FIRST DISTRICT
COURT OF APPEALS
THESE SUMMARIES ARE NEITHER APPROVED IN ADVANCE NOR ENDORSED BY THE COURT. THEY ARE NOT HEADNOTES OR SYLLABI. INTERESTED PARTIES SHOULD OBTAIN COPIES OF THE ACTUAL DECISIONS FROM THE CLERK OF THE COURT OF APPEALS.
DATE: Wednesday, March 27, 2024
CAPTION: STATE V. JOHNSON
APPEAL NO.: C-230221
TRIAL NO.: B-2101292
KEY WORDS: EVIDENCE — SEARCH AND SEIZURE — CONSTITUTIONAL LAW/CRIMINAL — PROBABLE CAUSE — EVID.R. 612
SUMMARY: The trial court erred in denying defendant’s motion to suppress evidence of drugs and a firearm obtained during a search of defendant’s residence pursuant to a search warrant where the affidavit supporting the warrant application failed to establish a nexus between the evidence of illegal drug activity that police sought to seize and the place they sought to search, and therefore, issuance of the search warrant was without a substantial basis for probable cause and violated the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. [But see DISSENT: There was probable cause to issue the search warrant for defendant’s residence because the affidavit in support of the warrant contained sufficient nexus linking the defendant’s residence with the drug transactions with confidential informants that were verified by police officers.]
Although the trial court erred under Evid.R. 612 in failing to preserve notes used to refresh a state’s witness’s recollection after it withheld the notes from review by defendant’s counsel, the error was harmless regarding defendant’s conviction for failing to comply with a signal of a police officer because the conviction was supported by sufficient evidence apart from the witness’s testimony.
JUDGMENT: AFFIRMED IN PART, REVERSED IN PART, AND CAUSE REMANDED
JUDGES: OPINION by BERGERON, P.J.; CROUSE, J., CONCURS and WINKLER, J., CONCURS IN PART AND DISSENTS IN PART.
CAPTION: STATE V. WILLIAMS
APPEAL NO.: C-230333
TRIAL NO.: B-1501161
KEY WORDS: POSTCONVICTION — R.C. 2953.23
SUMMARY: The common pleas court did not err by dismissing defendant’s successive petition for postconviction relief where defendant could not meet the jurisdictional requirements of R.C. 2953.23: defendant was not unavoidably prevented from discovering the facts underlying his postconviction claims where he did not need access to his case file to know that his trial counsel had failed to call the victims’ mother’s boyfriend as a witness.
The trial court’s failure to serve defendant with the judgment entry denying his first petition for postconviction relief did not prevent defendant from exercising his right to appeal where the time to appeal that judgment had been tolled and where defendant actually filed a timely notice of appeal from the judgment.
The common pleas court did not abuse its discretion in denying defendant’s first petition for postconviction relief where the postconviction claims were either barred by res judicata or did not present substantive grounds for relief.
JUDGMENTS: AFFIRMED
JUDGES: OPINION by ZAYAS, P.J.; WINKLER and KINSLEY, JJ., CONCUR.