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Man who killed victim in pot deal gone awry loses appeal
ANNIE YAMSON
Special to the Legal News
Published: July 31, 2014
In the 6th District Court of Appeals, a three-judge panel recently ruled that Tyler Watson was properly convicted of murder in the Lucas County Court of Common Pleas.
Watson appealed his conviction for murder with a firearm specification after entering an Alford plea to the charges against him.
The charges stemmed from the Sept. 8, 2012 murder of Nicholas Linkey.
At 10:40 p.m. that evening, a Lucas County 911 operator received a cellphone call from Linkey who stated that he had been shot.
This was followed by the sound of a vehicle crashing and a horn going off.
Linkey was in his pickup truck when he made the call and struck two parked cars before coming to a stop.
Neighbors pulled him from the driver’s seat but were initially unaware that he had been shot.
When police arrived, they found a bullet hole in Linkey’s upper abdomen.
He died from internal bleeding en route to the hospital.
Police located where Linkey’s 911 call originated from, which was 950 feet from where the crash occurred.
They interviewed a clerk at a carryout located at the intersection where the call was placed.
The clerk stated that, earlier in the evening, a young man came into the store and waited inside for someone he was meeting.
A short time later, a pickup truck arrived and the young man got inside.
The clerk then reported that he heard a gunshot and saw the young man exit the vehicle and run down the street.
The truck drove away.
The clerk identified Watson as the man who ran from the scene.
Watson told police he did get into the pickup truck with Linkey but that Linkey was safe when Watson got out after purchasing marijuana.
An unnamed witness, however, came forward a short while later and reported having a conversation with Watson where he claimed he was taking drugs from Linkey at gunpoint when Linkey resisted.
In the ensuing struggle, Linkey was shot and Watson fled.
A Lucas County Grand Jury subsequently handed down a three-count indictment charging Watson with murder, aggravated murder and aggravated robbery, all with firearm specifications.
Initially, Watson entered not guilty pleas to all charges and the matter proceeded to several pretrial conferences.
At one pretrial, Watson addressed the court and asked for a new attorney.
“I am not willing to enter a plea to a crime I did not commit,” Watson stated.
His trial counsel advised the court that this was the first she was hearing of any complaint from her client and the request was subsequently denied.
About one month later, at another pretrial hearing, Watson raised the issue again, stating, “I feel in my heart that my counsel is incompetent to handle the case.”
The court again denied the request and set a date for trial.
On April 8, 2013, with a panel of potential jurors waiting, Watson began to enter a no contest plea to murder.
However, during the state’s recitation of what the evidence would show, Watson interrupted and declared that the prosecutor was lying.
“You all about to convict me for a murder I never committed,” Watson argued.
The trial court noted that Watson’s protestation of innocence was inconsistent with a no contest plea and concluded that his plea was not voluntary.
After some discussion, Watson signed an Alford plea agreement.
The trial court accepted the plea, found Watson guilty and sentenced him to a mandatory 15 years to life for the murder, to be served subsequent to a mandatory three-year prison term for a firearm specification.
In his direct appeal to the 6th District, Watson claimed that his Alford plea was not entered voluntarily and that he received ineffective assistance of counsel.
“An Alford plea is one in which a defendant pleads guilty to an offense with a qualification of innocence,” wrote Judge Arlene Singer on behalf of the court of appeals. “As with all guilty pleas, to be properly accepted, the court must be satisfied that the plea is voluntarily and intelligently offered.”
Watson admitted that his plea colloquy was proper but asserted that his plea was nonetheless involuntary because the trial court did not allow him to fire and replace his appointed counsel.
“We note that the trial court did not prohibit appellate from replacing his counsel, it simply ruled that it would not replace his court-appointed counsel,” wrote Judge Singer. “While the Sixth Amendment guarantees an indigent criminal defendant a right to competent counsel, the right to have the counsel of one’s choice does not extend to appointed counsel.”
Citing an 8th District holding, the appellate panel determined that courts have “a wide latitude in balancing the right to counsel of choice against the needs of fairness and against the demands of its calendar.”
“Given the stage of the proceedings and the inexactitude of (Watson’s) reason for substitution of counsel, we conclude that the trial court acted within its sound discretion in denying appellant’s request to change counsel,” wrote Judge Singer.
Additionally, the appellate panel noted that it could not discern any relationship between the denial of new counsel and Watson’s allegedly involuntarily-entered plea.
“There is nothing in the record to suggest that the plea was the result of coercion, deception or intimidation,” Judge Singer wrote.
The court of appeals then went on to find that nothing in the record suggested that Watson’s counsel was deficient in any way and it overruled his second and final assignment of error, affirming the judgment of the Lucas County court in its entirety.
Judge Mark Pietrykowski and Thomas Osowik joined Judge Singer to form the majority.
The case is cited State v. Watson, 2014-Ohio-2839.
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