“Knowingly” in Vehicular Felonious Assault Turns on Awareness of Probable Harm—And Police Cruisers with Flashing Lights Can Supply the “Lawful Order or Direction” for Failure-to-Comply

A. Precedents Cited

• State v. Dent, 2020-Ohio-6670 (¶ 15): Cited for the proposition that sufficiency review is a legal question reviewed de novo. Its role here is methodological: it frames the Supreme Court’s independent evaluation of whether the record could support the elements beyond a reasonable doubt.
• State v. Groce, 2020-Ohio-6671 (¶ 7), citing State v. Jenks, 61 Ohio St.3d 259 (1991), paragraph two of the syllabus, and noting State v. Smith, 1997-Ohio-355 (fn. 4):
  These cases supply Ohio’s canonical sufficiency standard: whether, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could find the essential elements beyond a reasonable doubt. The court uses that lens to reject the appellate court’s reweighing of inferences about “knowing” versus “reckless.”
• State v. Robinson, 2007-Ohio-3646 (¶ 10) (8th Dist.):
  The Eighth District relied on Robinson to describe knowing conduct as requiring a “degree of certainty” about the result. The Supreme Court effectively limits that framing by returning to the statutory definition—particularly the “regardless of purpose” clause—and by emphasizing that intent/purpose is not required for knowledge.
• State v. Crawl, 2025-Ohio-2799 (¶ 17):
  Used to reinforce the court’s key clarification: knowledge does not require a purpose to cause harm; it requires “only an awareness of the probable consequences of one’s actions.” Crawl becomes the doctrinal pivot for correcting the Eighth District’s “intention that a result will occur” gloss.

Takeaway on precedent use: The opinion is less about creating a new multi-factor test than about re-centering sufficiency review and mens rea analysis on statutory text and orthodox sufficiency doctrine, while cabining appellate language that risks importing “purpose” into “knowledge.”

B. Legal Reasoning

1) Felony murder via felonious assault: “knowingly” means awareness of probable harm, not purposeful intent

The State proceeded under R.C. 2903.02(B) (felony murder), predicated on felonious assault under R.C. 2903.11(A)(1) and (A)(2). The dispositive mens rea for those felonious-assault predicates is “knowingly” as defined in R.C. 2901.22(B).

The Supreme Court’s doctrinal correction is explicit: the Eighth District erred by treating knowledge as requiring an intention that the harmful result occur. The statute says the opposite—“knowingly, regardless of purpose”—so the inquiry is whether the defendant was aware that his conduct would probably cause the result.

The court then anchors “probably” in its ordinary meaning and the Legislative Service Commission comment to R.C. 2901.22: “Something is ‘probable’ when there is more reason for expectation or belief than not.” In other words, “probable” is treated as a greater-than-50% expectation in common-sense terms, not a mere possibility.

Applying sufficiency standards to the record, the court highlights evidence from which a rational factfinder could infer Bissell’s awareness of probable harm:

• nighttime highway conditions plus a conspicuous, “heavy police presence”;
• multiple police cruisers with flashing lights blocking the left lanes;
• Bissell’s repeated lane and shoulder maneuvers around at least four police vehicles;
• video evidence showing high speed through a scene containing a firetruck, responders, bystanders, and a rolled vehicle;
• impact speed estimated at 49 m.p.h. and no observed braking before impact;
• flight from the scene (continued driving and later arrest at his apartment).

Notably, the court treats “did he see Tetrick?” as not determinative. The inference of knowledge is permitted from the overall circumstances—an active, visibly controlled emergency scene—making serious physical harm to someone in or near the travel lanes “more likely than not” to result from Bissell’s conduct.

The opinion also disposes of common defense reframes—e.g., alleged lack of cones/flares, alleged safety violations by responders, and the fact other cars used the center-left lane. Those points might be relevant to competing narratives at trial, but under sufficiency review they do not negate that a rational factfinder could still find knowledge given the speed, maneuvers, police presence, and emergency-scene environment.

2) Failure to comply: a “lawful order or direction” can be conveyed by police vehicles and traffic control measures

For R.C. 2921.331(A), the Eighth District required proof of a direct order/direction and emphasized the absence of police-officer testimony. The Supreme Court rejects a verbal-command requirement and holds that, in context, the police cruisers’ placement and flashing lights communicated a direction to motorists.

The court bolsters that conclusion by referencing related traffic-safety statutes: R.C. 4511.213(A)(1) (duty to proceed with due caution and, if possible, change lanes when approaching stationary public-safety/emergency vehicles with flashing lights), and R.C. 4513.17(D)(2) (only a public law enforcement officer can display flashing blue lights). Together, those provisions support the inference that flashing-blue-light cruisers blocking lanes are an authoritative traffic-control signal, not merely “ambient lighting.”

The court also notes trial testimony that uniformed officers were guiding traffic and using flashlights to secure lanes. The result is a pragmatic rule: for sufficiency purposes, a rational factfinder could conclude that the combined cruiser placement, emergency lighting, and officer activity constituted a “lawful order or direction” to keep out of the closed lanes and proceed with caution—an order Bissell failed to follow when he sped through the center-left lane.

C. Impact

• Vehicular felony-murder charging stability: The decision strengthens the State’s ability to sustain felony murder predicated on felonious assault in egregious driving-through-emergency-scene cases, by clarifying that “knowledge” does not require proof the driver targeted or even visually identified a particular victim.
• Mens rea boundary-setting: By insisting on the statutory “regardless of purpose” language, the court reduces the risk that appellate courts will elevate “knowingly” into a quasi-purpose standard. This may affect how intermediate courts review sufficiency where defendants claim “I didn’t mean to hit anyone.”
• Failure-to-comply enforcement in traffic-control scenarios: The holding supports prosecutions where “orders” are communicated through police traffic control measures (e.g., cruisers positioned as lane blocks with emergency lights), even if the State’s case does not feature the specific officer who physically positioned the cruiser testifying at trial—so long as the record supports that the signal/direction came from officers “invested with authority to direct, control, or regulate traffic.”
• Emergency-responder safety litigation: Expect more reliance on video evidence, scene layout, and conspicuity factors (lights, blocked lanes, traffic funneling) to prove “probable harm” awareness in serious injury/death cases involving first responders.