[Cite as State v. Tullis, 2014-Ohio-1286.]

 

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF OHIO 

 SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT 

 GREENE COUNTY 

STATE OF OHIO : 

: Appellate Case No. 2013-CA-55 

Plaintiff-Appellee : 

: Trial Court Case No. 12-CR-607 

v. : 

: 

DAMERICK TULLIS : (Criminal Appeal from 

: (Common Pleas Court) 

Defendant-Appellant : 

: 

. . . . . . . . . . . 

O P I N I O N

Rendered on the 28th day of March, 2014. 

. . . . . . . . . . . 

STEPHEN K. HALLER, Atty. Reg. #0009172, by NATHANIEL R. LUKEN, Atty. Reg. 

#0087864, Greene County Prosecuting Attorney, 61 Greene Street, Xenia, Ohio 45385 

Attorneys for Plaintiff-Appellee 

 

JAY A. ADAMS, Atty. Reg. #0072135, 36 North Detroit Street, Suite 102, Xenia, Ohio 45385 

Attorney for Defendant-Appellant 

. . . . . . . . . . . . . 

 

HALL, J., 

{¶ 1} Damerick Tullis appeals the trial court’s entry of summary judgment for the state 

on his petition for postconviction relief. Finding no error, we affirm. 
[Cite as State v. Tullis, 2014-Ohio-1286.]

I. FACTS 

{¶ 2} The trial court overruled Tullis’s motion to suppress the statements and 

confessions he made to detectives, and Tullis pleaded no-contest to two counts of voyeurism, two 

counts of burglary, two counts of kidnaping, one count of attempted rape, and one count of rape. 

Tullis appealed to this Court, arguing that the trial court erred in overruling his motion to 

suppress. Our opinion recited the following facts, pertinent here: 

On the morning of October 17, 2011, Detective Daniel Foreman called 

Tullis at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, where Tullis worked, and asked him to 

come to the [Fairborn] police department to discuss some cases. Tullis agreed and 

arrived at the department a little after noon the same day. Detective Foreman and 

Detective Ryan Whittaker met Tullis and took him to an interview room. Foreman 

told Tullis that he was not under arrest and that he was free to leave at anytime. * 

* * 

The detectives questioned Tullis about an incident of voyeurism. They told 

Tullis that a witness had reported seeing him peering into a neighbor’s windows. 

At first, Tullis denied that he had done this, but later, he confessed. Tullis also 

confessed to a second incident of voyeurism and confessed to burglary, kidnaping, 

and rape. The interview lasted about two hours. When the interview was 

completed, Tullis was allowed to leave the police department. 

State v. Tullis, 2d Dist. Greene No. 2012-CA-59, 2013-Ohio-3051, ¶ 2-3. 

{¶ 3} Tullis argued in his direct appeal that his confession was involuntarily given: 

Tullis contends that the detectives induced him to confess by promising 

that if he confessed, his employer would not be told. Tullis initially denied that he 
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had done anything wrong, but later he confessed to an instance of voyeurism. 

Tullis says that he confessed because one of the detectives told him that “this 

doesn’t even have to be something that the Base finds out about since it’s 

relatively minor” and that “the Base doesn’t have to get involved in all this.” 

Later, says Tullis, when the detective confronted him with allegations of another 

instance of voyeurism, burglary, and rape, the detective said to him, “If I feel like 

you’re being dishonest with me, then I gotta get a hold of the Base and stuff like 

that.” Tullis says that the threat to contact the Base induced him to confess 

because he did not want the Base to find out, which would ruin his military career. 

In other words, says Tullis, this threat communicated hope that if he confessed, he 

would receive the benefit of continuing his life and career without interruption. 

Id. at ¶ 20. We rejected Tullis’s argument, concluding that “[n]othing in these facts and 

circumstances suggests improper coercion leading to an involuntary confession.” Id. at ¶ 23. We 

said that there was “nothing unduly coercive here in the detectives’ conduct or language,” id., and 

we found that Tullis’s will was not overborne: 

It was unreasonable of Tullis to infer from the detectives’ statements that a 

confession would mean that the Base would not find out. Even someone 

unfamiliar with the statutory penalties for the potential offenses would realize that 

the matter had serious consequences. Tullis should have realized that the Base was 

bound to find out, in fact he said he had already sought counseling related to his 

tendencies that led to the offenses. Given what the evidence reveals about Tullis, 

we do not think that his will was overborne by the detectives’ conduct and 
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language. 

Id. at ¶ 22. 

{¶ 4} While we were deciding his direct appeal, Tullis filed with the trial court a 

petition for postconviction relief, arguing that new evidence shows that the detective’s statements 

quoted above were unconstitutionally coercive. Tullis claims in the petition that Detective 

Foreman’s statement that “stated or implied that the military may never need to know about (the) 

interview and the contents” “ultimately contributed” to his confessions. (Petition for 

Post-Conviction Relief). The statement, says Tullis, “was not only not accurate but there is no 

chance that it would have been true given the process that is employed by the Wright Patterson 

Air Force Base.” (Id.). In support, Tullis attached to the petition copies of agreements that the 

88th Security Forces Squadron at Wright-Patterson has with area law enforcement, including the 

Fairborn police department. Under these agreements, law enforcement must give the Security 

Forces Squadron any criminal information that it collects involving active duty military personnel 

and must tell the squadron if it incarcerates or charges any base personnel with a crime. Tullis 

asserts that Detective Foreman, who testified at the motion-to-suppress hearing that he had been 

in the military, must have known what the agreements required and therefore that what he was 

telling Tullis was untrue. 

{¶ 5} The state moved for summary judgment. Attached to its motion is an affidavit 

from Detective Foreman in which he avers, “At the time of the interview, I was unaware of any 

mutual aid agreement between the Fairborn Police Department and Wright Patterson Air Force 

Base Security Forces calling for the Fairborn Police to apprise Base Security Forces about all 

criminal investigations regarding active duty personnel.” (Affidavit of Dan Foreman, Detective 
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Fairborn Police Department, ¶ 3). Instead, avers Detective Foreman, “* * * I was operating 

under a policy wherein the Base Security Forces would be notified if any personnel were arrested 

and placed in custody. * * *” (Id. at ¶ 4). 

{¶ 6} While the trial court was deciding the summary-judgment motion, we entered 

judgment in Tullis’s direct appeal. Based on our Tullis opinion, the trial court granted the state 

summary judgment. The court cited our determination (quoted above) that it was unreasonable 

for Tullis to infer from Detective Foreman’s statements that a confession would mean the 

military would not find out about the situation. And the court cited our determination that there 

was nothing unduly coercive in the detective’s conduct or language that overbore Tullis’s will. 

Given our conclusion that Tullis’s confession was voluntarily made, said the court, no genuine 

issue of material fact remains. 

{¶ 7} Tullis appealed. 

II. ANALYSIS

{¶ 8} Tullis alleges that the trial court erred by entering summary judgment for the state 

on his petition for post-conviction relief. He contends that the trial court failed to address the 

issues presented in the petition and should not have relied solely on our direct-appeal opinion. 

{¶ 9} Tullis says that the trial court does not refer to any of the petition’s arguments or 

mention the new evidence presented. Instead, says Tullis, the court “essentially ratifies” our 

decision on a “tangentially related assignment of error.” (Brief of Appellant). He says that the trial 

court’s decision “simply makes generic conclusive statements that because another court decided 

an issue of similar import that there need be no further examination of the issue presented.” (Id.). 
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{¶ 10} “[A] petition for postconviction relief ‘is not an appeal of a criminal conviction 

but, rather, a collateral civil attack on the judgment,’ in which a claimant asserts that either actual 

innocence or deprivation of constitutional rights renders the judgment void.” State v. Silsby, 119 

Ohio St.3d 370, 2008-Ohio-3834, 894 N.E.2d 667, ¶ 16, quoting State v. Calhoun, 86 Ohio St.3d 

279, 281, 714 N.E.2d 905 (1999). The governing statute, R.C. 2953.21, provides that “[a]ny 

person who has been convicted of a criminal offense * * * and who claims that there was such a 

denial or infringement of the person’s rights as to render the judgment void or voidable under the 

Ohio Constitution or the Constitution of the United States * * * may file a petition in the court 

that imposed sentence, stating the grounds for relief relied upon, and asking the court to vacate or 

set aside the judgment or sentence or to grant other appropriate relief.” R.C. 2953.21(A)(1)(a). 

{¶ 11} Summary judgment must be entered if the summary-judgment evidence “show[s] 

that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to 

judgment as a matter of law.” Civ.R. 56(C). Here the key question is whether any issue of fact 

exists as to whether there has been a denial or infringement of Tullis’s rights. In Tullis, we 

concluded that his constitutional rights were not denied or infringed upon by Detective 

Foreman’s statements because the statements were not unconstitutionally coercive. The new facts 

asserted by Tullis in his petition do not affect this conclusion. Detective Foreman’s affidavit 

shows that, at the time of the interview, he did not know that the Fairborn police were required to 

tell the base about criminal investigations involving base personnel. Also, the accuracy of the 

detective’s statements is irrelevant to the analysis. As we said in Tullis, “ ‘ “[t]he line to be drawn 

between permissible police conduct and conduct deemed to induce or tend to induce an 

involuntary statement does not depend upon the bare language of inducement but rather upon the 
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nature of the benefit to be derived by a defendant if he speaks the truth, as represented by the 

police.” ’ Police use of tactics like admonitions to tell the truth are not improper.” (Emphasis 

added.) (Citations omitted.) Tullis, 2013-Ohio-3051, at ¶ 22, quoting State v. Jackson, 2d Dist. 

Greene No. 02CA0001, 2002-Ohio-4680, ¶ 28, quoting People v. Flores, 144 Cal.App.3d 459, 

192 Cal.Rptr. 772 (1983). Here, “[t]he detectives * * * simply urged Tullis, in a variety of ways, 

to tell the truth.” Id. 

{¶ 12} The trial court is correct that no issue of material fact remains. The entry of 

summary judgment for the state was proper. 

{¶ 13} The sole assignment of error is overruled. 

{¶ 14} The trial court’s judgment is affirmed. 

. . . . . . . . . . . . . 

FROELICH, P.J., and WELBAUM, JJ., concur. 

Copies mailed to: 

Stephen K. Haller 

Jay A. Adams 

Nathaniel R. Luken 

Hon. Stephen Wolaver