Warren man loses appeal in fatal crash crash case

WARREN, Ohio (WKBN) — The 11th District Court of Appeals Monday denied an appeal by a Warren man convicted of killing a Cleveland woman in a head-on crash in Portage County.

The court let stand convictions of aggravated vehicular homicide, aggravated vehicular assault and operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of a listed metabolite against Anthony Naylor, 25.

Naylor was convicted in November 2022 following a trial in Portage County Common Pleas Court for a Sept. 5, 2020, crash that caused the death of Essence Shaw, 22, of Cleveland, and injured another driver.

Court documents say the crash happened on state Route 5 in Charlestown Township after a car Naylor was driving collided head-on with a car Shaw was a passenger in.

Naylor was also injured in the crash.

He was sentenced in March 2023 to 11 to 14 and a half years in prison by Common Pleas Judge Rebecca Daugherty.

Reports at the time of the crash said a car driven by Naylor traveled left of center, briefly causing the driver of the car Shaw was in to take evasive action, according to a report. Naylor’s car then corrected and swerved back into the eastbound lanes as the other car was swerving left, also into the eastbound lanes.

Police said both vehicles collided head-on in the eastbound lanes.

Court documents said that at least two people reported a car similar to Naylor’s driving recklessly and swerving on the roadway at the time of the crash.

Naylor appealed his convictions on the grounds that the trial court excluded an expert witness from testifying on his behalf; that prosecutors misrepresented the law during closing arguments; that there was not sufficient evidence for a conviction; and that the OVI with a metabolite statute is unconstitutional.

The 11th district’s opinion said that Naylor smelled of alcohol while he was interviewed by state troopers in the hospital after the crash and later admitted to drinking an hour before the accident. A urine sample also found metabolite in his system, court papers said.

The defense expert was prepared to testify that the metabolite level in Naylor’s system, which comes from marijuana, played no factor in the crash.

The appeals court ruled that state law says that a person can only have a certain amount of metabolites in their system when operating a vehicle and because Naylor was way over that limit, according to tests in court documents, prosecutors did not have to prove he was impaired, only that he violated the law by having an illegal amount of metabolites in his system.

As for excluding the witness, the appeals court wrote that trial courts have “broad discretion” when deciding if an expert witness should be allowed to testify and “will not be disturbed absent an abuse of discretion.”

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