Ohio Criminal Appeals Lawyer Blog

Police must have a reasonable articulable suspicion to conduct field sobriety tests on a driver. The Sixth District Court of Appeals for Lucas County held that a Maumee Municipal Court Judge erred by denying a defendant's motion to suppress evidence. A Whitehouse police officer pulled over the defendant because he had a headlight that was not working. The officer let the defendant get out of his car to check out the headlight. The light came on when the driver struck it with his hand. But the officer did not let him drive away. Instead, she kept chatting with the driver and decided that a "slight odor" of alcohol was emanating from him and his eyes were bloodshot and glassy. When the officer ran his license, she discovered a four year old OVI conviction. The officer offered the driver the opportunity to take a PBT. But he refused so the officer administered field sobriety tests and determined he failed. The trial court denied his motion to suppress, but the Court of Appeals decided that the police officer lacked the necessary reasonable articulable suspicion and the motion to suppress should have been granted. State v. Stricklin, 2012-Ohio-1877.

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A Motion to Suppress must set forth both the legal and factual bases for the motion. A Canton Municipal Court Judge overruled a motion to suppress due to lack of specificity. But the Fifth District Court of Appeals for Stark County reversed that decision because it found that "appellant fully complied and did set forth some underlying facts in the memorandum and the supplemental memorandum in support of the motion to suppress." Since the defendant's motion "stated with particularity the statutes and regulations he alleged were violated, set forth some underlying factual basis to warrant a hearing, and gave the prosecutor and court sufficient notice of the basis of his challenge." Read the decision in State v. Ebersole, 2012-Ohio-895, here.

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The Belmont County Prosecutor appealed a judge's ruling suppressing the defendant's statement in a child sex case. The defense argued at the suppression hearing that the defendant did not understand his right to remain silent. The trial court appointed a psychologist to examine the defendant. The psychologist testified that "to a reasonable degree of psychological certainty that she did not believe [the Defendant] intelligently waived his rights." Specifically, the psychologist testified that the defendant thought that his right to remain silent meant that he could be silent unless he was asked a question. Since there were factors supporting the trial judge's decision to suppress the statement and the court of appeals must give great deference to the trial judge in an appeal from a suppression ruling, the Seventh District Court of Appeals affirmed the decision in State v. Lynn, 2011-Ohio-6404, as you can read here.

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"The state is the party with the burden to demonstrate in the case of warrantless police stops that the police officer had reasonable suspicion for the stop. Terry v. Ohio (1968), 392 U.S. 1, 21." A Columbiana County Defendant sufficiently put the State on notice that he was challenging the initial stop at the suppression hearing. So the state failed to meet its burden to show that the stop was valid because it failed to present any evidence to justify the stop. The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Appellate District ruled that any evidence found as a result of the stop should have been suppressed as you can read in State v. Burnette, 2011-Ohio-6400, here.

If you are accused of a crime or have been convicted already, contact me if you can afford to hire a private criminal defense lawyer. Otherwise, contact your county or state public defender to see if they can help.

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