangulation that Jones looks for, including crescent-shaped
abrasions at the lower jawline and petechiae. Crescent-shaped abrasions are often self-
inflicted when a person is trying to stop someone from strangling them and are “often
indicative of somebody trying to pull somebody off of their neck . . . trying to release that
pressure.” In the context of strangulation, these types of abrasions “[u]sually” come from
fingernails. Jones said that the location of V.L.’s crescent-shaped abrasions was
significant because he told her “that he had hands applied to the interior [sic] portion of
his neck . . . . [H]e had pressure applied in that area so that is consistent with
strangulation.”
{¶ 85} Petechiae result when small blood vessels called capillaries burst because
they are put under pressure and usually occur “above the level where strangulation
occurs.” Capillaries exist where the venous and arterial systems meet to help exchange
blood flow between the two. If the venous system is occluded while the arterial system
continues to pump blood to the head, blood is not able to flow out of the head, which
adds additional pressure to the head or brain. This results in “pinpoint like red or purple
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spots[,]” i.e., petechiae. Jones found the presence of petechiae on V.L.’s body significant
because it indicated strangulation. The petechiae became more significant to Jones when
combined with the abrasions around V.L.’s neck because “it correlates with his history of
what happened to him, that he was strangled.”
{¶ 86} Based on V.L.’s history and her findings, Jones ordered a CT angiogram,
which she called the “gold standard for strangulation.” She described this test as
“tak[ing] lots of x-rays and several views to allow dye to be injected during that time [to]
see if there’s any injury to the blood vessels.” The results showed “soft tissue density”
around his left carotid artery that “may represent hematoma or lymphadenopathy . . .”—
which Jones described as “a collection of blood or swelling”—and was different from his
right side. Jones found this result significant because it also correlated with
strangulation.
{¶ 87} On the whole, based on her education, training, and experience in forensic
nursing, Jones believed that V.L.’s injuries were consistent with manual strangulation.
{¶ 88} The other major physical complaint V.L. had was pain in his right wrist.
Doctors ordered x-rays of the wrist and gave V.L. a splint. According to his medical
records, V.L. was later diagnosed at a pediatric orthopedic surgery practice with a right
distal pole scaphoid fracture.
{¶ 89} Before V.L. left the hospital, Jones developed a safety plan for him that
involved, at the suggestion of an LCCS supervisor, Wood County Children Services
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investigating the incident and V.L. remaining at Lacy’s house until the investigation was
complete.
{¶ 90} On cross-examination, Chambers’s attorney took Jones through some of
the information in V.L.’s medical records. Counsel asked Jones about several of V.L.’s
lab results that were outside of normal reference ranges, but she was unable to interpret
the results because she is not a doctor, and those particular tests are not relevant to her
practice as a forensic nurse. She said that the finding on the CT angiogram of possible
lymphadenopathy meant that V.L. might have had a swollen lymph node, which could
indicate “[a] lot of different things[,]” including increased fluid in the area or an
infection. Nothing in the records indicated that V.L. experienced loss of consciousness.
Additionally, V.L. was previously diagnosed with uncomplicated, moderate, persistent
asthma, which he treats with a nebulizer and an inhaler.
{¶ 91} Regarding V.L.’s wrist fracture, both of his wrists were x-rayed in the
emergency room, and the findings from each set of x-rays showed no fractures. As part
of a neurological exam, V.L.’s right-hand and left-hand grasp were each found to be
strong.
{¶ 92} When V.L. first saw the pediatric orthopedic surgeon about a week after his
emergency room visit, the doctor did not obtain any new x-rays of his right wrist, but said
that a review of the x-rays from the hospital “demonstrate[d] a concern for a
nondisplaced distal pole scaphoid fracture on the right.” The assessment note from this
visit also indicates that V.L. had a “[r]ight distal pole scaphoid fracture, nondisplaced and
34.
questionable foreign body on the volar side of the wrist; the palm.” When V.L. went
back to the orthopedic surgeon a month later, a new x-ray showed a healed fracture in his
right wrist. Jones said that an x-ray would not be able to tell how long ago the fracture
happened.
{¶ 93} To obtain her history of the event, Jones talked to V.L., his principal, who
rode to the hospital with him, and Lacy. She did not talk to Chambers because he was
not at the hospital and, although it would have been helpful, she was not able to view any
of the videos of the incident. In her own notes, Jones wrote that V.L. told school staff
that he was scared to leave that day. She also confirmed that V.L. told her that Chambers
had ripped his sweatshirt off of him but clarified that she “said that it was missing
because it wasn’t there” at the hospital with him.
{¶ 94} V.L. did not explain to Jones how he was trying to get Chambers’s hands
off of his neck or tell her that he scratched himself while he was doing it, and she could
not say for certain that the marks on his neck came from fingernails. When counsel
asked if the abrasions on V.L.’s neck could have been caused by Chambers pulling V.L.’s
sweatshirt from the back and wrapping the collar of the shirt around V.L.’s neck, Jones
said that it “would be unlikely. . . . Usually when you have marks like that, it is a ligature
mark so it is a single mark. So if you’re pulling somebody even by a sweatshirt and
you’re pulling them backwards, you are going to have like a single line, not individual
spots.”
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{¶ 95} Jones also expanded upon her explanation of how petechiae are caused.
She explained that they usually happen when “pressure is applied to the interior [sic]
portion of the neck or lateral portion of the neck to the point where the venous system is
occluded, causing that increased pressure because the arterial system is still allowing
blood to get into the brain. And so the venous system is not allowing that blood flow to
leave the brain. Therefore, those capillaries then burst.” She also said that petechiae can
be caused by any number of things including vomiting, medications, strep throat,
coughing, and asthma. However, her opinion that the petechiae in V.L.’s mouth came
from strangulation would not change if she knew that he was screaming and coughing
during the incident. She was already aware that V.L. had asthma but was not aware that
he had been sent home from school a few weeks earlier because he was vomiting.
{¶ 96} Finally, counsel showed Jones pictures of the right and left sides of V.L.’s
face. Jones noted in her report that there was bruising on the right side but did not note
bruising in a similarly discolored area on the left side. In her testimony, she said that she
thought both areas of discoloration were bruises because V.L. “said he was punched in
the face.”
{¶ 97} On redirect, Jones clarified that infection or asthma would not cause all of
the injuries V.L. had when he came to the emergency room. And although the radiologist
at the hospital did not notice the wrist fracture, V.L. did report that his wrist hurt, and it
was not abnormal for a specialist in pediatric orthopedic surgery to diagnose a fracture at
a follow-up visit that was missed during an initial visit in the emergency room.
36.
{¶ 98} Ultimately, to reach her conclusions, Jones looks at the “full picture,” not
any one piece of evidence in isolation. In this case, the entirety of the evidence indicated
to Jones that V.L. “was strangled and abused.”
{¶ 99} After Jones testified, the state rested.
2. Chambers’s case
{¶ 100} When the state rested, Chambers moved for acquittal under Crim.R. 29,
which the court denied. After the court denied his motion, Chambers presented the
testimony of Dotson-Chambers, Maleeka Kynard, Dotson-Chambers’s coworker, and
brother. He also testified in his own behalf.
a. Dotson-Chambers’s testimony
{¶ 101} Dotson-Chambers and Chambers are married. They are sister’s parents,
and she is V.L. and brother’s stepmother. Dotson-Chambers described Chambers as a
loving father who likes to take his children to the movies and play basketball with them.
The family would go fishing, watch movies at home, and go on vacations together. A
few weeks before V.L. ran away, the family took a trip to Florida. There were no issues
with V.L. on that trip.
{¶ 102} Dotson-Chambers confirmed that V.L. lived with them during the week
and every other weekend for about a year prior to the incident underlying this case. V.L.
ended up living with Dotson-Chambers and Chambers full-time after Lacy and Chambers
had some type of dispute over Chambers not returning the children at an agreed time.
Lacy got police involved in the situation, and when the officers determined that
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Chambers was V.L.’s custodial parent, they “made her leave [V.L.] there and she took
[brother] and then [V.L.] just stayed with [Dotson-Chambers and Chambers] from there
on out until he ran away.” V.L. was getting “really bad grades” at the time.
{¶ 103} Dotson-Chambers characterized her relationship with V.L. as “pretty well.
We never had any problems. He’s never been disrespectful towards me, do what I ask
him to do.” She said that V.L. and sister have a “love-hate sibling relationship.”
Although “they act like they hate each other when they’re together,” they miss each other
when V.L. is gone. She and Chambers treat V.L. and sister, who is about five years
younger than him, “age appropriate, but the same.” The children are expected to
complete the same chores and receive the same allowance.
{¶ 104} Dotson-Chambers testified about Chambers’s parenting style and
disciplinary methods. She described him as “firm, he has high expectations of the
children but overall he is just the more laid back.” Dotson-Chambers would not say that
she and Chambers were strict with V.L., but they “basically just tried to steer [him] in the
right direction.” She knew that Chambers thought that V.L. “kind of reminds him of
himself, hard headed, not listening, and he didn’t want [V.L.] to take the same road he
took.” Dotson-Chambers went on to say that there were “cultural differences” between
black parents and white parents. She believed that black parents “have to be harder on
our boys to make sure that they’re not a statistic.”
{¶ 105} Regarding the disciplinary methods she and Chambers used with the
children, Dotson-Chambers testified that they usually take away access to electronic
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devices. Sometimes Chambers would make V.L. “hold up some water jugs or he could
do some push-ups or sit at the table and read a book, but mostly just no electronics.” She
readily admitted that Chambers would spank or “whoop” V.L. and brother, which she
believed was appropriate discipline. She knew that he would use a belt to spank V.L. and
brother on their buttocks. Although she would not be in the room when Chambers
spanked the children, from what she could hear, Chambers would hit the child one time,
talk to the child about what he had done wrong, hit the child one time, and talk to him
again, as opposed to “a rapid, pop, pop, pop, pop . . . .” The whooping “usually didn’t
last long” and she never saw the children crying afterward; the children would “come
back down and they just join as if nothing happened.”
{¶ 106} Because of V.L.’s behavioral issues, sometime before he ran away,
Chambers enrolled him in a “behavior modification boot camp.” According to Dotson-
Chambers, the program “works with children that have behavior problems trying to
discuss some other alternatives to them acting out, shows them some of the consequences
and try and scare them straight . . . in a sense.” It was an overnight program that only
lasted about ten hours. After V.L. ran away, Chambers contacted the man who runs the
program to ask when the next class was so that he could reenroll V.L.
{¶ 107} Turning to specific issues with V.L., Dotson-Chambers confirmed that
V.L. has asthma, and testified that he gets frequent nosebleeds. She also said that there
had been “some concerns for bullying” at every school V.L. had attended. As an
example, she testified to emailing one of V.L.’s teachers about six months before the
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October 7 incident to report that another student had been using racial slurs in class. In
general, V.L. had issues with “not wanting to follow the rules at school.” He would be
on his computer instead of doing schoolwork and “had a few altercations with other
students.” One of those altercations involved another student calling V.L. names despite
V.L.’s requests for the student to stop, so V.L. poked the other student, and the other
student retaliated by pushing V.L. into a wall. V.L.’s grade card for the 2021-2022
school year, when he was living with her and Chambers, showed that he received almost
all As and Bs. A printout of his grades for the first two quarters of the 2022-2023 school
year, when he was primarily living with Lacy, showed that he received mostly Cs, Ds,
and Fs.
{¶ 108} During the first month and a half of the 2022-2023 school year, V.L.’s
school documented numerous incidents of his misbehavior, which it provided to
Chambers and Dotson-Chambers. Among the problems in this report were sneaking food
into class, talking during independent work and tests, not asking for printed homework
when his computer was broken, being off task and reading a book that was not his
assigned work, uniform violations, messing around and falling out of his seat, having his
cellphone in his pocket, falling asleep several times in the same class, throwing
something at the school building after being told to throw it in the gravel, and “trying to
swat a fly, off task not working on work then marching in the class during an activity.”
{¶ 109} The report also included notes from school staff about communications
with V.L.’s parents, which addressed some of his behaviors, noted when teachers
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responded to his parents’ emails, and informed his parents when he was not completing
schoolwork and was in danger of failing a class. There is also a note indicating that a
staff member took a statement from V.L. about a bullying incident. Some of the
behavioral incidents were confirmed with emails between Dotson-Chambers and school
staff. She believed that one email chain showed a pattern of “messing around” and
“inappropriate” behavior when V.L. was living with Lacy after running away from
Chambers’s house.
{¶ 110} The day V.L. ran away, sister called Dotson-Chambers crying and
hysterical because she thought that somebody had taken V.L. When Lacy called to ask
what Dotson-Chambers knew about the situation, Dotson-Chambers told her that she was
unsure, but thought that it might be “because [V.L.] was put on punishment two days ago
and his phone was taken and that he had left because [sister] can’t find him.” Dotson-
Chambers and Lacy drove around separately looking for V.L. An hour or so after they
began searching, Lacy called Dotson-Chambers and told her that “she had [V.L.] and she
wasn’t letting him come back because she said he was being mistreated at [Chambers’s]
house.”
{¶ 111} When Dotson-Chambers reviewed text messages between her, Chambers,
and Lacy, she did not find any messages from Lacy telling Chambers that he was not
allowed to have possession of V.L.
{¶ 112} Turning to October 7, Dotson-Chambers became aware that something
was going on at the house when she got an alert from the doorbell camera app on her
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phone. She knew that Chambers was going to get V.L. from school to have a talk with
him because V.L. would run away from Dotson-Chambers when she came to pick sister
up after school (presumably because he thought that Dotson-Chambers was going to try
to take him home with her) and they had received the list of V.L.’s behavioral incidents
from school the day before. She saw Chambers pulling into the driveway, so she
switched to the interior camera on their surveillance system so she could watch what
Chambers said to V.L. After waiting a couple of minutes for them to come inside, she
switched back to the doorbell camera to see what was taking them so long. She saw V.L.
“trying to take off running and Bryan had just got him out of the car and [V.L.] tried to
take off running and Bryan grabbed him and they both fell in the grass.”
{¶ 113} Out of an abundance of caution, Dotson-Chambers reported the incident
to her supervisor at LCCS. She showed the supervisor the video and explained that she
did not have any concerns of abuse, which the supervisor agreed with. According to
Dotson-Chambers, that was “pretty much it.” However, she later said that she attempted
to send the videos to her supervisor’s supervisor by text message so they could make a
report to Wood County Children Services. She was able to send the shorter videos but
had difficulty sending the longest one. Although she tried to cut that video into smaller
segments, she was “in shock still that all of this stuff happened and [she] didn’t get to
send that [long] one.” When she texted the videos to her neighbors, she ran into the same
issue with the longest video’s file being too large to send by text message.
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{¶ 114} To explain the gaps in the video footage, Dotson-Chambers told the jury
that the doorbell camera records whenever it picks up movement but will “stop recording
and then start back up.” She denied deleting any of the videos from the doorbell camera;
she downloaded all of the videos, and they were all stored on her cellphone. She did not
find anything when she checked her deleted items folder to see if she accidentally deleted
a video file. She also said that she contacted the service provider to find out if video had
been deleted, which would account for the four-minute gap in the footage, and had
volunteered to provide her phone to the state for it to examine, which it had not done.
Additionally, Dotson-Chambers denied altering any of the videos to try to protect
Chambers. The only alteration she made was trying to shorten the longest video so that
she could send the file by text message, but she claimed that “the whole video is still
there.” She said, “I’m not going to cover up for nobody, not when it comes to a kid.”
{¶ 115} On cross, Dotson-Chambers said that she “believe[s] that children can be
disciplined reasonably by their parent . . . .” She agreed with the prosecutor that,
although parents are allowed to physically discipline their children, there is a line
between corporal punishment and causing a child serious physical harm. She did not
believe that strangling or intentionally breaking a bone were appropriate forms of
discipline.
{¶ 116} Regarding Lacy’s motion for emergency custody of V.L., Dotson-
Chambers said that V.L. “lied and told [Lacy] something happened at the house[,]” but
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conceded that Lacy had sufficient concerns about V.L.’s treatment at Chambers’s house
to warrant filing her custody motion.
{¶ 117} The morning of October 7, Chambers told Dotson-Chambers that he was
going to get V.L. from school and take him to their house because V.L. “had ran away
and he wouldn’t come home.” Under “other” circumstances, Dotson-Chambers agreed
with the prosecutor that the best place for a child who is having difficulties in school is at
the school but said that the best place for a child who had run away from home is at the
home. She was unaware of any appointment with, as the prosecutor put it, “somebody
outside of the family” scheduled for V.L. that day. The only appointment he had was a
“[o]ne-on-one appointment with his dad.”
{¶ 118} Dotson-Chambers did not recall trying to speak to Chambers through the
doorbell camera app because “[e]verything happened really fast and [she] was in shock.”
{¶ 119} Dotson-Chambers knew how to watch footage from the doorbell camera,
download videos, and delete videos in the doorbell camera app but did not know how to
use any other features in the app. In addition to Dotson-Chambers and Chambers, sister
had access to the doorbell camera account. At the time of the incident, Chambers was
with V.L. and sister was at school without her phone.
{¶ 120} Dotson-Chambers insisted that she did not delete any portions of the
doorbell camera video from that morning. According to her, “[a]s far as anything that is
missing, sometimes the [doorbell camera] records, sometimes it doesn’t record. I don’t
have any control over that. . . . [I]t cuts on and off. Sometimes the Wifi go out. I mean,
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it is just different things that unfortunately, I have no control over.” She believed that
“[i]f [video] was recorded . . .” the service provider should have been able to produce it in
response to the search warrant.
{¶ 121} Dotson-Chambers explained that she sent the videos to Starr because Starr
is her friend, she heard Starr screaming on the video, and she was trying to get Starr to
understand that Chambers was not hurting V.L. She was not trying to find out what Starr
saw; she wanted to ensure that Starr understood the whole incident. She was not
surprised to learn that Starr testified to first seeing a portion of the video footage during
trial. She reiterated that she was unable to send one of the video files by text message
because it was too large.
{¶ 122} Dotson-Chambers spoke to the Wood County caseworker investigating
the case. She told the caseworker that the videos did not show Chambers punching V.L.,
but she “can’t argue that” V.L. had petechiae. Although she loves her husband, Dotson-
Chambers would not do “anything” for him.
b. Other witnesses
{¶ 123} In addition to Dotson-Chambers, Chambers presented the testimony of
brother and Kynard, an LCCS caseworker who is Dotson-Chambers’s coworker.
{¶ 124} Brother, who is autistic, briefly testified about Chambers’s disciplinary
methods. He never saw Chambers disciplining V.L. but “can hear it.” He would hear
screams and crying, and V.L. would look sad when he came downstairs.
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{¶ 125} Kynard testified that, although she works with Dotson-Chambers, she
does not know Chambers personally. On October 7, Dotson-Chambers came to Kynard’s
desk to show her video of Chambers bringing V.L. home. In the video, Chambers was
trying to get V.L., who was fighting him, into the house. Because V.L. was fighting,
Chambers “had him on the ground and was like trying to restrain him from running away.
And so [Chambers] was like standing over him with his hands like holding the kid
down.” After that, Kynard saw V.L. get up to try to run away a second time, Chambers
“again put [him] back on the ground trying to get him to stop running away[,]” a phone
fall to the ground, neighbors come outside, and V.L. get up and run. She thought that the
video lasted between five and ten minutes.
{¶ 126} Before Dotson-Chambers showed Kynard the video, Kynard heard her
calling out “his” name through the doorbell camera app on her phone.
{¶ 127} When Chambers’s attorney asked Kynard if she felt that Chambers’s
actions were “appropriate given the situation[,]” she said that she was not testifying in
“the capacity of [her] job” and did not think that she had all of the facts necessary to
make that determination. She reported this incident to her supervisor, “but it was already
reported before [she] reported it.”
{¶ 128} Detectives interviewed Kynard about this incident. She gave them
essentially the same version of events that she testified to at trial. She said that she felt
“blind-sided” by the interview because she initially thought that the detectives wanted to
speak with her in a professional capacity related to one of her cases. She “didn’t know
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kind of what they were questioning [her] about so [she] didn’t know the ramifications of
what everything was.” The detectives did not show her or talk to her about any other
documentation related to Chambers’s case.
{¶ 129} On cross, Kynard characterized what V.L. was doing in the video as
“trying to get away from” Chambers as opposed to fighting with Chambers. She could
not recall the exact sequence of events in the video she saw but did not see Chambers go
up to the car to ask V.L. a question and thought that the first thing she saw might have
been the cellphone falling to the ground. She also said that the detectives did “not really”
force her to continue after she told them that she was not comfortable answering
questions. However, she said that they “kind of told me that I kind of like have to answer
them because I am a witness to this for the [doorbell] camera . . . .”
c. Chambers’s testimony
{¶ 130} Finally, Chambers took the stand in his own defense. Around 2016, he
and Lacy agreed to him taking custody of V.L. because V.L. was having issues that Lacy
was unable to handle, and V.L. wanted to live with Chambers.
{¶ 131} Chambers said that he and V.L. had a very good relationship. Before the
incident on October 7, V.L. had never been a “rebellious child.” Chambers, who was an
over-the-road truck driver, would talk to his children daily to ask about what was going
on in their lives, make sure they were doing their chores, and see how school was going.
He would attend doctor and counseling appointments in person when he was home and
through a video app when he was out of town.
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{¶ 132} To punish V.L., Chambers would take away videogames or make V.L.
“[w]rite sentences,” read a book, hold up water jugs, or do push-ups and jumping jacks.
To clarify what a “whooping” meant in his house, Chambers explained that he would
take the offending child to an upstairs room, which eliminated the humiliation of the
other children laughing at the child being punished, spank the child with his belt, and talk
to the child between spankings about what they needed to do to correct their behavior.
Over V.L.’s lifetime, Chambers estimated that he had whooped V.L. a total of 30 to 40
times. He was strict with V.L. because of V.L.’s ongoing pattern of problematic
behaviors and said that “it was all about getting him in order.”
{¶ 133} Chambers thought that V.L.’s behavioral issues had “went times ten”
since he went back to living with Lacy, and he was trying to address and correct the
problems. He said that the “plan” he referred to in one of his text messages to Dotson-
Chambers included reenrolling V.L. in the boot camp program and getting him from
school when he got home from his work trip. As part of that plan, Chambers contacted
the man who operates the boot camp program shortly after V.L. ran away to inquire about
reenrolling him. This part of the plan fell through because one of V.L.’s older brothers
did not bring V.L. to the camp. Chambers resorted to taking V.L. from school to talk
about his behavior because Lacy would not reply to his text messages about V.L.’s
escalating behavioral incidents at school. Chambers’s text messages telling V.L. to enjoy
himself while he could and that V.L. “made it worse” were in response to V.L.’s
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behaviors continuing to escalate. He sent the “made it worse” text the day V.L. ran away,
which happened while Chambers was working out of town.
{¶ 134} For the two weeks leading up to October 7, Chambers had been asking
V.L. about his grades and behavior at school. According to Chambers, he had been
saying to V.L., “look, you got something you want to tell me? No matter what, I’m
trying to get it out you now. What you got to tell me, anything going on?” V.L.
consistently denied any issues at school. However, that morning, Chambers was able to
access the school’s online grade system and was able to see what V.L.’s grades actually
were.
{¶ 135} When Chambers picked V.L. up from school, V.L. was “fidgety . . . [and]
his eyes got big . . . .” V.L. did not seem to expect Chambers. As they left the school,
V.L. tried to go back in. Chambers grabbed him and said that V.L. was “trying to fall
down and stuff like that . . .” so Chambers “pick[ed] him up and put him in the car.”
Chambers described what he was doing in the school surveillance video as “trying to get
[V.L.] to get up and walk for real but he wasn’t going for it.” As he was trying to get
V.L. into the car, Chambers had his hands on V.L.’s arms, back of his shirt, back of his
neck, hands, and back of his head. Chambers “pinned him down” twice and then
“pushed” V.L. into the car and told him to sit down. Chambers denied banging V.L.’s
head against the window or punching him. He had the child locks activated on the back
doors of the car because he was concerned that V.L. would open the door in traffic and
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jump out. The fact that V.L. previously “ran away for no reason” made Chambers
concerned about V.L. trying to jump out of the car.
{¶ 136} During the short drive from the school to Chambers’s house, Chambers
explained to V.L. what he was doing and why and that Chambers had received a progress
report from school outlining V.L.’s problematic behaviors in August and September.
V.L. was on his phone during the drive.
{¶ 137} Chambers reviewed the doorbell camera video footage.3 In the video that
shows him getting V.L. out of the car, he asked V.L. which way V.L. wanted to go
because V.L.’s back was to him, and he was asking V.L. which direction he wanted to
exit the car. As Chambers was trying to get V.L. into the house, he grabbed V.L.’s arms
and had his hands on V.L.’s wrist. Next, Chambers described himself pushing down on
V.L.’s shoulders and asking “[w]hen you gonna stop?” V.L. started coughing soon after
Chambers got him out of the car, “but not from nothing [Chambers is] doing.” Chambers
pointed out that his right hand was free and his left was pressing down on V.L.’s
shoulder. Chambers threw V.L.’s phone on the ground because he was getting reports
from the school about V.L. being on his phone. Chambers recognized the voices of “Liz”
and Lacy on the video, and heard Lacy saying “you gonna die.” Chambers said that V.L.
had blood on his face because Chambers “smacked him earlier in the video with an open
3
Defense counsel did not refer to timestamps as she was reviewing the video with
Chambers, so it is not entirely clear which specific parts of the videos correspond to
Chambers’s narrations in his testimony.
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hand.” The sweatshirt V.L. had on in the video was the same one he was wearing when
Chambers picked him up from school and it was not ripped. Presumably at the end of the
video, V.L. picked up “a charger and a card.”
{¶ 138} In the video in which V.L. tells Chambers that he is not supposed to be
with Chambers, Chambers said he “could just hear his momma talking. That’s his
momma talking. That’s what I was taking it as. No little kid should know what’s going
on in a legal matter, that’s what’s going on between two parents. He shouldn’t know.”
{¶ 139} In one video, Chambers said that he was talking to V.L. with his hand on
the collar of V.L.’s shirt, but he did not have his hands around V.L.’s neck and was not
strangling him. He was telling V.L. “about the paperwork in the house and how he be
acting up in school.”
{¶ 140} Chambers explained that he told V.L. that he was going to be held
responsible for his grades and behaviors because Chambers thought that he ran away
after Chambers found out about his performance in school and “by running to his
mother’s house, he thought he was going to be untouchable . . . .” In effect, Chambers
was “telling him he still going to be held responsible for his actions because he still going
to be held to the same standards no matter where he’s at.”
{¶ 141} Chambers smacked V.L. with the front of his left hand and told him to
“[b]e your ass still[,]” which meant “[b]e still, son.” He said that he is a “big guy” and
thought that he “probably would have broke something” if he had punched V.L. It would
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have been “easy” for Chambers to hurt V.L. if he wanted to, but that was not his
“purpose” or “mission” and he never intended to hurt his son.
{¶ 142} Chambers denied strangling or punching V.L. during the four minutes that
were not recorded by the doorbell camera. He also denied intending to break V.L.’s arm
or hurt him in any way. He did not intend to pick V.L. up from school and beat him and
would not have picked V.L. up from school that day if he had known that V.L. would be
injured.
{¶ 143} Regarding the emergency custody order, Chambers testified that he knew
Lacy filed a motion for custody, knew of the hearing date on September 26, 2022, and
asked to have the hearing continued, but he was not personally served with a copy of
Lacy’s motion and never received a copy of the emergency order. Lacy did not mention
the emergency custody order or tell Chambers that he was not to have contact with V.L.
in text or phone conversations Chambers had with her after the juvenile court issued the
order.
{¶ 144} As a potential alternate explanation for V.L.’s wrist injury, Chambers
testified that V.L. came to his house in 2018 with an elastic bandage on his right arm. He
said that he had an accident on his brother’s skateboard, which Lacy confirmed. Shortly
after that, Lacy “took him away” and Chambers did not see him for a few months.
{¶ 145} On cross, Chambers explained that V.L. had attended three different
schools over approximately four years. He was picked on at these schools because he
wore glasses, not because he frequently switched schools. Chambers did not think that
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V.L. brought snacks to class in an effort to make friends. To help V.L. with his social
problems, Chambers gave him “inspirational talks” and explained that the children who
tattled on him when he did something wrong were not really his friends. He would talk
to V.L. daily to help him with any problems he had.
{¶ 146} Chambers clarified that he sent the text message that he “had a plan” to
Lacy and that his plan involved sending V.L. to the boot camp. The state’s exhibits
reflect that he sent this message to Dotson-Chambers. Chambers said that he sent the text
message telling V.L. to “enjoy yourself while you can” in response to V.L.’s behaviors
escalating and after Lacy did not respond to his messages. Chambers believed in, as the
prosecutor put it, “scaring someone straight,” and sent that text to V.L. to scare him.
Chambers disagreed with the prosecutor’s assessment that he had been “terrorizing” V.L.,
which is why V.L. was “scared” of Chambers that morning. Instead, Chambers said, “he
was scared because he . . . didn’t think I was going to come up there. . . . I be out of
town. You never know when I’m coming.” V.L. acted like he did not expect Chambers
to be at the school—not like he was scared of Chambers—when he walked into the
office.
{¶ 147} Although he believed in spanking his children with a belt, Chambers did
not believe in smacking them, and October 7 was the first time that he had ever smacked
one of his children. He admitted that he lost control that morning because V.L. was
being defiant. He denied having anger issues and disagreed with the prosecutor’s
assessment that he “went from zero to one hundred pretty frickin’ quick . . .” in the video.
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Chambers claimed that his reaction “was a build up” and he “had never seen [his] son act
like this toward [him].” He also denied hitting V.L. because he heard Lacy talking
through V.L. and was mad at Lacy. In other words, Chambers did not take his anger at
Lacy out on V.L. Instead, he reiterated that he heard “a woman talking to a child about
grown folk business that he shouldn’t even know. It’s between [Chambers] and her
what’s going on.”
{¶ 148} The “appointment” that V.L. had on October 7 was with Chambers. He
did not consider telling the school that V.L. had an appointment a lie; he believed that, as
the custodial parent, he could get his child out of school if he chose to.
{¶ 149} Chambers described V.L.’s behavior on the school surveillance video like
a toddler’s, i.e., V.L. “fell down and [Chambers] picked him up.” Chambers had to
physically move V.L. toward the car because V.L. “wasn’t trying to stand up.” He had to
get into the back seat of the car with V.L. because “as [Chambers] put him in he was
trying to come out. [Chambers] pushed him back and said, sit your butt down.”
{¶ 150} The prosecutor had Chambers walk through some type of demonstration
of his positioning and the manner in which he smacked V.L., but it is impossible to tell
from the transcript what, exactly, Chambers and the prosecutor were showing the jury.
However, during the demonstration Chambers said that (1) he never restricted V.L.’s
airway; (2) V.L.’s coughing was caused by asthma; (3) he smacked V.L. in the nose with
his open left hand; (4) V.L.’s nose bleeds “very, very easily[;]” (5) Chambers was doing
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“[n]othing” with his hands until he smacked V.L.; and (6) both he and V.L. were “out a
breath” because they “had a nice struggle out there.”
{¶ 151} Chambers admitted that he had access to the doorbell camera’s app but
denied deleting any video footage. He said that sometimes the camera records and
sometimes it does not.
{¶ 152} Chambers denied choking, punching, or dragging V.L. from school
against his will. However, he admitted to tackling V.L. and giving him a bloody nose.
He said that he has “never and will never hurt [his] damn child.” He did not think that
giving V.L. a bloody nose constituted hurting him. In the end, Chambers believed that
“[a] child should always do what they parent tells them, no matter what the situation is. . .
[and] should never tussle with their parent[,]” but denied that “it’s all [V.L.’s] fault . . . .”
C. Outcome and sentencing
{¶ 153} The jury found Chambers guilty of both charges.
{¶ 154} At sentencing, Chambers argued that his convictions should merge
because he committed both crimes with a single act and a single state of mind. He
claimed that (1) there was no evidence of two separate, identifiable harms; (2) there was
only one animus because the “State’s argument from opening to close was that Bryan
Chambers had a plan and his plan was to pick his son up from school and take him back
to his house to terrorize him . . . [;]” and (3) it would have been impossible for Chambers
to commit the felonious assault without committing the kidnapping and the kidnapping
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was done “with the sole purpose to commit the felonious assault, . . .” so it was incidental
to the felonious assault.
{¶ 155} In response, the state argued that it presented evidence that V.L. was
terrified of Chambers and that Chambers committed the crimes with separate animus. It
also argued that the distance Chambers moved V.L. showed that the kidnapping and
felonious assault were two separate incidents and should not merge.
{¶ 156} The court found that the kidnapping and felonious assault charges were
not allied offenses of similar import. It determined that Chambers did not commit the
crimes “simultaneously by a single course of conduct resulting in the same harm.”
Instead, the “kidnapping and felonious assault convictions were committed separately
and based on separate and distinct acts that resulted in separate identifiable harm.” First,
Chambers went to V.L.’s school, removed him from school against his will, shoved him
in the back of the car, locked him in with the child locks on so he could not escape, and
drove him three or four blocks to Chambers’s house. These acts made up the kidnapping.
Next, Chambers dragged V.L. from the car, pinned him down, and assaulted him.
“Although it is impossible to pinpoint when [V.L.’s] wrist was broken during this event,
based on [V.L.’s] testimony, the neighbor’s testimony, as well as the [doorbell camera]
video footage, the strangulation clearly took place in [Chambers’s] driveway and yard.”
These acts made up the felonious assault. Because the court found that the charges were
not allied offenses, it declined to merge them.
56.
{¶ 157} The court sentenced Chambers to “a term of 10 years” for the kidnapping
conviction and “6 years” for the felonious assault conviction. It ordered him to serve the
sentences concurrently “for a total stated prison term of 10 years.” It went on to tell him
that his “minimum stated sentence as to [the kidnapping conviction] is 10 years and your
maximum stated sentence is 15 years with a 5-year indefinite tail. Your total minimum
stated sentence is 10 years and your total maximum stated sentence is 15 years.”
{¶ 158} In its sentencing entry, the trial court ordered that Chambers “serve a term
of 10 years in prison as to [the kidnapping conviction]. [Chambers’s] minimum stated
prison term as to [the kidnapping conviction] is 10 years. [Chambers’s] maximum
state[d] prison term as to [the kidnapping conviction] is 15 years. The indefinite portion
of [Chambers’s] prison term is 5 years.” It also ordered that Chambers “serve a term of 6
years in prison as to [the felonious assault conviction,]” and serve the prison terms
concurrently. Finally, it stated that Chambers’s “total minimum stated sentence is 10
years” and his “total maximum stated sentence is 15 years.”
{¶ 159} Chambers now appeals, raising three assignments of error:
(1.) Did the trial court properly eliminate the affirmative defense of
parental discipline because it only applies to domestic violence?
(2.) Was there sufficient competent, credible evidence to support the
convictions for kidnapping and felonious assault where nothing
demonstrated that appellant acted knowingly or purposefully in seriously
injuring or terrorizing V.L., or that V.L. was seriously injured by appellant?
57.
(3.) Did the trial court properly deny merging the convictions for
kidnapping and felonious assault where appellant’s actions were one course
of conduct and the convictions were resulting from allied offenses of
similar import?
{¶ 160} Additionally, the state filed a cross-appeal relating to Chambers’s
sentence:
I. Pursuant to the recently enacted Reagan Tokes Act, all defendants
convicted of a non-life felony of the first or second degree that was
committed on or after March 22, 2019 must receive an indefinite sentence.
II. Law and Analysis
A. The trial court did not abuse its discretion by excluding the reasonable parental
discipline defense.
{¶ 161} In his first assignment of error, Chambers argues that the trial court erred
by preventing him from arguing reasonable parental discipline as an affirmative defense.
He contends that the trial court’s “strict rule” that reasonable parental discipline is a
defense only to a charge of domestic violence violated his due process right to present a
complete defense because he did not have the opportunity to present “certain testimony”
or instruct the jury on reasonable parental discipline.
{¶ 162} The state responds that the trial court did not abuse its discretion by
denying Chambers’s request to give a jury instruction on the affirmative defense of
reasonable parental discipline. It contends that reasonable parental discipline cannot be a
defense to felonious assault because “causing serious physical harm to a child in order to
58.
discipline that child is legally and factually unreasonable.” It also points out that courts
have limited the defense to charges of child endangering, misdemeanor assault, and
domestic violence—cases in which the offender has caused harm that does not rise to the
level of serious physical harm.
{¶ 163} Although the United States Constitution guarantees criminal defendants a
meaningful opportunity to present a complete defense, that right is not unlimited and is
subject to reasonable restrictions. State v. Wesson, 2013-Ohio-4575, ¶ 59, citing Crane v.
Kentucky,
476 U.S. 683, 690 (1986); and United States v. Scheffer,
523 U.S. 303, 308
(1998). One of the reasonable restrictions a court can impose is preventing a defendant
from presenting matters—including affirmative defenses—that are not legally relevant to
the case. Kettering v. Berry,
57 Ohio App.3d 66, 69 (2d Dist. 1990).
{¶ 164} Chambers’s arguments implicate the trial court’s decisions to exclude
evidence and exclude an instruction from its final charge to the jury. A trial court has
broad discretion to admit or exclude evidence, and we review its decisions for abuse of
discretion. State v. Whites Landing Fisheries, LLC, 2017-Ohio-7537, ¶ 42 (6th Dist.).
{¶ 165} Generally, the trial court should give requested jury instructions “if they
are correct statements of law that are applicable to the facts in the case, and reasonable
minds might reach the conclusion sought by the instruction.” Miller v. Defiance
Regional Med. Ctr., 2007-Ohio-7101, ¶ 40 (6th Dist.), citing Murphy v. Carrollton Mfg.
Co.,
61 Ohio St.3d 585, 591 (1991). We also review a trial court’s determination that
sufficient facts do or do not exist to support a jury instruction for an abuse of discretion.
59.
State v. Hopings,
2007-Ohio-450, ¶ 35 (6th Dist.). Abuse of discretion means that the
trial court’s decision was unreasonable, arbitrary, or unconscionable. State ex rel. Askew
v. Goldhart,
75 Ohio St.3d 608, 610 (1996).
1. Evidence
{¶ 166} First, the trial court did not abuse its discretion by excluding additional
evidence of V.L.’s behavior. Chambers does not point to any specific evidence that he
believes the trial court improperly excluded or that he would have introduced if allowed.
He only speculates that he “would have surely had reason to expand with more testimony
and evidence [of V.L.’s behavior] if parental discipline was properly allowed as a theory
of his defense.” When counsel does not develop an argument on appeal, we will not
create one for them. State v. Henning, 2023-Ohio-2905, ¶ 25 (6th Dist.).
{¶ 167} Chambers’s argument also ignores the fact that the trial court specifically
“allow[ed] testimony . . . regarding prior behavior and or disciplinary issues with [V.L.]
within a reasonable time frame before this alleged incident”—including testimony about
V.L.’s participation in the boot camp program 17 months earlier, despite initially ruling
that information too remote in time to be relevant. During the trial, defense counsel
acknowledged that “[t]here has been extensive testimony elicited both on direct and cross
examination in regards to prior disciplinary actions” involving V.L. Although this
evidence did not extend as far back in time as Chambers wanted, the trial court allowed
him to present a significant amount of information about V.L.’s behavior to the jury—
60.
despite prohibiting him from arguing reasonable parental discipline as an affirmative
defense.
{¶ 168} By the end of the trial, the defense had presented evidence of V.L.’s
behavior in the months leading up to October 7 that included (1) at least a dozen incidents
of him acting out at school; (2) evidence of his poor grades; (3) multiple texts discussing
his behavioral issues; (4) testimony about his participation in the boot camp program and
Chambers’s desire for him to repeat the program; (5) information about him running
away from Chambers’s home and the circumstances leading up to it; and (6) testimony
that his behavioral problems increased and his grades suffered when he began living with
Lacy. Without Chambers pointing to something specific the trial court should have
admitted, we see no abuse of discretion in the trial court’s handling of the evidence of
V.L.’s behavior.
2. Jury instruction
{¶ 169} Similarly, the trial court did not abuse its discretion by denying
Chambers’s request for a jury instruction on reasonable parental discipline. Although
Ohio courts recognize that parents have the right to use corporal punishment to discipline
their children, that right is not unlimited. In re Kristen V., 2008-Ohio-2994, ¶ 67 (6th
Dist.); State v. Phillips,
2014-Ohio-5322, ¶ 16 (5th Dist.). A parent’s reasonable
discipline of his child has been established as an affirmative defense to a charge of (1)
domestic violence under R.C. 2919.25(A), which prohibits an offender from causing
physical harm; (2) misdemeanor assault under R.C. 2903.13(A), which prohibits an
61.
offender from causing physical harm; and (3) child endangering under R.C. 2919.22(B),
which specifically prohibits punishment that is excessive or creates a substantial risk of
serious physical harm. State v. Faggs,
2020-Ohio-523, ¶ 29;
Phillips at ¶ 18, citing State
v. Suchomski,
58 Ohio St.3d 74, 75 (1991). Once the state meets its burden of proof on
all elements of a charged offense, “‘the burden of proof, by a preponderance of the
evidence, for an affirmative defense other than self-defense . . . is upon the accused.’”
Faggs at ¶ 26, quoting R.C. 2901.05(A).
{¶ 170} Parental discipline exceeds the bounds of reasonableness “when the act
creates substantial pain, serious injury, or a risk of death.” State v. Thornton, 2022-Ohio-
3452, ¶ 32 (1st Dist.), citing State v. Adaranijo, 2003-Ohio-3822, ¶ 12 (1st Dist.). The
terms “substantial pain, serious injury, [and] risk of death” clearly imply something more
than the “‘slightest injury [that] is sufficient proof of physical harm . . .’” as defined in
R.C. 2901.01(A)(3). State v. Williams,
2023-Ohio-4456, ¶ 15 (6th Dist.), quoting State v.
Baxter,
2019-Ohio-4855, ¶ 9 (1st Dist.); see R.C. 2901.01(A)(3) (Physical harm is “any
injury, illness, or other physiological impairment, regardless of its gravity or duration.”).
But they also imply less harm than that required to prove serious physical harm as
defined in R.C. 2901.01(A)(5)—i.e., the type of harm that is necessary to prove felonious
assault under R.C. 2903.11(A) and is an element of kidnapping under R.C.
2905.01(A)(3). See, e.g., R.C. 2901.01(A)(5)(b), (7)-(8) (Serious physical harm is “[a]ny
physical harm that carries a substantial risk of death[,]” meaning “a strong possibility, as
contrasted with a remote or significant possibility, . . .” that death may occur. (Emphasis
62.
added.)). When viewed in that light, reasonable parental discipline can only logically be
a viable affirmative defense if the harm the defendant allegedly caused does not rise to
the level of serious physical harm.
{¶ 171} In this case, the two most serious injuries the state accused Chambers of
inflicting on V.L.—a broken wrist and strangulation—each constitutes serious physical
harm within the meaning of R.C. 2901.01(A)(5) and is a more severe injury than those
encompassed by “substantial pain, serious injury, [and] risk of death.” See State v. Dean,
2018-Ohio-1740, ¶ 47 (6th Dist.), quoting State v. Lee,
2008-Ohio-253, ¶ 30 (6th Dist.)
(“‘[W]here the assault causes a bone fracture, the element of serious physical harm is
met.’”); State v. Stevens,
2021-Ohio-2643, ¶ 94, 109 (11th Dist.) (“[P]hysical injuries
indicative of strangulation constitute sufficient evidence of ‘serious physical harm.’”).
{¶ 172} Moreover, there is more than enough evidence in the record to
demonstrate that Chambers caused these two injuries. Although Chambers implied that
V.L. fractured his wrist in 2018 while skateboarding, there is nothing in the record to
support this. In contrast, there is substantial evidence that Chambers caused V.L.’s wrist
fracture—whether he intended to or not—on October 7, 2022. When V.L. arrived at the
emergency room that day, he complained of wrist pain. Although the emergency room
radiologist did not see a fracture in V.L.’s x-ray, the emergency room doctors referred
him to a specialist in pediatric orthopedic surgery to have his wrist evaluated. Several
days later, using the same x-ray taken in the emergency room, the orthopedist found
evidence of a distal pole scaphoid fracture. In other words, evidence of the fracture
63.
existed when V.L. went to the emergency room immediately following the incident with
Chambers. Jones, the only medical professional to testify, said that it was not abnormal
for an orthopedic specialist to diagnose a fracture that an emergency room doctor missed.
{¶ 173} Four weeks later, at the follow-up visit, the orthopedist took another x-ray
and found evidence of a healed distal pole scaphoid fracture. Notably, the orthopedist did
not find evidence of a healed or healing fracture in the emergency room x-ray, which
indicates that the fracture in that x-ray was recent—not from the skateboarding accident
in 2018, as Chambers implied. Taken together, this is circumstantial evidence that
Chambers was the cause of V.L.’s broken wrist.
{¶ 174} The evidence—including V.L.’s testimony and the medical findings Jones
testified to—also supported a finding that Chambers strangled V.L. during the struggle.
This is additional serious physical harm that makes a reasonable parental discipline jury
instruction inapplicable here.
{¶ 175} Because the record demonstrates that Chambers caused V.L. to suffer
serious physical harm, the trial court did not abuse its discretion when it concluded that
the evidence did not support a jury instruction on the affirmative defense of reasonable
parental discipline.
{¶ 176} Chambers’s first assignment of error is not well-taken.
64.
B. Chambers’s convictions are supported by sufficient evidence and are not against
the manifest weight of the evidence.
{¶ 177} In his second assignment of error, Chambers contends that there is
insufficient evidence supporting his convictions and that his convictions are against the
weight of the evidence. We address each argument in turn.
1. Sufficiency of the evidence
{¶ 178} Chambers first argues that there was insufficient evidence to convict him
of felonious assault and kidnapping because nothing indicates that he acted knowingly,
actually caused serious physical harm to V.L., or had the purpose to terrorize or inflict
serious physical harm on V.L.4 Specifically, he contends that (1) his actions did not rise
to the level of “knowing” because he was simply responding to V.L.’s “disrespectful and
defiant” behavior; (2) “there was no evidence to support an injury or harm as compared
to other felonious assaults, such as shootings and stabbings, which result in long term
damage, surgery, or other indicia of seriousness”—i.e., at worst, V.L. suffered only
physical harm; and (3) it was V.L.’s “evasive and consciousness of guilt for being
disrespectful and misbehaving in school which resulted in his response of, among others,
flailing, fighting, screaming, and fleeing.”
4
Chambers raises his lack of knowing conduct in his manifest weight argument.
However, whether the state has met its burden on an element of the offense relates to the
sufficiency of the evidence, so we address it in this section. See State v. Wilson, 2009-
Ohio-525, ¶ 10 (2d Dist.) (“A sufficiency of the evidence argument disputes whether the
State has presented adequate evidence on each element of the offense . . . .”).
65.
{¶ 179} The state responds that Chambers acted knowingly because V.L.’s injuries
were the probable result of a man Chambers’s size tackling and strangling a child V.L.’s
size. It also argues that a broken wrist and strangulation each qualify as serious physical
harm, and it presented evidence that V.L. suffered both injuries on October 7. Finally, it
points to the text messages Chambers sent V.L. in the weeks before the incident telling
V.L. that he was going to get whoopings and the evidence that V.L. ran away from home
because Chambers had beaten him as evidence that V.L. was scared of Chambers and
Chambers’s actions were terrorizing V.L.
{¶ 180} In reviewing a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence, we view the
evidence in a light most favorable to the prosecution and determine whether “any rational
trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime proven beyond a
reasonable doubt.” State v. Smith, 80 Ohio St.3d 89, 113 (1997). We do not weigh the
evidence or assess the credibility of the witnesses. State v. Were,
2008-Ohio-2762, ¶ 132.
“Rather, we decide whether, if believed, the evidence can sustain the verdict as a matter
of law.” State v. Richardson,
2016-Ohio-8448, ¶ 13. Naturally, this requires “a review
of the elements of the charged offense and a review of the state’s evidence.”
Id.
Whether there is sufficient evidence to support a conviction is a question of law. State v.
Thompkins,
78 Ohio St.3d 380, 386 (1997).
a. Felonious assault
{¶ 181} Chambers was convicted of felonious assault under R.C. 2903.11(A)(1),
which requires the state to prove that Chambers knowingly caused serious physical harm
66.
to V.L. A person acts “knowingly” when, regardless of his purpose, he is aware that his
conduct will probably cause a certain result or will probably be of a certain nature. R.C.
2901.22(B). A felonious assault conviction does not require proof that the defendant
intended to inflict serious physical harm; instead, the state must show that the defendant
acted with awareness that the conduct will probably cause such harm. State v. Anderson,
2010-Ohio-5561, ¶ 13 (10th Dist.). As potentially relevant here, “serious physical harm”
includes physical harm that involves “some temporary, substantial incapacity;” or “acute
pain of such duration as to result in substantial suffering or that involves any degree of
prolonged or intractable pain.” R.C. 2901.01(A)(5)(c), (e). “Physical harm” is “any
injury, illness, or other physiological impairment . . . .” R.C. 2901.01(A)(3). As a
general rule, when injuries are serious enough for a victim to seek medical treatment, a
jury can reasonably infer that “‘the force exerted on the victim caused serious physical
harm . . . .’” Dean,
2018-Ohio-1740, at ¶ 47 (6th Dist.), quoting Lee,
2008-Ohio-253, at
¶ 30 (6th Dist.).
i. Mens rea
{¶ 182} First, we find that the state presented sufficient evidence showing that
Chambers acted knowingly. For Chambers’s actions to have been knowing, he must
have been aware that what he was doing would probably cause a certain result. R.C.
2901.22(B). The evidence in this case, when viewed in the state’s favor, shows that
Chambers acted with an awareness that his actions would probably cause serious physical
harm.
67.
{¶ 183} Multiple witnesses testified that Chambers is significantly larger than
V.L.; Chambers was described as a “big guy” who weighed around 270 pounds, and
V.L. was described as a “skinny” and “small” child who weighed around 100 pounds.
V.L. testified that Chambers threw him, dragged him, tackled him, sat on him, wrapped
both hands around his neck, and pressed a forearm against his neck. The school security
camera video and doorbell camera video corroborate V.L.’s testimony about Chambers
dragging and tackling him. The videos also show that Chambers grabbed and dragged
V.L. by his wrists and arms several times, the amount of force Chambers used to grab
and drag V.L., that parts of the altercation happened on concrete and asphalt, and that
V.L. fell forward—with Chambers landing on top of him—when Chambers tackled him.
{¶ 184} In addition, V.L. testified that Chambers wrapped both hands around his
neck and pressed a forearm against his neck, which made it difficult for him to breathe.
In light of this testimony, there is sufficient evidence that Chambers should have known
that his actions would probably strangle V.L., i.e., “impede[] the normal breathing or
circulation of the blood . . . .” R.C. 2903.18(A)(1). Moreover, V.L.’s report of being
strangled is bolstered by the physical signs of strangulation that Jones observed when he
came to the hospital, including petechiae inside his mouth, crescent-shaped abrasions
along his jawline, and swelling on his CT angiogram.
{¶ 185} Chambers focuses on his lack of intent to cause serious physical harm to
V.L., but a culpable mental state of knowingly does not require that the offender intend to
cause the outcome. R.C. 2901.22(B) (“A person acts knowingly, regardless of purpose .
68.
. . .” (Emphasis added.)). Because intent is not required for a knowing act, a felonious
assault conviction “does not require that a defendant intend to cause ‘serious physical
harm,’ but that the defendant acts with an awareness that the conduct probably will cause
such harm.” Anderson, 2010-Ohio-5561, at ¶ 13 (10th Dist.). Construing the evidence in
the state’s favor, a reasonable jury could find that a large adult male who manhandles a
much smaller child with asthma by the wrists, tackles him on a hard surface, and restricts
his airflow acts with an awareness that he will probably cause serious physical harm to
the child. See State v. Porter,
2019-Ohio-4868, ¶ 19 (10th Dist.) (defendant with fighting
experience who was much stronger than victim acted with an awareness that hitting
victim until she fell to the ground would probably result in serious physical harm). Thus,
we find that the state presented sufficient evidence to support the knowingly element of
Chambers’s felonious assault conviction.
ii. Serious physical harm
{¶ 186} Next, we find that the state presented sufficient evidence showing that
Chambers caused V.L. serious physical harm. Chambers does not dispute that V.L. was
injured on October 7 or that the injuries happened while V.L. was struggling with him.
Instead, he focuses on the facts that Lacy took V.L. to school—not straight to the
hospital—as evidence that V.L.’s injuries were not concerning enough to be “serious,”
and that V.L. did not lose consciousness as evidence that any incapacity he suffered was
not substantial. These arguments ignore the nature of V.L.’s injuries.
69.
{¶ 187} The medical evidence showed that V.L. had a fractured wrist bone, and a
fractured wrist is serious physical harm. State v. Brown, 2018-Ohio-3068, ¶ 30 (2d Dist.)
(wrist fracture caused temporary, substantial incapacity by preventing victim from
performing everyday tasks for weeks); Lee,
2008-Ohio-253, at ¶ 30 (6th Dist.) (“Where
the assault causes a bone fracture, the element of serious physical harm is met.”). V.L.
testified that his broken wrist caused him pain, and Lacy said that it interfered with V.L.’s
ability to complete “daily living tasks”—like showering and schoolwork—for weeks.
Thus, the state presented sufficient evidence of serious physical harm to support the
felonious assault conviction.
{¶ 188} Beyond that, the state also presented evidence supporting a finding that
V.L. was strangled, which is also serious physical harm. Stevens, 2021-Ohio-2643, at ¶
94, 109 (11th Dist.) (“[P]hysical injuries indicative of strangulation constitute sufficient
evidence of ‘serious physical harm.’”). V.L. said that Chambers strangled him by
wrapping both hands around his neck and pressing a forearm against his neck. Jones, the
forensic nurse who treated V.L. and was trained in identifying strangulation, testified to
the physical signs of strangulation that she identified on V.L.’s body, including petechiae
on the roof of his mouth, crescent-shaped abrasions on his neck, and left side “soft tissue
density” that showed up on the CT angiogram. Jones conceded that there were other
things that could have caused these physical markers (for instance, vomiting can cause
petechiae) and she could not say for sure that strangulation caused them. However, she
was firm in her opinion, based on the “full picture,” that V.L. was strangled. There is
70.
video of the altercation, but the angle of the camera and position of Chambers’s body do
not allow for a clear view of what Chambers is doing with his hands and arms throughout
much of the video, and approximately four minutes in the middle of the incident were not
recorded. Viewing this evidence in the state’s favor, a rational trier of fact could
conclude that Chambers caused serious physical harm to V.L. by strangling him.
{¶ 189} Additionally, Lacy explained that she took V.L. to school immediately
after leaving Chambers’s house because she “really couldn’t think straight . . .[,]” which,
if believed, does not reflect on her assessment of the seriousness of V.L.’s injuries, and
does not support Chambers’s argument that V.L.’s injuries did not rise to the level of
serious physical harm.
{¶ 190} Because the state presented sufficient evidence on each element of the
felonious assault charge, we find that Chambers’s felonious assault conviction is
supported by sufficient evidence.
b. Kidnapping
{¶ 191} Chambers was convicted of kidnapping under R.C. 2905.01(A)(3), which
requires the state to prove that Chambers, by force, threat, or deception, removed V.L.
from the place where he was located or restrained V.L.’s liberty for the purpose of
terrorizing V.L. or inflicting serious physical harm on V.L. “Force” is “any violence,
compulsion, or constraint physically exerted by any means upon or against a person . . . .”
R.C. 2901.01(A)(1). Restraint, in the context of kidnapping, means limiting the victim’s
freedom of movement. State v. Turvey, 2023-Ohio-2248, ¶ 74 (6th Dist.), citing State v.
71.
Logan,
2017-Ohio-8932, ¶ 12 (3d Dist.); and State v. Williams,
2017-Ohio-5598, ¶ 19
(10th Dist.). Restraint does not need to be for any specific duration or in any specific
manner.
Id. A defendant has purpose when it is his specific intention to cause a certain
result. R.C. 2901.22(A). “Terrorize” is not defined in the Revised Code, but we have
said that it means “‘to fill with terror or anxiety.’” State v. Leasure,
2003-Ohio-3987, ¶
47 (6th Dist.), quoting Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (10th Ed. 1996).
“Terror” is “a state of intense or overwhelming fear[.]” Merriam-Webster Online,
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/terror (accessed Aug. 28, 2024). A parent
can be convicted of kidnapping his child. State v. Lewis,
2005-Ohio-6955, ¶ 18 (10th
Dist.), citing State v. Hill,
75 Ohio St.3d 195, 206 (1996); and State v. Volgares,
1999
WL 354335 (4th Dist. May 17, 1999) (“[A]nyone regardless of parental rights can be
convicted of kidnapping if the requisite elements are met.”).
{¶ 192} Here, the school surveillance video shows that Chambers pulled and
picked up V.L. as they left the school building, moved him toward Chambers’s car, put
him in the car’s back seat, and closed the door. Pulling or dragging a person from one
place to another is sufficient evidence of force to support a kidnapping conviction. State
v. Hatten, 2010-Ohio-499, ¶ 42 (2d Dist.). V.L. and Chambers each testified that the
child locks on the back doors of Chambers’s car were engaged, making it impossible to
open the doors from inside the car. V.L. testified that he did not want to leave school
with Chambers and was unable to exit the back seat of Chambers’s car. This evidence is
sufficient to support a finding that Chambers restrained V.L.’s liberty. Chambers also
72.
drove V.L. to his house, which supports a finding that he removed V.L. from the place
where V.L. was found.
{¶ 193} Chambers primarily argues that he did not have the purpose to terrorize or
inflict serious physical harm on V.L. Instead, he took V.L. from school to discuss his
“maladaptive behaviors,” and things only got out of control because of V.L.’s response.
However, the state presented evidence that (1) Chambers disciplined V.L. by “whooping”
him; (2) Chambers’s discipline had caused V.L. to run away from Chambers’s home; (3)
Lacy had filed for emergency custody of V.L. and was awarded possession of V.L.; (4)
V.L. believed that he was not supposed to be with Chambers; (5) Chambers sent V.L. text
messages telling V.L. “you made it worse” and “[e]njoy yourself while you can[;]” (6)
Chambers sent Lacy a text message saying that V.L. “still will answer[;]” (7) Chambers
picked V.L. up for a meeting about his behavior after sending those messages; and (8)
Chambers believed in scaring his children straight. This evidence, if believed, could
cause a rational trier of fact to conclude that Chambers’s actions were specifically
intended to fill V.L. with terror or anxiety. Thus, Chambers’s kidnapping conviction is
supported by sufficient evidence.
2. Manifest weight of the evidence
{¶ 194} Chambers also argues under his second assignment of error that his
convictions are not supported by the manifest weight of the evidence. Regarding the
felonious assault conviction, he contends that he “never knowingly acted to cause or
caused serious physical harm to V.L.” and there should be “no ill intent imputed to . . .”
73.
his attempt at disciplining V.L. He points out that “[i]t is clear V.L. was attempting to
get away and flee his father the entire time, like a criminal running from the police[,]”
and posits that “V.L. is the only one responsible for any resulting harm or injury . . . .”
He contends that V.L.’s wrist must have been broken as he was trying to flee and any
bruising and petechiae must have been caused by V.L.’s shirt collar digging into V.L.’s
throat or neck as he grabbed onto V.L.’s shirt. Any other injuries V.L. had (such as a
bloody nose) did not rise to the level of serious physical harm.
{¶ 195} Regarding the kidnapping conviction, Chambers claims that the jury lost
its way in convicting him because “there is nothing to support that his purpose in
removing V.L. from school and taking him home to have a meeting about his bad
behavior was to terrorize or inflict serious physical harm.”
{¶ 196} The state responds that the evidence is “abundant and clear” that
Chambers knowingly caused serious physical harm to V.L. V.L. testified that Chambers,
who is significantly larger than him, put his hands and forearm on V.L.’s neck, and a
natural consequence of doing so was making it difficult for V.L. to breathe. Chambers
also admitted to grabbing V.L. by the wrist, and the “natural consequence of a man, who
was 170 pounds heavier than his victim, dragging, tackling, beating, and holding down a
child, is a broken bone.” The state also argues that the alternate causes of injury that
Chambers points to (for example, bruising from V.L.’s shirt collar and some past wrist
injury) are not supported by any evidence and are actually contradicted by the evidence
that it presented at trial.
74.
{¶ 197} Regarding the kidnapping conviction, the state contends that Chambers
“does not make any substantial argument in regards to how the jury’s verdict was against
the manifest weight of the evidence for the kidnapping charge[,]” and argues that “this is
not the exceptional case in which the evidence weighs heavily in favor of [Chambers] and
against his conviction.”
{¶ 198} When we review a claim that a verdict is against the manifest weight of
the evidence, we weigh the evidence and all reasonable inferences, consider the
credibility of the witnesses, and determine whether the jury clearly lost its way in
resolving evidentiary conflicts so as to create such a manifest miscarriage of justice that
the conviction must be reversed, and a new trial ordered. Thompkins, 78 Ohio St.3d at
387. We do not view the evidence in a light most favorable to the prosecution. “Instead,
we sit as a ‘thirteenth juror’ and scrutinize ‘the factfinder’s resolution of the conflicting
testimony.’” State v. Robinson,
2012-Ohio-6068, ¶ 15 (6th Dist.), citing Thompkins at
387. Reversal on manifest weight grounds is reserved for “the exceptional case in which
the evidence weighs heavily against the conviction.” Thompkins at 387, quoting State v.
Martin,
20 Ohio App.3d 172, 175 (1st Dist. 1983).
{¶ 199} Although we consider the credibility of witnesses under a manifest-weight
standard, we must, nonetheless, extend special deference to the jury’s credibility
determinations, given that it is the jury that has the benefit of seeing the witnesses testify,
observing their facial expressions and body language, hearing their voice inflections, and
discerning qualities such as hesitancy, equivocation, and candor. State v. Fell, 2012-
75.
Ohio-616, ¶ 14 (6th Dist.). The jury, as the finder of fact and the sole judge of the weight
of the evidence and the credibility of the witnesses, may believe or disbelieve all, part, or
none of a witness’s testimony. State v. Caudill, 2008-Ohio-1557, ¶ 62 (6th Dist.), citing
State v. Antill,
176 Ohio St. 61, 67 (1964).
{¶ 200} After carefully reviewing the evidence and the credibility of the witnesses
and weighing the testimony, we are not convinced that this is an exceptional case in
which the evidence weighs heavily against a conviction. Chambers’s manifest weight
arguments boil down to his belief that his actions were justified because he was “simply
caring for and preparing V.L. during and for life the way their culture called for,
according to him and his wife . . .”—i.e., appropriately disciplining his child. However,
as we have already discussed, Chambers’s actions fell outside of the scope of reasonable
parental discipline, so that was not a justification for his actions. Given the evidence
before it, the jury did not clearly lose its way by finding Chambers guilty. Accordingly,
Chambers’s convictions are not against the manifest weight of the evidence, and his
second assignment of error is not well-taken.
C. Chambers’s convictions are not allied offenses.
{¶ 201} In his final assignment of error, Chambers argues that the trial court
should have merged his kidnapping and felonious assault convictions because they
involved the same course of conduct, i.e., both involved “the necessary-forceful
removing, apprehending, restraining, moving, locking-in, and transporting of V.L. . . . .”
The state responds that Chambers committed the crimes with separate animus, so they do
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not merge. Chambers started the kidnapping at V.L.’s school, made a “substantial
movement” of V.L. from the school to Chambers’s house, and then committed the
felonious assault at the house.
{¶ 202} The Double Jeopardy Clauses of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution and Article I, Section 10, of the Ohio Constitution protect a criminal
defendant from receiving multiple punishments for the same offense. State v. Ruff, 2015-
Ohio-995, ¶ 10. To protect against multiple convictions for “allied offenses of similar
import” arising out of the same conduct, the General Assembly enacted R.C. 2941.25,
which states:
(A) Where the same conduct by defendant can be construed to
constitute two or more allied offenses of similar import, the indictment or
information may contain counts for all such offenses, but the defendant
may be convicted of only one.
(B) Where the defendant’s conduct constitutes two or more offenses
of dissimilar import, or where his conduct results in two or more offenses
of the same or similar kind committed separately or with a separate animus
as to each, the indictment or information may contain counts for all such
offenses, and the defendant may be convicted of all of them.
{¶ 203} In Ruff, the Ohio Supreme Court examined in detail the analysis courts
must perform when determining whether offenses are allied offenses of similar import
under R.C. 2941.25. The court must ask three questions: (1) Were the offenses
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“dissimilar in import,” meaning did the offenses involve either separate victims or
“separate and identifiable” harm? (2) Were the offenses committed separately? and (3)
Were the offenses committed with separate animus? Id. at ¶ 25. If the answer to any of
these questions is “yes,” the defendant may be convicted and sentenced for multiple
offenses. State v. Earley, 2015-Ohio-4615, ¶ 12.
{¶ 204} The defendant bears the burden of establishing that R.C. 2941.25 prohibits
multiple punishments. State v. Washington, 2013-Ohio-4982, ¶ 18, citing State v.
Mughni,
33 Ohio St.3d 65, 67 (1987). We review de novo a trial court’s ruling as to
whether convictions merge under the allied-offenses doctrine. State v. Roberson, 2018-
Ohio-1955, ¶ 12 (6th Dist.). “Although determining whether R.C. 2941.25 has been
properly applied is a legal question, it necessarily turns on an analysis of the facts . . . .”
State v. Bailey,
2022-Ohio-4407, ¶ 11. This “can lead to exceedingly fine distinctions.”
Id. As such, an allied offenses analysis “‘may be sometimes difficult to perform and may
result in varying results for the same set of offenses in different cases.’” Ruff at ¶ 32,
quoting State v. Johnson,
2010-Ohio-6314, ¶ 52 (plurality opinion per Brown, C.J.).
Different results are permissible because “‘the statute instructs courts to examine a
defendant’s conduct—an inherently subjective determination.’”
Id.
{¶ 205} In State v. Logan, 60 Ohio St.2d 126 (1979), the Supreme Court provided
guidelines for determining whether kidnapping and another offense are allied offenses. If
the defendant’s restraint or movement of the victim is “merely incidental” to the other
crime, “there exists no separate animus to sustain separate convictions[.]”
Id. at syllabus.
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However, if “the restraint is prolonged, the confinement is secretive, or the movement is
substantial so as to demonstrate a significance independent of the other offense, there
exists a separate animus as to each offense sufficient to support separate convictions[.]”
Id. Although Logan was decided long before Ruff, its framework is “still relevant” to
“determining whether kidnapping and another offense are allied offenses that should
merge prior to sentencing . . . .” State v. Grate,
2020-Ohio-5584, ¶ 107-108.
{¶ 206} Generally speaking, the farther the movement or the longer the duration of
the restraint, the more likely it is that kidnapping and another offense are of dissimilar
import. Dean, 2018-Ohio-1740, at ¶ 63 (6th Dist.), citing State v. Henry,
37 Ohio App.3d
3 (6th Dist. 1987); and State v. Rivera,
2014-Ohio-842, ¶ 32 (10th Dist.). Conversely,
kidnapping and another offense are more likely to be of similar import if they happen
simultaneously or almost simultaneously. E.g., State v. Halstead,
2016-Ohio-290, ¶ 19
(8th Dist.) (kidnapping and felonious assault merged because defendant restrained
victim’s movement by being on top of victim while stabbing him, so “offenses were not
committed separately but rather at the same time”); State v. Florencio,
2019-Ohio-104, ¶
17-18 (8th Dist.) (“the conduct constituting the felonious assault . . . also constituted the
restraint and force underlying the kidnapping conviction, both of which were committed
against the same victim” and happened in quick succession over a brief period of time);
State v. Gates,
2015-Ohio-4950, ¶ 47 (5th Dist.) (kidnapping and felonious assault
merged because defendant’s actions of blocking the door to the room so victim could not
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leave and grabbing the gun he used to threaten victim were “nearly simultaneous” and
“the kidnapping . . . was incidental to the offense of felonious assault”).
{¶ 207} In this case, Chambers’s actions caused separate and identifiable harms,
so they are not allied offenses subject to merger. The kidnapping, which was complete at
the time Chambers locked V.L. in the back seat of his car, caused V.L. fear and anxiety
that was entirely separate from the physical injury Chambers inflicted when he strangled
V.L. at his house and completed the felonious assault. Chambers believed in “scaring
[V.L.] straight,” had a plan to do so, and had been laying the groundwork for his plan
leading up to the morning he took V.L. out of school. The school surveillance video
showed a child who clearly did not want to get into Chambers’s car and was trying to get
away, V.L. testified that he was “scared” when Chambers took him from school, and both
V.L. and Chambers said that V.L. could not leave the back seat after Chambers closed the
door. Chambers did not—and did not need to—strangle V.L. during this part of the
altercation to complete the kidnapping, which indicates that the strangulation was not
merely incidental to the kidnapping. Logan at syllabus. Then, once they were back at the
house, Chambers wrapped his hands around and pressed his forearm against V.L.’s neck,
which strangled him and completed the felonious assault. These harms were not inflicted
simultaneously or almost simultaneously, they happened in different locations and at
different phases of the attack, and they were qualitatively different (i.e., one was
primarily mental or emotional and one was primarily physical). In short, the harms were
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of dissimilar import, and Chambers may be convicted and sentenced for both offenses.
Earley, 2015-Ohio-4615, at ¶ 12.
{¶ 208} Because the trial court correctly sentenced him for both offenses,
Chambers’s third assignment of error is not well-taken.
D. The trial court was required to impose a stated minimum prison term for the
felonious assault conviction.
{¶ 209} In its cross-appeal, the state argues that the trial court erred by sentencing
Chambers to a definite prison term of six years for the felonious assault conviction. We
agree.
{¶ 210} The state is permitted to appeal a sentence as a matter of right if the
sentence is contrary to law. R.C. 2953.08(B)(2). A sentence that does not comply with a
mandatory provision of the sentencing statutes is contrary to law. State v. Williams,
2022-Ohio-2439, ¶ 50 (6th Dist.).
{¶ 211} Under R.C. 2929.14(A)(2)(a), if an offender commits a second-degree
felony on or after March 22, 2019, the trial court is required to impose “an indefinite
prison term with a stated minimum term selected by the court of two, three, four, five,
six, seven, or eight years and a maximum term that is determined pursuant to [R.C.]
2929.144 . . . .” (Emphasis added.) At the sentencing hearing and in its sentencing entry,
the trial court imposed a definite sentence for the felonious assault conviction, which is
contrary to R.C. 2929.14(A)(2)(a). This is evidenced by the court ordering that
Chambers “serve a term of 6 years in prison . . .” for the felonious assault conviction
without imposing a stated minimum term, like it did for the kidnapping conviction (i.e.,
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Chambers’s “minimum stated prison term as to [the kidnapping conviction] is 10 years”).
Because the trial court did not comply with the mandatory requirements of R.C.
2929.14(A)(2)(a), Chambers’s sentence is contrary to law.
{¶ 212} In his response to the state’s cross-assignment of error, Chambers argues
that the trial court sentenced him appropriately because it correctly determined his
maximum sentence under R.C. 2929.144(B)(3), which outlines how a trial court is to
determine a maximum sentence when it orders an offender to serve sentences for multiple
qualifying first- and second-degree felonies concurrently. Although it is true that the trial
court properly computed his maximum sentence, and it seems likely that the court
intended the six-year term to be the stated minimum term for the felonious assault
conviction, this does not change the fact that, as written, the court imposed a definite term
instead of an indefinite one with a stated minimum term and a maximum term, as
required by R.C. 2929.14(A)(2)(a). “[W]here the trial court is imposing prison sentences
on multiple counts under the Reagan Tokes Act, the trial court’s sentence for each
individual count should make clear that the prison term is a stated minimum sentence, as
opposed to a definite sentence.” State v. Searls, 2022-Ohio-858, ¶ 33 (2d Dist.).
{¶ 213} The stated minimum term and maximum term for an offense must be
imposed at the sentencing hearing and included in the sentencing entry. State v. Flow,
2022-Ohio-4416, ¶ 54 (6th Dist.), citing R.C. 2929.144(C). Because the trial court did
not impose a stated minimum term for the felonious assault charge at Chambers’s
original sentencing hearing, we must remand this case for resentencing.
82.
{¶ 214} The state’s cross-assignment of error is well-taken.
III. Conclusion
{¶ 215} Based on the foregoing, the March 16, 2023 judgment of the Lucas
County Court of Common Pleas is affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded for
resentencing. At the resentencing hearing, the trial court shall impose an indefinite
prison term for Chambers’s felonious assault conviction, as required by R.C.
2929.14(A)(2)(a). Chambers is ordered to pay the costs of this appeal pursuant to App.R.
24.
Judgment affirmed, in part,
Reversed in part, and remanded.
A certified copy of this entry shall constitute the mandate pursuant to App.R. 27. See
also 6th Dist.Loc.App.R. 4.
Christine E. Mayle, J. ____________________________
JUDGE
Gene A. Zmuda, J.
____________________________
Myron C. Duhart, J. JUDGE
CONCUR.
____________________________
JUDGE
This decision is subject to further editing by the Supreme Court of
Ohio’s Reporter of Decisions. Parties interested in viewing the final reported
version are advised to visit the Ohio Supreme Court’s web site at:
http://www.supremecourt.ohio.gov/ROD/docs/.
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