In a Press Release:
Judge Kevin P. Braig of the Logan County Court of Common Pleas Wednesday acquitted Marcus Cobb on two charges of assaulting a police officer and two charges of obstructing official business because the State of Ohio failed to produced evidence upon which a rational juror could find beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Cobb committed the offenses.
“In this case,” Judge Braig wrote, “even after construing the facts in a light most favorable to the State of Ohio (the State), the undisputed evidence the State produced at trial shows that two Bellefontaine Police Department (BPD) officers physically pulled a citizen, Defendant Marcus Cobb (Defendant Cobb), who had committed no crime whatsoever, from a motor vehicle, refused to tell him they had a warrant, and beat him up and tased him. Defendant Cobb did not know that a civil—not criminal—warrant existed. He asked the officers five times why they wanted him to get out of the vehicle and two times if he had a warrant. Each time the officers snubbed him. Instead of responding to Defendant Cobb’s reasonable and relevant questions and telling him that they indeed had a warrant, the officers physically grabbed him and in Defendant Cobb’s words ‘rag-dolled’ him when he resisted. The State contends that not only is the officers’ conduct acceptable police conduct, but also Defendant Cobb is guilty of assaulting the police officers and obstructing official business when he resisted their physical violation of his person. The Court disagrees.”
A Logan County jury convicted Mr. Cobb of the offenses on August 22, 2024. However, as authorized by the Ohio Rules of Criminal Procedure, Judge Braig reserved his decision on Mr. Cobb’s motion for acquittal. In granting the motion, Judge Braig set aside the convictions, discharged Mr. Cobb, and ordered the State to pay the costs.
The events that gave rise to the indictment occurred on December 30, 2023. At around 2:47 AM that morning a BPD officer recognized Mr. Cobb in the passenger seat of a motor vehicle driven by Teaira Stine. The officer stopped Ms. Stine when she failed to use a turn signal. But the officer did not tell Mr. Cobb he had a warrant. He called for backup and when they arrived, the officers went to the passenger door and demanded Mr. Cobb exit the vehicle. Mr. Cobb refused and asked if they had a warrant. The officers refused to answer his question, grabbed him, and slammed him onto the ground on his back. From a prone position, Mr. Cobb struck one officer twice in the face, once with a closed hand and once with an open hand. The officer then delivered a “head-turner” punch to Mr. Cobb that bloodied Mr. Cobb’s face and sent him to the hospital. The officer also tased Mr. Cobb. Hours later, one of the officers complained of pain in one of his hands. Judge Braig found the State produced insufficient evidence for a rational juror to find Mr. Cobb bit the officer as the State claimed.
Judge Braig reviewed the video of the incident recorded by the officers at the scene and ordered a transcript of the testimony given at trial to craft his 59-page decision.
The officers never told Mr. Cobb he was under arrest until after they physically subdued him for failing to exit the vehicle. The State did not charge Mr. Cobb with resisting arrest. But the State failed to produce evidence upon which a rational juror could find beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Cobb did anything more than resist.
“The State disdained charging Defendant Cobb with resisting arrest,” Judge Braig wrote. “But the State’s disdain for the resisting charges does not automatically entitle the State to have the jury decide its assault charges. Resistance is defensive conduct. In contrast, assault is offensive conduct. Assault is an attack. Resistance is defending against an attack. That is why resisting arrest is not a lesser included offense of assault of a police officer…. Because the State did not charge Defendant Cobb with resisting arrest, the State must produce evidence upon which a rational juror could distinguish beyond a reasonable doubt intent reflective of offensive assaultive force from intent reflective of defensive resistant force…. [T]he State plainly failed to do so.”
Judge Braig concluded that the officers’ conduct violated Mr. Cobb’s constitutional rights under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Under the Fourth Amendment, it is “well-established … that a non-violent, non-resisting, or only passively resisting suspect who is not under arrest has a right to be free from an officer’s use of force,” Judge Braig wrote quoting the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Sevenski v. Artfitch.
“As the Sixth Circuit recognized in Sevenski,” Judge Braig wrote, “a police officer interacting with a passenger who refuses to obey a command cannot do anything he wants to the passenger. An officer’s authority under Wilson [v. Maryland] to order a passenger out of the vehicle is not that broad. To the extent the State’s counsel believed the officer’s authority was that broad when he indicted Defendant Cobb, he made a critical legal error.
The City of Bellefontaine is not a ‘police state’ or even a ‘police city,’ but the officer’s conduct at the scene reflected police-state officer conduct. Construed in a light most favorable to the State, the Court concludes, as a matter of law, that the officer’s use of force policy and application of his policy to Defendant Cobb violated Defendant Cobb’s constitutional rights under the Fourth Amendment.”
At trial, Mr. Cobb testified that if the officer had told him about the warrant he probably would have obeyed the order to exit the vehicle and submitted to arrest. The State of Ohio did not produce any evidence to rebut Mr. Cobb’s testimony on that point.
“In this case, there is no evidence that gives rise to a reason to think that Defendant Cobb would have resisted if the officer had simply told Defendant Cobb of the warrant—what [former U.S. Supreme Court} Justice [Anthony] Kennedy called ‘a satisfactory explanation for the invasive action,’” Judge Braig wrote. “Defendant Cobb did all he could to invite the officer to tell him. The officer snubbed him. If he had accepted Defendant Cobb’s invitation and told Defendant Cobb about the warrant and Defendant Cobb resisted, then the State could prove beyond a reasonable doubt the offense of resisting arrest.
“The officer had broad authority to control the scene at the stop. But he and the State bear the consequences for how he did so even when the consequences result in the State’s case being hoisted with its own petard and put officers’ qualified immunity in jeopardy.
“One of the consequences of the officer’s decision-making at the scene and the one that is before the Court on this motion is that the State has failed to produce evidence upon which a rational trier of fact could find beyond a reasonable doubt that Defendant Cobb assaulted either officer or obstructed any official business.”
