A man convicted of aggravated assault and felony murder in June 2009 was denied his application yesterday to reopen his appeal.
Phillip Boler, 29, was arraigned on Feb. 25, 2009, for aggravated assault and felony murder, both with firearm specifications attached. Boler pleaded not guilty but was convicted on both counts and firearm specifications after an eight-day trial, according to court documents.
Boler was sentenced to 10 years for aggravated robbery, 15 years to life for murder and three additional years for firearm specifications. The firearm specifications sentence was merged into the other sentence lengths.
The charges stemmed from a robbery-turned-gunfight when Boler, Abdifatah Abdi, 18; Hamda Jama, 22; and Mohat Osman, 18, attempted to raid Billy Osborne's trailer in New Marshfield for drugs in February 2009.
Boler appealed his conviction in July 2009 to the Fourth District Court of Appeals. The court denied his appeal in July of this year.
Boler applied to reopen his appeal Sept. 13, claiming inadequate representation, according to court documents. He said that because his representation did not raise winning issues in his direct appeal, his representation was ineffective, according to the documents.
Yesterday, the Fourth District Court of Appeals denied Boler's application to reopen the appeal. In order to establish a claim of ineffective counsel, Boler had to demonstrate the result of the appeal would have changed if not for the counsel's deficient performance, according to court documents.
In his application, Boler failed to prove that he would have been successful if his attorney raised the inaccuracies he stated in his application, according to court documents.
Boler cited 12 assignments of error in his application that he claimed his counsel should have presented.
The State of Ohio decided the assignments in error were too general. Because Boler did not make citations to the record or cite any authority to support his claim, he could not prove a reasonable probability that his conviction would have been reversed, according to court documents.
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Rachel Snively
