{"id":102328,"date":"2018-05-07T08:00:49","date_gmt":"2018-05-07T13:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=102328"},"modified":"2018-05-08T08:22:00","modified_gmt":"2018-05-08T13:22:00","slug":"conviction-of-christopher-peters-upheld-by-appeals-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2018\/05\/07\/conviction-of-christopher-peters-upheld-by-appeals-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Appeals Court upholds Peters conviction"},"content":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/<\/strong>independent editor<\/em><\/p>\n

The Ohio Third District Court of Appeals has upheld the conviction of a Delphos man sentenced to life in prison and two 8-year prison terms in the beating death of a 15-month-old boy.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Convicted murderer Christopher Peters (in blue shirt) stares stonily at jurors as they are polled on their verdicts during his murder trial.<\/strong>\u00a0VW independent file photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Christopher Peters was convicted on charges of aggravated murder, felonious assault, and endangering children related to the death of Hayden Ivan Ridinger, cited two errors in seeking to have his conviction overturned: that the verdicts were against the manifest weight of the evidence and that the trial court erred in failing to merge the aggravated murder and felonious assault charges for sentencing.<\/p>\n

In an opinion written by Judge Stephen R. Shaw, the court looked at both issues cited by Peters\u2019 attorney, Michael J. Short. Van Wert County Assistant Prosecutor Kelly J. Rauch represented the State\u2019s case on appeal.<\/p>\n

Judge Shaw noted that Peters contends there was a period of time where Valarie Dean, the boy\u2019s mother, was alone with Hayden and that she could have beaten the boy or administered a lethal dose of<\/p>\n

Benadryl to him. Peters also argues that there were no witnesses testifying that he did anything to the boy, that all evidence was circumstantial, and contends the state\u2019s case did not amount to \u201cproof beyond a reasonable doubt\u201d — the legal standard for felony cases.<\/p>\n

Shaw noted that, in reviewing whether a defendant\u2019s conviction was against the manifest weight of the evidence, an appellate court acts as a \u201cthirteenth juror\u201d and examines the conflicting testimony. In doing so, the Third District Court reviewed the entire court record, weighed the evidence and all of the reasonable inferences, considered the credibility of witnesses, and determined whether the jury \u201cclearly lost its way and created such a manifest miscarriage of justice that the conviction must be reversed and a new trial ordered.\u201d<\/p>\n

Judge Shaw said appellate courts typically reverse a conviction \u201conly in the exceptional case in which the evidence weighs heavily against the conviction<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The judge also noted that, in overturning the judgment from a jury trial, such as in the Peters case, all three appellate judges hearing the case must unanimously agree.<\/p>\n

During his opinion, Judge Shaw outlined the evidence in the case, noting that while there some inconsistencies in the testimony and no one actually saw Peters strike and kill the child, circumstantial evidence in the case placed Peters alone with the boy during the suspected time of death.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile Peters argues that Valarie was alone with (the boy) once she returned home from work, that time frame does not fit with the time of death, as testified by the State\u2019s witnesses,\u201d Judge Shaw noted.<\/p>\n

\u201cBased on the evidence and the testimony presented, we cannot find that Peters\u2019 convictions for aggravated murder, felonious assault, and endangering children, were against the manifest weight of the evidence,\u201d Judge Shaw concluded.<\/p>\n

As to the second assignment of error, that the murder and felonious assault charges should have been merged for the purpose of sentencing, Judge Shaw noted that Hayden Ridinger was severely beaten, but could have survived the blows for up to an hour after the beating, noting that Peters\u2019 failure to get medical treatment for the boy led to his eventual death.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven the tender age of the child, an initial blow could cause serious physical harm, whereas multiple additional blows to different parts of the body would suggest a separate intent to kill\u2026,\u201d the appellate opinion stated.<\/p>\n

Judge Shaw wrote that, based on that statement, the second and final assignment of error was also overruled.<\/p>\n

Judges William R. Willamowski and William R. Zimmerman, who also heard the appeal, unanimously agreed with Judge Shaw\u2019s opinion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/independent editor The Ohio Third District Court of Appeals has upheld the conviction of a Delphos man sentenced to life in prison and two 8-year prison terms in the beating death of a 15-month-old boy. Christopher Peters was convicted on charges of aggravated murder, felonious assault, and endangering children related to the death of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-02 23:58:58","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102328\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}