Appeal or Post-Conviction? How to Choose the Right Path After a Criminal Conviction in Ohio
You hear “guilty,” the judge sets a sentence, and for a moment it feels like the book just slammed shut on your life.
Then somebody leans over and whispers the thing everyone eventually asks:
“Can we do anything? Appeal? File something?”
In Ohio, that “something” usually lives in one of two worlds:
Direct appeal, and
Post-conviction relief
They sound similar, and people mix them up all the time, but they’re built for very different problems. Picking the wrong path can waste time you honestly don’t have.
So let’s lay it out in plain English.
The big difference: where the problem lives
The simplest way to think about it:
Appeal looks at what’s already on the record.
Post-conviction looks at what never made it into the record.
If your complaint is, “The judge messed up the law,” or “The prosecutor was allowed to use something they shouldn’t have,” that’s usually appeal territory.
If your complaint is, “My lawyer didn’t do their job,” or “We found new evidence,” or “Nobody knew this at the time,” that’s usually post-conviction territory.
A direct appeal focuses on legal mistakes the judge or prosecutor made that show up in the trial record, which is why working with an appellate attorney in Columbus who knows how to dissect transcripts is so important.
If the problem is outside the record, like ineffective assistance or newly discovered evidence – you’re usually in post-conviction territory, and that’s where a post-conviction attorney in Columbus can step in with a different set of tools.
Same case. Same conviction. Two very different angles.
What a direct appeal actually does
A direct appeal is not a second trial. No new witnesses, no new exhibits, no “this time I’ll tell my story better.”
Instead, the appeals court looks at:
The transcripts of hearings and trial
The motions filed
The judge’s rulings
The jury instructions
The sentence that was imposed
Your lawyer’s job on appeal is to point at those pieces and say, essentially:
“Here is where the judge applied the wrong law”
“Here is evidence that should have been excluded or included”
“Here is where the prosecutor crossed the line”
“Here is why the sentence doesn’t follow Ohio’s rules”
The appeals court then decides if those legal errors were serious enough to matter. If they agree, they can:
Reverse the conviction
Order a new trial
Send the case back for a new sentencing hearing
Or sometimes tweak the outcome in more limited ways
If they don’t see meaningful legal error, the conviction stands, even if you (and your family) still feel the whole thing was unfair.
This is why appeals are a very specific kind of fight. They’re less about feelings and more about footnotes and case law, which is exactly what an appellate attorney in Columbus lives in every day.
What post-conviction relief is for
Post-conviction is where you go when the problem isn’t on the surface of the transcript.
Think:
Your lawyer never talked to a key witness who could have backed your story
They didn’t file obvious motions
They ignored mental-health or alibi evidence
You were pushed into a plea you didn’t understand
New evidence appears later (recantation, new forensics, hidden records)
The State held back evidence it was required to disclose
None of that is visible just from reading the trial transcript. On paper, it might look like everyone did their job. But you know there were conversations, failures, or facts that never saw the inside of a courtroom.
Post-conviction is how you bring that hidden stuff in.
When new evidence surfaces or your trial lawyer missed critical issues, a post-conviction attorney in Columbus can file petitions asking the court to reopen the case and correct those constitutional errors.
Instead of assuming nothing can be done, many families sit down with a Columbus post-conviction lawyer to review what actually happened at trial and what was left on the table.
It’s not about relitigating every detail. It’s about showing the court, “Here’s what you didn’t see the first time, and here’s why that matters.”
Deadlines: why timing is not optional
Both paths are full of deadlines.
For appeals, you usually have a very short window after sentencing to file a notice of appeal. Miss that, and your direct appeal rights might be gone.
For post-conviction, Ohio law sets time limits and restrictions on when and how you can file petitions, especially if you’ve already had an appeal.
That’s why “we’ll think about it later” is dangerous.
Even if you’re exhausted and overwhelmed (completely understandable), the system is not waiting for everyone to calm down. As soon as a conviction and sentence are in place, the clock starts ticking.
If you’re even thinking about challenging what happened, it’s smart to talk to someone who does both appeals and post-conviction work, so you don’t accidentally burn one path by focusing only on the other.
Can you do both appeal and post-conviction?
Sometimes, yes – and often that’s exactly what needs to happen.
You might:
File a direct appeal to challenge errors the judge made on the record, while
Preparing a post-conviction petition dealing with ineffective assistance or new evidence off the record
They’re separate pieces of the same fight.
The catch is that certain issues, if you could have raised them on appeal but didn’t, may be harder to bring up later in post-conviction. That’s another reason getting a big-picture plan early matters.
An attorney who understands both sides can help you decide:
Which issues go into the appeal
Which issues belong in post-conviction
How to avoid waiving or losing good arguments by parking them in the wrong place
How to know which lane you’re in
A very rough guide:
You’re probably in appeal territory if you’re saying things like:
“The judge let the jury hear stuff they shouldn’t have”
“They used my prior record against me in a way that felt wrong”
“The prosecutor said something highly improper in closing”
“The jury was instructed the wrong way on the law”
“The sentence doesn’t match what the statute says”
You’re probably in post-conviction territory if you’re saying things like:
“My lawyer never even talked to the only person who could back me up”
“We just found a witness/record/test result nobody used at trial”
“I only took the plea because my lawyer scared me and never explained my options”
“The State had evidence that would have helped me and I didn’t see it until later”
And if you’re saying some of both? That’s your sign that you may need both processes.
Why you shouldn’t try to map this alone
It’s really common for families to do late-night research and come away more confused than when they started. The law around appeals and post-conviction relief is full of:
Procedural traps
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