Background
In December 2024, Kayla Hargraves drove a group of individuals — assembled in response to a reported sexual assault of a companion — to confront the alleged attacker at a drug house in Muskingum County, Ohio. The group broke windows and kicked in the front door before being driven off by an armed occupant. Back at Hargraves’s apartment, the group obtained a shotgun, which was brought inside, loaded, and placed in her vehicle. Hargraves then drove the group through downtown in search of the suspected attacker.
The group mistakenly identified an innocent man, Willard, as the suspect. Hargraves stopped her vehicle next to him, and co-defendants fired two shotgun blasts at him from inside the car — with Hargraves driving the vehicle forward between shots to allow a second shot to be taken. Willard survived despite sustaining two gunshot wounds. In February 2025, Hargraves was indicted on eleven counts including attempted murder, conspiracy, felonious assault, and discharge of a firearm on or near prohibited premises.
Pursuant to a negotiated plea agreement, Hargraves pleaded guilty to amended charges of attempted aggravated burglary (F-2), felonious assault with a drive-by-shooting specification (F-2), and discharge of a firearm on or near prohibited premises (F-3). The trial court sentenced her to an aggregate minimum of fifteen years, including a mandatory consecutive five-year term for the drive-by-shooting specification, with a maximum potential term of nineteen years. Hargraves appealed on three grounds: that maximum sentences were unsupported, that consecutive sentences violated her Sixth Amendment rights under Blakely v. Washington, and that the felonious assault and discharge counts should have merged for sentencing.
The Court’s Holding
The Fifth District affirmed on all three assignments of error. On the sentencing challenges, the court found that the trial court properly considered the statutory purposes and principles of felony sentencing under R.C. 2929.11 and the seriousness and recidivism factors under R.C. 2929.12. The court rejected Hargraves’s argument that the trial court improperly relied on dismissed charges and her prior criminal record, reaffirming that Ohio sentencing courts may consider prior arrests, acquitted conduct, dismissed charges, and other uncharged conduct reflected in a presentence investigation report. The court also found that the trial court made the requisite consecutive-sentence findings under R.C. 2929.14(C)(4) — that consecutive terms were necessary to protect the public, not disproportionate to the offense, and that Hargraves’s criminal history warranted them.
On the merger question, the court applied the State v. Ruff framework and held that felonious assault (R.C. 2903.11(A)(2)) and discharge of a firearm on or near prohibited premises (R.C. 2923.162(A)(3)) are offenses of dissimilar import that do not merge. Following its own precedent in State v. Hoffer, 2026-Ohio-235, the court explained that the discharge offense targets the inherently public danger of firing a projectile over a public roadway — a harm that always extends to the public at large — while the felonious assault offense punishes the knowing use of a deadly weapon against a particular person. Because the harm from each offense is separate and identifiable, and because the conduct put more than one class of victim at risk, separate convictions were permissible.
Key Takeaways
- Ohio sentencing courts may consider dismissed charges, prior arrests, acquitted conduct, and other uncharged conduct from a PSI when imposing sentence — such consideration does not render a sentence contrary to law.
- Under State v. Ruff, felonious assault and discharge of a firearm on or near prohibited premises do not merge as allied offenses because the discharge offense creates a harm to the public at large that is separate and identifiable from the harm to the individual victim of the assault.
- A trial court imposing consecutive sentences satisfies R.C. 2929.14(C)(4) by making the required findings at the sentencing hearing and incorporating them into the sentencing entry; appellate courts review those findings under a clear-and-convincing-evidence standard.
- A driver who transports armed co-defendants, stops the vehicle to enable shootings, and advances the vehicle between shots can be held criminally responsible as a principal for resulting offenses, not merely as a peripheral participant.
Why It Matters
This decision reinforces the breadth of information Ohio trial courts may consider at sentencing and the deference appellate courts extend to those judgments. Defense practitioners should be aware that negotiating away counts in a plea deal does not insulate a defendant from having the underlying conduct weighed at sentencing, and that expressions of remorse are not entitled to reflexive credit.
The court’s allied-offenses analysis — following Hoffer — cements a clear rule in the Fifth District: when a defendant fires a weapon over a public road, the public-endangerment harm is legally distinct from any specific injury to an identified victim, defeating merger arguments even when a single act injures a single person. Attorneys litigating allied-offense questions in Ohio drive-by or public-discharge cases should account for this reasoning.