[Cite as State v. Alls, 2018-Ohio-3353.]

COURT OF APPEALS 

DELAWARE COUNTY, OHIO 

FIFTH APPELLATE DISTRICT 

STATE OF OHIO : JUDGES: 

 : Hon. W. Scott Gwin, P.J. 

 Plaintiff - Appellee : Hon. John W. Wise, J. 

 : Hon. Craig R. Baldwin, J. 

-vs- : 

 : 

WILLIAM ALLS : Case No. 17 CAA 10 0070 

 : 

 Defendant - Appellant : O P I N I O N 

 

CHARACTER OF PROCEEDING: Appeal from the Delaware County 

Court of Common Pleas, Case No. 

17-CR-I-02-0097 

 

JUDGMENT: Affirmed 

DATE OF JUDGMENT: August 21, 2018 

APPEARANCES: 

For Plaintiff-Appellee For Defendant-Appellant 

CAROL HAMILTON O'BRIEN APRIL F. CAMPBELL 

Prosecuting Attorney Campbell Law, LLC 

 545 Metro Place South, Ste 100 

By: KIMBERLY E. BURROUGHS Dublin, Ohio 43017 

Assistant Prosecuting Attorney 

Delaware Co. Prosecutor’s Office 

140 North Sandusky Street 

Delaware, Ohio 43015 
Delaware County, Case No. 17 CAA 10 0070 2 

Baldwin, J.

{¶1} Appellant, William Alls, appeals the trial court’s denial of his motion to 

suppress the introduction of the contents of his wallet. Appellant entered a plea of no 

contest to one count of Forgery in violation of R.C. 2913.31(A)(3), a fifth degree felony, 

and was found guilty. Appellee is the State of Ohio. 

STATEMENT OF FACTS AND THE CASE 

{¶2} This case arises from an investigation of an alleged use of fraudulent credit 

cards on August 27, 2016 in Delaware County. An employee of a local Staples 

department store reported that a white male attempted to purchase a gift card and, when 

the store employee asked the man for photo identification, the man bolted from the store 

and entered a blue van in the parking lot. The Staples employee reported the incident 

and provided the Delaware County Sheriff’s office with a description of the man, the van 

he entered and the other occupants of the van. He also provided a photograph of the 

license plate on the van. The Staples employee reported that the same white man, and 

one of the other occupants, a white woman, had used a fraudulent credit card at that 

Staples store several days prior to this incident. 

{¶3} Deputies Lee, Griffith, and Johnson of the Delaware County Sheriff’s Office 

were dispatched to investigate. Deputy Lee found the vehicle in the parking lot of a 

nearby department store and watched the vehicle until the white man came out of a store 

and returned to the van. The white female in the van exited and entered on the driver 

side; the white male, identified as Jeremiah Jones, entered in the passenger side. Deputy 

Lee stopped the van and asked Mr. Jones to exit the vehicle and asked him several 
Delaware County, Case No. 17 CAA 10 0070 3 

questions. When Mr. Jones exited the van, Deputy Lee noticed a stack of credit cards 

banded together on the floor of the van. 

{¶4} Mr. Jones initially denied going to the Staples earlier that day but later 

admitted he had been in Staples and attempted to purchase a gift card. He claimed that 

the transaction was unsuccessful because the gift card he had used to purchase the new 

gift card was lacking funds. This story was inconsistent with the report by the Staples 

employee who described Mr. Jones as fleeing from the store before completing the 

transaction. 

{¶5} Deputy Lee asked Mr. Jones if he had anything dangerous on his person 

and Mr. Jones admitted he had a syringe in his pants pocket. Deputy Lee patted Mr. 

Jones down, found the syringe and what appeared to be drugs, handcuffed and detained 

him in the back of the deputy’s cruiser. 

{¶6} Appellant had remained in the vehicle and was asked by Deputy Lee to step 

outside the van. When he exited the vehicle he had a cell phone and a wallet in his hands 

and the deputy asked him to put them on the roof of the van while Deputy Lee patted him 

down. Appellant was cooperative and consented to a search of his pockets. Appellant 

denied possessing any drug paraphernalia or being involved in Mr. Jones activities. He 

was then handcuffed and put in the back of Deputy Griffith’s cruiser. According to the 

testimony at trial, the deputies forgot that the cell phone and wallet were still on the roof 

of the van. They did not search the wallet at that time. 

{¶7} Deputy Lee then asked the female to step out of the van and spoke to her 

briefly. She admitted that Jones was her husband and that he was a heroin user. She 

was not handcuffed, but was placed in the same cruiser as her husband. During the 
Delaware County, Case No. 17 CAA 10 0070 4 

suppression hearing Deputy Lee could not recall why the woman was not handcuffed but 

he did recall placing her in the cruiser for officer safety. The woman was not arrested and 

she was permitted to drive the van home once the van had been searched. 

{¶8} The deputies searched the van and retrieved the stack of credit cards 

Deputy Lee observed when Mr. Jones had exited the van. They also found syringes 

hidden throughout the vehicle, including the storage pockets attached to the front 

passenger seat immediately in front of where the Appellant was sitting. After searching 

the van, Deputy Lee picked up the wallet that Appellant had placed on top of the van and 

found three credit or debit cards inside with the Appellant's name on them. Using a 

handheld scanning device, the deputies determined that the electronic information 

encoded on those cards did not match the information printed on them. The three credit 

cards were determined to be forged and Appellant was arrested. 

{¶9} Appellant was indicted on three counts of forgery, a violation of R.C. 

2913.31 (A)(3), a felony of the fifth degree. Appellant filed a motion to suppress the 

discovery of the three credit cards on May 1, 2017 and asserted several bases for the 

suppression of the credit card evidence. The State filed a memorandum contra on May 

15, 2017 and a hearing was conducted on May 31, 2017. On June 12, 2017 the trial court 

issued a judgment entry denying the motion to suppress finding, among other things, that 

“[b]y carrying his wallet in a mobile vehicle and then by openly revealing to the deputies 

that wallet's existence in the middle of a roadside investigative stop, the defendant 

willingly subjected that wallet to the kind of warrantless search that state and federal 

courts have repeatedly permitted under the Fourth Amendment's automobile exception.” 

(Entry Denying Motion to Suppress, June 12, 2017, p. 16). 
Delaware County, Case No. 17 CAA 10 0070 5 

{¶10} Appellant then pled no contest on August 16, 2017 to a single count of 

forgery and the trial court accepted his plea and sentenced him on September 26, 2017. 

Appellant filed a notice of appeal on October 9, 2017 and submitted two assignments of 

error: 

{¶11} “I. ALLS'S MOTION TO SUPPRESS THE CONTENTS OF HIS WALLET 

SHOULD HAVE BEEN GRANTED: 

THE DEPUTIES SEIZED ALLS'S WALLET WITHOUT PROBABLE CAUSE, TO 

SEARCH AND DETAIN ALLS UNREASONABLY IN HANDCUFFS (sic). THUS, THE 

FRUIT OF THE POISONOUS TREE DOCTRINE APPLIES TO THEIR SUBSEQUENT 

NONCONSENSUAL AND WARRANTLESS SEARCH OF IT.” 

{¶12} “II. ALLS'S MOTION TO SUPPRESS THE CONTENTS OF HIS WALLET 

ALSO SHOULD HAVE BEEN GRANTED, BECAUSE THE AUTOMOBILE EXCEPTION 

DOES NOT APPLY AND CANNOT CURE, THE OFFICERS' UNLAWFUL SEARCH OF 

IT.” 

STANDARD OF REVIEW 

{¶13} Appellate review of a motion to suppress presents a mixed question of law 

and fact. State v. Burnside, 100 Ohio St.3d 152, 2003-Ohio-5372, 154–155, 797 N.E.2d 

71, 74, ¶ 8. When ruling on a motion to suppress, the trial court assumes the role of trier 

of fact and is in the best position to resolve questions of fact and to evaluate witness 

credibility. See State v. Dunlap, 73 Ohio St.3d 308, 314, 1995-Ohio-243,652 N.E.2d 988; 

State v. Fanning, 1 Ohio St.3d 19, 20, 437 N.E.2d 583 (1982). Accordingly, a reviewing 

court must defer to the trial court's factual findings if competent, credible evidence exists 

to support those findings. See Burnside, supra; Dunlap, supra. However, once an 
Delaware County, Case No. 17 CAA 10 0070 6 

appellate court has accepted those facts as true, it must independently determine as a 

matter of law whether the trial court met the applicable legal standard. See Burnside, 

supra, citing State v. McNamara, 124 Ohio App.3d 706, 707 N.E.2d 539 (4th Dist. 1997); 

See, also, United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 122 S.Ct. 744, 151 L.Ed.2d 740 (2002); 

Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S. 690, 116 S.Ct. 1657, 134 L.Ed.2d 911 (1996). That is, 

the application of the law to the trial court's findings of fact is subject to a de novo standard 

of review. Ornelas, supra. Moreover, due weight should be given “to inferences drawn 

from those facts by resident judges and local law enforcement officers.” Ornelas, supra

at 698. 

{¶14} Appellant does not contend that the trial court erred as to the findings of 

fact, so we accept the trial court’s findings and examine the application of the law to the 

facts. 

ANALYSIS 

{¶15} Appellant does not object to the initial stop of the van by Deputy Lee, nor 

does he assert that the stop was unreasonably extended. Instead Appellant claims that 

his wallet was seized by the investigating deputies, that the seizure was unreasonable 

and, therefore, the evidence discovered therein should be suppressed. We cannot agree 

that the facts support the conclusion that the wallet was seized. Appellant was asked to 

step out of the vehicle and he complied, with a wallet in one hand and a cellphone in the 

other. The officers asked him to put the items on the roof of the vehicle and Appellant 

was thereafter detained in the rear of the cruiser. 

{¶16} The Appellant analyzes the facts regarding his detention in the cruiser, in 

hand-cuffs, and concludes the detention was unreasonable, and asserts that the search 
Delaware County, Case No. 17 CAA 10 0070 7 

of the wallet and the evidence obtained as a result should suppressed. The connection 

between the alleged illegal detention and the discovery of the content of the wallet does 

not exist, and, therefore the exclusionary rule is not triggered. “The exclusionary rule 

does not apply, however, if the connection between the illegal police conduct and the 

discovery and seizure of the evidence is so attenuated as to dissipate the taint, as where 

the police have an independent source for discovery of the evidence.” Silverthorne 

Lumber Co., Inc. v. United States (1920), 251 U.S. 385, 40 S.Ct. 182, 64 L.Ed. 319, as 

cited in State v. Carter, 69 Ohio St.3d 57, 1994-Ohio-343, 630 N.E.2d 355. Because the 

evidence that is the subject of the motion was not discovered as a result of the placement 

of the Appellant in hand-cuffs in the rear of the cruiser, the propriety of the detention is 

not pertinent to the resolution of this case and, therefore, we overrule the first assignment 

of error. 

{¶17} Appellant initially attacked several aspects of his encounter with the 

Delaware Sheriff’s Office, but since the filing of the motion to suppress, he no longer 

contends that the stop was unwarranted, or that he was improperly removed from the 

vehicle and searched. He does contend that his detention in hand-cuffs in the rear of the 

cruiser was unwarranted, but we have found that issue immaterial to the resolution of his 

appeal. The second assignment of error contends that the “automobile exception” does 

not apply to the search of the wallet and, therefore the evidence from the wallet was 

illegally obtained and should be suppressed. 

{¶18} The parameters of the search of an automobile have developed to the 

extent that during a legal stop, and assuming probable cause, the State may search all 
Delaware County, Case No. 17 CAA 10 0070 8 

areas of an automobile including containers in which the target of the search may be 

found. 

If probable cause justifies the search of a lawfully stopped vehicle, it 

justifies the search of every part of the vehicle, and all contents of the 

vehicle that may conceal the object of the search. Wyoming v. Houghton 

(1999), 526 U.S. 295, 119 S.Ct. 1297, 1301, 143 L.Ed.2d 408. This rule 

applies to all containers within a car, without qualification as to ownership, 

and without a showing of individualized probable cause for each container. 

Id. 

State v. Duncan, 5th Dist. Fairfield No. 99-CA-32, 1999 WL 976207, *2, cause dismissed, 

87 Ohio St.3d 1448, 719 N.E.2d 965 (1999), vacated, 87 Ohio St.3d 1456, 720 N.E.2d 

539 (1999), and aff'd, 90 Ohio St.3d 54, 2000-Ohio-12, 734 N.E.2d 811 (2000). 

{¶19} In the case before us, the deputies found drug paraphernalia and suspected 

heroin in possession of one of the passengers of the van, and clearly saw a hypodermic 

needle on the floor of the van. Deputy Lee noted a stack of credit cards on the floor of 

the van raising his suspicion that one of the passengers was involved in criminal activity 

involving the cards. This information gave the officers probable cause for the search of 

the vehicle and any containers within the vehicle. Appellant does not contend that the 

officers did not have probable cause to search the vehicle, but would have us conclude 

that the fact the wallet was outside the car, on the roof, eliminates the “automobile search” 

exception. We must reject appellant’s assertion. 
Delaware County, Case No. 17 CAA 10 0070 9 

{¶20} The United States Supreme Court when describing this “automobile 

exception” referred to a summary of the holding in United States v. Ross, 456 U.S. 798, 

809, 102 S.Ct. 2157, 2165, 72 L.Ed.2d 572 (1982) stated: 

If probable cause justifies the search of a lawfully stopped vehicle, it 

justifies the search of every part of the vehicle and its contents that may 

conceal the object of the search.” Id., at 825, 102 S.Ct. 2157 (emphasis 

added). And our later cases describing Ross have characterized it as 

applying broadly to all containers within a car, without qualification as to 

ownership. 

Wyoming v. Houghton, 526 U.S. 295, 301, 119 S.Ct. 1297, 143 L.Ed.2d 408 (1999) We 

have applied this precedent and held that “A police officer with probable cause to search 

a vehicle may inspect a passenger's belongings found in the car which are capable of 

concealing an object of the search. State v. Eiler, 5th Dist. Tuscarawas No. 2015 AP 05 

0023, 2016-Ohio-224, ¶ 31. 

{¶21} Appellant contends that the wallet was not in the vehicle, but on the vehicle 

when the search was conducted. We are unwilling to accept this distinction based upon 

the balancing test described in Wyoming: 

Passengers, no less than drivers, possess a reduced expectation of 

privacy with regard to the property they transport in cars. See, e.g., Cardwell 

v. Lewis, 417 U.S. 583, 590, 94 S.Ct. 2464, 41 L.Ed.2d 325 (1974). The 

degree of intrusiveness of a package search upon personal privacy and 

personal dignity is substantially less than the degree of intrusiveness of the 
Delaware County, Case No. 17 CAA 10 0070 10 

body searches at issue in United States v. Di Re, 332 U.S. 581, 68 S.Ct. 

222, 92 L.Ed. 210, and Ybarra v. Illinois, 444 U.S. 85, 100 S.Ct. 338, 62 

L.Ed.2d 238. In contrast to the passenger's reduced privacy expectations, 

the governmental interest in effective law enforcement would be 

appreciably impaired without the ability to search the passenger's 

belongings, since an automobile's ready mobility creates the risk that 

evidence or contraband will be permanently lost while a warrant is obtained, 

California v. Carney, 471 U.S. 386, 105 S.Ct. 2066, 85 L.Ed.2d 406; **1299 

since a passenger may have an interest in concealing evidence of 

wrongdoing in a common enterprise with the driver, cf. Maryland v. Wilson, 

519 U.S. 408, 413-414, 117 S.Ct. 882, 137 L.Ed.2d 41; and since a criminal 

might be able to hide contraband in a passenger's belongings as readily as 

in other containers in the car, see, e.g., Rawlings v. Kentucky, 448 U.S. 98, 

102, 100 S.Ct. 2556, 65 L.Ed.2d 633.

Wyoming, supra at 296. 

{¶22} Appellant’s expectation of privacy was sufficiently outweighed by the 

governmental interest in effective law enforcement preserving the “automobile exception” 

in the circumstances presented to us by this case. 

{¶23} We acknowledge there are limitations to the “automobile exception” rule. 

Had the wallet been removed from the Appellant’s clothing or taken from him to be 

searched immediately, the result may have been different. Wyoming at 308; State v. 

Mercier, 117 Ohio St.3d 1253, 2008-Ohio-1429, 885 N.E.2d 942, ¶ 5. The State may not 

compel the Appellant to leave his property in or on the vehicle with the purpose of 
Delaware County, Case No. 17 CAA 10 0070 11 

facilitating a search of property that may not otherwise occur without probable cause to 

search the owner, Id. at ¶ 12 but the facts in this case do not support such subterfuge. 

For unexplained reasons, Appellant exited the vehicle with a cellphone and a wallet in his 

hands; the deputy asked him to put the items down to facilitate a pat down and a 

consensual search. The wallet was left on the vehicle until later when it was searched 

and forged credit cards were discovered therein. The placement of the wallet on the van 

was not ordered by the deputy as a pretext for a search, but simply occurred in the course 

of the investigation. Further, because probable cause to search the vehicle existed at the 

time the wallet was in the van and because that probable cause still existed when the 

deputy asked Appellant to put the wallet on the van, the search of the wallet was not a 

violation of the Fourth Amendment. Ohio v. Abbuhl, 5th Dist. Tuscarawas No. 

11AP030014, 2011-Ohio-6550, ¶ 15. 

{¶24} We find that the initial stop of the vehicle was appropriate and, after 

discovering evidence of drugs and a suspicious stack of credit cards, the search of the 

vehicle after removal of the Appellant was supported by probable cause. The Appellant 

held a wallet in his hand when he exited the vehicle and placed it on the van. We find 

that the facts of this case support a conclusion that the automobile exception described 

in Wyoming and Mercier applies and that the trial court did not err by denying the motion 

to suppress the evidence. 

 
Delaware County, Case No. 17 CAA 10 0070 12 

{¶25} The Appellants second assignment of error is overruled and the decision of 

the Delaware Court of Common Pleas is affirmed. 

By: Baldwin, J. 

Gwin, P.J. and 

John Wise, J. concur.