Omnisun Azali v. Ohio

Ohio’s statutory law “allowed” Petitioner Omnisun Azali (“Azali”) to “act in self-defense[.]” Ohio Revised Code § 2901.05(B)(1) (effective Mar. 28, 2019). In 2021, Azali shot and killed his wife, Mwaka Azali (“Mwaka”), after she, by all forensic accounts, fired her own handgun toward him. A jury convicted him of murder following denial of his motion for judgment of acquittal based in part on self-defense. During the ensuing appeal, Azali asked the court to review whether sufficient evidence permitted an inference that he had not been engaged in self-defense as permitted by law. But, following a recent decision from the Supreme Court of Ohio holding that selfdefense “remains an affirmative defense in Ohio” and “is not an element of a crime,” the panel declined to do so. State v. Messenger, 2022-Ohio-4562, ¶ 24. This Court should consider two important constitutional questions raised by that ruling:

1. Does express statutory permission to act in selfdefense call down the protections of the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, thus requiring a state’s prosecutors to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a person accused of a violent crime was not engaged in specifically permitted self-defense?

2. Do the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment standards for determining which facts constitute the elements of a crime apply within an appellate court’s Fourteenth-Amendment review for sufficient evidence of guilt, thus dictating which factual issues must be considered? (i)