Staff photo / Ed Runyan Robyn E. Johnson, 29, of Matthews Road in Boardman, right, went on trial Monday in Mahoning County County Common Pleas Court on charges of discharging a firearm on or near prohibited premises and felonious assault in an April 22, 2023, shooting of a woman on South Avenue at Midlothian Boulevard. At left is her attorney, Michael Kivlighan.

YOUNGSTOWN — Robyn E. Johnson, 29, of Boardman, went on trial Monday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court on charges of discharging a firearm on or near prohibited premises and two counts of felonious assault, all with gun specifications, for a 2023 incident in Youngstown.

The first charge alleges that Johnson fired a gun over a road — South Avenue at Midlothian Boulevard. The second charge is felonious assault, alleging that Johnson fired a gun into the car the victim was riding in, hitting a woman she knew in the shoulder.

“The bullet rested in her lung, where it still sits,” Mahoning County Assistant Prosecutor Anissa Modarelli said during opening statements. Modarelli said Johnson admits she did shoot the other woman, “But she will want you to believe that these things were done in self defense.”

Modarelli asked the jury to understand that “This is not a case of self-defense. The actions of the defendant are not even close to self-defense. First, (Johnson) was the aggressor and started a confrontation with the victim, even after the victim tried to avoid the defendant’s hostility. The defendant aggressively followed her. This is not the behavior of a person in fear. This is the behavior of an angry person, a violent person.”

Modarelli said that under Ohio law, a person is allowed to use force “only if they reasonably believe (it) is necessary to defend themselves from an imminent threat of death or serious physical harm.”

Modarelli added, “She has to say that she reasonably believed she was in imminent danger and the force she used was necessary to prevent that harm that she was fearful of.”

Defense attorney Michael Kivlighan, meanwhile, told jurors in opening statements that Johnson was at the King’s Court bar on South Avenue the night of the shooting and left near closing time.

“But what she did not know is that there was a Cadillac parked in the parking lot” with a man and woman inside. Security video shows the car backing into a parking spot and turning into the parking lot, he said. As soon as Johnson pulled out of the parking lot, so did the Cadillac, Kivlighan said. She became concerned about the Cadillac and drove back to South Avenue to drive on a busier road, Kivlighan said. The Cadillac followed her.

He said the two cars ended up beside each other on South Avenue and the alleged victim was “yelling, screaming, throwing her arms up in the air,” Kivlighan said.

He said the cars stopped at South Avenue and Midlothian. Surveillance video shows the door of the Cadillac open and the alleged victim got out with a gun in her hand. The two women fought with Johnson in her vehicle and the alleged victim on top of her, hitting her and grabbing the braids of her hair. He said she heard the alleged victim yelling at the man “Shoot her.”

He said Johnson will testify that she was able to get the gun and fired it several times. and got back in her car.

The trial resumes today.