¶1concurring. All the principal events in this case occurred in Cuyahoga County; the only thing that didn’t was the act of prior calculation and design. Why then was the case tried in Lorain County? Because Ronald Lally was an important witness in a case Lorain County was prosecuting and was killed by appellant to assure his silence. I understand Lorain County’s interest; however, it appears a rather slim interest when weighed against the chance that an aggravated murder conviction could have been overturned based on lack of venue.
87 Ohio St. 3d 424
State v. Smith
Decided January 5, 2000
Ohio Supreme Court · decided 2000-01-05
Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know
Decided 2000-01-05
How this case has been cited
Cited by 124 later decisions — most recently February 2026 · most notably State v. Murphy (2001), State v. LaMar (2002)
2 federal appellate · 115 state decisions
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.
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