Ohio Supreme Court: Seizing suspect’s clothing at hospital illegal, but did not affect conviction – The Highland County Press

A police officers seizure of socks and underwear from a hospital room violated the constitutional rights of a teenage boy accused of killing his elderly neighbor, but excluding theevidencefrom the clothes would not have changed the outcome of the criminal proceedings, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled recently.

A Supreme Court majority affirmed the convictions of J.L., who was 15 when hepleadedno contestto multiplechargesarising from a March 2015 incident, which culminated in the murder of a 94-year-old in her Niles home. J.L. wassentencedto life imprisonment without the possibility ofparolefor aggravated murder, along with an additional 30 years inprisonon othercounts.

The Court unanimously concluded that a Trumbull County Common Pleas Court incorrectly denied J.L.s request tosuppresstheevidenceobtained from the clothes he wore when taken to a hospital after his mother discovered blood on him. However, the justices were divided 4-3 on whether the error had a substantial impact on J.L.s decision to plead no contest.

Writing for the Courtmajority, Justice Patrick F. Fischer noted the police collected evidence of the victims DNA from J.L.s body and other clothes located at his home. Because any evidence from the socks and underwear would have been duplicative of what theprosecutionalready obtained, thetrial courtsdecision to allow the illegally seized evidence was harmless error, Justice Fischer wrote.

Chief Justice Maureen OConnor and Justices Sharon L. Kennedy and R. Patrick DeWine joined Justice Fischers opinion.

In a partiallyconcurringanddissenting opinion, Justice Michael P. Donnelly agreed with the majority that the socks and underwear evidence taken from the hospital was inadmissible, but found there was no basis to conclude that the trial courts failure to suppress that evidence did not contribute to or have a material effect on J.L.s decision to plead no contest. He argued the Court should haveremandedthe case to the trial court for further proceedings.

Justices Melody J. Stewart and Jennifer Brunner joined Justice Donnellys opinion.

When J.L. arrived home in the late afternoon, his mother discovered blood on him. Believing her son had been assaulted, she called the Niles Police Department. Niles Police Officer Todd Mobley arrived at the home and found J.L., who appeared intoxicated, wearing only socks and underwear, and repeatedly saying statements such as theyre going to kill me for this. Mobley, who noted J.L. had blood on him but no visible injuries, arranged to transport the teen to the hospital.

As an ambulance departed with J.L., Mobley was directed to a home across an alley from J.L.s and met the victims daughter. Two detectives joined Mobley and the officers discovered blood everywhere and the victims body in a bedroom.

Niles Officer Michael Biddlestone was instructed to secure J.L. as a suspect in the victims death. Biddlestone handcuffed J.L. to his hospital bed. Hospital staff removed J.L.s socks and underwear. A nurse advised the officer that there was blood on J.L.s groin and that the nurse wiped his groin clean with a washcloth.

Biddlestone obtained the socks, underwear and washcloth from the hospital room. A detective who searched the victims home obtained a searchwarrantthat allowed for a swab of J.L.s cheeks, penis and hands for DNA evidence. Hospital personnel obtained fingernail scrapings from J.L. and provided them to the detective.

J.L. was charged in juvenile court withdelinquencycounts related to the victims death. The juvenile court granted the Trumbull County prosecuting attorneys request to transfer the case to adult court. J.L. then was charged with multiple counts, including aggravated murder, aggravated robbery and attempted rape.

J.L.filedamotionto suppress evidence taken from the hospital room, including the socks and underwear, the washcloth and the fingernail scrapings. The trial court denied the motion.

J.L. pleaded no contest to all the charges. Along with his prison sentence, he was also classified as a Tier III sex offender.

J.L.appealedhisconvictionand sentence to the Eleventh District Court of Appeals, whichaffirmedthe trial courts suppression rulings. J.L. appealed the decision to the Supreme Court, which agreed to consider his argument that the personal items seized from the hospital room without his consent and without a warrant violated his rights under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The Fourth Amendment protects people against unreasonable searches and seizures, Justice Fischer explained, and the evidence collected at the hospital fell into three distinct categories for the Court to determine if the seizures were constitutional.

The Court first examined the washcloth, which J.L. claimed that along with his clothing was his personal property and that he had an expectation of privacy in it. Theprosecutormaintained the washcloth was hospital property, arguing that J.L. had no privacy interest in the washcloth because J.L. had no injuries. The blood wiped from his body with the washcloth was not his blood, but rather the victims, the prosecutor argued. Because police had a warrant to swab his penis, the police would have inevitably discovered the victims blood from the same area of J.L.s body as that which was removed by the washcloth, the prosecutor asserted, meaning it would have been admissible.

Because the penile swabs revealed the victims DNA, the Court affirmed the decision to allow the washcloth seizure.

J.L. also challenged the fingernail scrapings, arguing the warrant allowed for the swabbing of his hands, but did not specifically mention or authorize taking fingernail scrapings. Citing U.S. Supreme Court decisions, the opinion stated that the purpose of a search warrant prevents general searches that allow for wide-ranging exploratory searches. In this case, the warrant did not authorize an open-ended search but only allowed for three specific areas of J.L.s body to be searched, including his hands.

Because the fingernails are part of an area specified in the search warrant, the Court permitted the search and seizure of J.L.s fingernails.

The prosecution maintained that it did not seize J.L.s socks and underwear because it was the hospital staff that took them from J.L.. Once removed, J.L. had no expectation of privacy in the clothing, the state maintained.

J.L. argued that when the hospital took his clothing, the hospital was merely holding his property and had no right to possess them or give them to anyone else. The Court agreed that it was the police, not the hospital, that seized the clothing. It concluded that the prosecution had failed to establish that any exception to the search-warrant requirement applied to the seizure of the clothing.

Because some of the evidence J.L. challenged should have been suppressed, the Court stated it had to determine whether the trial courts ruling wasreversibleerror. The opinion noted that a limited number of prior cases address the situation of determining the significance of an error that occurs at a suppressionhearing, which takes place before atrialbegins, and the impact that error has on leading adefendantto plead no contest.

Among the decisions the Court cited was the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of AppealsUnited States v. Leake(1996) decision. While the federal courts do not have an explicit test to determine harmless error, the Sixth Circuit stated a court must inquire into the degree of success and probability that the excluded evidence would have had a material effect on the defendants decision to plead guilty.

The opinion noted that courts often do not have a full picture of the evidence at the suppression hearing stage, and it is difficult to determine at that time whether excluding the evidence would change the defendants decision to plead no contest. The opinion stated it might be the rare case in which denying a motion to suppress would be considered harmless error.

The Court noted the states Bureau of Criminal Investigation prepared a report that was introduced during the suppression hearing, which contained no test results from J.L.s socks. The report found the victims blood on J.L.s shirt and shoes. A bloodstain from his underwear did contain the victims DNA, but that evidence is duplicative of the DNA evidence that was lawfully obtained from a swab of J.L.s penis.

Because the washcloth and fingernail evidence were obtained legally, and along with the other evidence the police collected, suppressing the evidence from the clothes would not have had a material effect on J.L.s decision to plead no contest, the Court majority concluded.

In his partially dissenting opinion, Justice Donnelly described the majoritys harmful-error analysis as woefully ill-considered and wholly disruptive to the right to appeal certain pretrial rulings following a no-contest plea and fundamentally incompatible with J.L.s right to due process of the law. The dissenting opinion stated the problem is that no evidence of a J.L.s guilt had beenadmittedinto the caserecordat this early stage of the proceedings.

The dissent maintained that at the suppression hearing stage, the trial court only knew the evidence the prosecutor stated it would present if the case proceeded to trial, and the state clearly intended to use the socks and underwear. Justice Donnelly stated he could not see how the majority can fairly say J.L.s decision was unaffected by the trial courts ruling, and that the majority should not usurp J.L.s right to decide for himself whether he would change his no-contest plea had the evidence been suppressed.

Justice Donnelly further stated that the majoritys application of the harmless-error rule practically defeats the reason for pleading no contest, which is to obtain appellate review over a select category of pretrial rulings implicating constitutional rights. From now on, a defendant who enters a no-contest plea to contest an erroneous trial court evidentiary ruling can be stuck with the no-contest plea even after showing that the trial court ruling that induced the no-contest plea was constitutional error.

The dissent stated criminal defendants must now understand that they may lose their cases even if they demonstrate the evidence should have been suppressed. The practical consequences of the decision may be fewer no-contest pleas, more criminal trials, and irreparable damage to the vindication of constitutional rights, the dissent concluded.

Suppressing the clothing taken from the hospital would not give J.L. a free pass, the dissent stated, but both J.L. and the prosecutor deserve the opportunity to reassess their respective positions with a clear understanding of the evidence that may or may not be used at trial, the dissent concluded.

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Ohio Supreme Court: Seizing suspect's clothing at hospital illegal, but did not affect conviction - The Highland County Press