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74 Ohio St. 3d 332

State v. Griffie

Ohio Supreme Court

Decided January 17, 1996

Ohio Supreme Court · decided 1996-01-17

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“[f]ailure to request instructions on lesser-included offenses is a matter of trial strategy and does not establish ineffective assistance of counsel.”

quoted by 18 later decisions, including State v. Hopkins, 90005 (7-17-2008), State v. Lee, Unpublished Decision (12-16-2004)

“there is a genuine issue as to whether the applicant was deprived of the effective assistance of counsel on appeal.”

quoted by 5 later decisions, including State v. Buehner, Unpublished Decision (2-2-2004), State v. Wade

Relies on Rideout v. United States · State v. Clayton

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1996-01-17

How this case has been cited

Cited by 104 later decisions — most recently June 2025 · most notably State v. Harris (1998), 133 Ohio App. 3d 591 - State v. Kehoe (1999)

1 federal appellate · 103 state decisions

4401996200020102020decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Per Curiam.

¶1We affirm the decision of the court of appeals.

¶2In his application for reopening, appellant argued that his appellate counsel was ineffective for not arguing that his trial counsel was ineffective for not requesting an instruction on the lesser included offense of assault. However, appellant offers no support for his argument besides the record. App.R. 26(B)(2)(e) states that an application for reopening shall contain “[a]ny parts of the record available to the applicant and all supplemental affidavits upon which the applicant relies.” The record may reveal that trial counsel did not request a certain jury instruction, but, without more, the court of appeals would have to guess as to why trial counsel did not make the request. Failure to request instructions on lesser-included offenses is a matter of trial strategy and does not establish ineffective assistance of counsel. State v. Clayton (1980), 62 Ohio St.2d 45, 16 O.O.3d 35, 402 N.E.2d 1189, certiorari denied (1980), 449 U.S. 879, 101 S.Ct. 227, 66 L.Ed.2d 102.

¶3Under App.R. 26(B)(5), an application for reopening shall be granted if there is a genuine issue as to whether the applicant was deprived of the effective assistance of counsel on appeal. Since appellant offered no proof of appellate counsel’s ineffective assistance besides the record, no genuine issue was raised. Therefore, we affirm the decision of the court of appeals.

¶4Judgment affirmed.

Moyer, C.J., Douglas, Wright, Resnick, F.E. Sweeney, Pfeifer and Cook, JJ., concur.
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