The Akron Legal News

Resentencing ordered for man who killed toddler with meth

ANNIE YAMSON
Special to the Legal News
Published: September 23, 2013

The 9th District Court of Appeals released an opinion last Wednesday remanding a case to the Summit County Court of Common Pleas in order for the court to conduct a new sentencing hearing.

The defendant, Ronald Legg, was found guilty of the murder of a 17-month-old boy, Patrick Lerch.

On March 19, 2012 the Summit County Grand Jury indicted Legg and three co-defendants on one count each of illegal manufacture of drugs, illegal assembly or possession of chemicals for the manufacture of drugs, aggravated possession of drugs and illegal use or possession of drug paraphernalia.

The charges arose from a meth lab that was found in the home of Legg’s brother, Randy Legg.

On April 5, 2012, the grand jury returned a supplemental indictment charging Legg and his co-defendants with numerous additional felonies, including murder and child endangering.

The appellate court did not provide a summary of the events leading up to the indictment but news outlets at the time reported that Patrick Lerch, the son of Randy’s girlfriend, was kept in a rat-infested basement until the time of his death.

According to court testimony, Patrick was killed when he ingested lethal amounts of meth.

Police reports stated that Patrick was found dead in the basement and that he had been dead for a couple hours before police dispatch received an emergency call.

Initially, Legg pleaded not guilty to the offenses but he appeared for a change of plea hearing in September 2012.

Legg proceeded to enter pleas of guilty to one count of endangering children, once count of murder and one count of illegal manufacture of drugs.

The remaining counts in the indictment were dismissed.

Legg also pleaded guilty to violating the terms of his community control in two prior cases.

The matter then proceeded to a sentencing hearing where Legg was ordered to serve an eight-year prison sentence for endangering children to run concurrent to his sentence of 15 years to life for the murder charge.

He was sentenced to a consecutive 10-year prison term for the illegal manufacture of drugs charge.

The trial court further ordered that Legg’s total sentence was to be served consecutive to the prison terms for violating community control in his two prior cases, resulting in an aggregate sentence of 27 years to life.

Upon a direct appeal to the 9th District, Legg argued that the trial court failed to properly analyze whether the offenses for which he was convicted were allied offenses of similar import.

Donna Carr, writing on behalf of the district’s three-judge appellate panel, upheld Legg’s assignment of error.

She cited R.C. 2941.25 which states, “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.”

In State v. Johnson, 2010-Ohio-6314, Ohio’s Supreme Court clarified the statute by stating, “When determining whether two offenses are allied offenses of similar import subject to merger under R.C. 2941.25, the conduct of the accused must be considered.”

According to the record, at the Legg’s plea hearing, the assistant prosecutor informed the court that the state and the defense had come to an agreement and asked the court to accept it for the purposes of sentencing.

The prosecutor asked that the charges for murder and endangering children be merged.

The state further noted that, pursuant to the parties’ agreement, Legg would be free to argue that the sentence for murder should run concurrent to the sentence for illegal manufacture of drugs.

At the outset of the subsequent sentencing hearing, the state emphasized the need for a “harsh sentence” to be imposed in Legg’s case and referenced the trial of one of his co-defendants, where “horrible photos revealed the what kind of suffering the victim endured.”

Before permitting Legg to make a statement on his own behalf, the trial court informed the defense counsel that it would not be merging the charges for murder and endangering children.

“The information made available to the court as the evidence has developed in these cases suggests that merger would not be appropriate,” the trial court stated. “There were many more acts involved here than merely manufacturing methamphetamine.”

The trial court proceeded to speak about the number of lives that were impacted by Legg’s actions as well as the factors the court had to consider in fashioning a sentence.

“In imposing these sentences, the trial court did not discuss the specific conduct at issue in this case, nor did it mention the allied offenses standard articulated by the Supreme Court in Johnson,” wrote Judge Carr.

Legg contended, and the state conceded, that there were no facts in the record for the trial court to justify refusing the merger his offenses for the purposes of sentencing.

“We agree with the contention of both parties that this matter must be remanded for the trial court to analyze in the first instance whether Legg was convicted of allied offenses of similar import,” wrote Judge Carr. “While the trial court stated in its sentencing entry that it had conducted an allied offenses analysis pursuant to Johnson, the absence of a presentation of facts pertinent to Legg’s case rendered the trial court unable to undertake the Johnson analysis in its entirety.”

The appellate panel ruled that, because there was no statement of facts before the trial court, there was no basis in the record to substantiate the court’s decision to reject the parties’ stipulation that the offenses should be merged,

“It follows that this matter must be remanded for the trial court to conduct a new sentencing hearing,” Judge Carr concluded.

Presiding Judge Carla Moore and Judge Eve Belfance joined Judge Carr to form the majority.

The case is cited State v. Legg, 2013-Ohio-3905.

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