Background
Gregory Love was charged in a seven-count indictment arising from a January 2025 shooting. At trial, the State presented evidence that, after a confrontation in a parking lot, Love pulled within a few feet of a Nissan in which K.C. sat in the front passenger seat, leaned out of his vehicle, looked into the Nissan, and fired 17 shots into it. K.C. testified that she saw Love’s face, tried to move to the back seat while he fired, and feared she would die. She was not injured.
A jury found Love guilty of attempted murder, felonious assault, having a weapon while under disability, aggravated menacing, and two counts of improperly handling firearms in a motor vehicle, along with the firearm specifications attached to Counts 1, 2, and 5. It acquitted him of criminal damaging. The trial court imposed an aggregate 14-to-15.5-year prison term, including mandatory firearm-specification terms.
The Court’s Holding
The Eighth District held that sufficient evidence supported Love’s attempted-murder and felonious-assault convictions. A rational jury could infer a purpose to kill from Love’s close-range firing of multiple shots into an occupied vehicle, as well as infer that he knowingly attempted to cause physical harm with a firearm. The location of bullet holes and K.C.’s lack of injury did not defeat the sufficiency of the evidence.
The court agreed with Love and the State that attempted murder and felonious assault were allied offenses of similar import. Both arose from the same shooting into the Nissan, were not committed separately, and lacked separate animus. The trial court therefore plainly erred by failing to merge the base offenses, even though it imposed concurrent terms. The court affirmed the guilty findings and firearm-specification sentences, as well as the convictions and sentences on Counts 3 through 6, and remanded solely for merger and resentencing on the base charges after the State’s election.
Key Takeaways
- Repeatedly firing into an occupied vehicle at close range can support an inference of a purposeful attempt to kill.
- A victim’s lack of physical injury does not preclude sufficient evidence of attempted murder or felonious assault.
- Concurrent sentences do not substitute for merger of allied offenses; no sentence may be entered on the merged count.
Why It Matters
The decision reinforces that intent in shooting cases may be proven circumstantially from the weapon, proximity, number of shots, and occupied nature of the target vehicle. It also underscores the continuing significance of allied-offense analysis at sentencing, including when defense counsel did not raise merger below.
For sentencing purposes, the court distinguished merger of the underlying attempted-murder and felonious-assault counts from the firearm specifications, which remained intact under Ohio law.