Court Opinion

ID: 9403191
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-06-20 17:08:31.958464+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:05.345519
License: Public Domain

[Cite as State v. Carpenter, 2023-Ohio-2014.]

STATE OF OHIO                     )                    IN THE COURT OF APPEALS
                                  )ss:                 NINTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT
COUNTY OF MEDINA                  )

STATE OF OHIO                                          C.A. No.       22CA0058-M

          Appellant

          v.                                           APPEAL FROM JUDGMENT
                                                       ENTERED IN THE
JUSTIN S. CARPENTER                                    COURT OF COMMON PLEAS
                                                       COUNTY OF MEDINA, OHIO
          Appellee                                     CASE No.   22CR0183

                                 DECISION AND JOURNAL ENTRY

Dated: June 20, 2023

          SUTTON, Presiding Judge.

          {¶1}   The State of Ohio appeals from an entry of the Medina County Court of Common

Pleas granting Defendant-Appellee Justin Carpenter’s motion to suppress evidence. This Court

reverses and remands.

                                                  I.

          {¶2}   On March 2, 2022, Mr. Carpenter was indicted by a Medina County grand jury on

one count of aggravated drug possession in violation of R.C. 2925.11(A)(C), a felony of the fifth

degree.

          {¶3}   Mr. Carpenter filed a motion to suppress evidence obtained from what Mr.

Carpenter alleged was an illegal search of his jacket. On July 8, 2022, the trial court held a hearing

on Mr. Carpenter’s motion. The State presented the testimony of one witness, Officer Katie Sipos,

a 24-year veteran of the Wadsworth Police Department, who conducted the search of the jacket.
                                                    2

The State also admitted into evidence the officer’s body camera footage from the incident. Mr.

Carpenter presented no evidence or witnesses.

        {¶4}    On October 3, 2022, the trial court issued a journal entry granting Mr. Carpenter’s

motion to suppress the evidence obtained as a result of the search of the jacket. It is from that

entry the State appeals, assigning one error for this Court’s review.

                                                   II.

                                    ASSIGNMENT OF ERROR

        THE TRIAL COURT ERRED IN GRANTING [MR.] CARPENTER’S
        MOTION TO SUPPRESS EVIDENCE. THE SEARCH OF THE JACKET
        WAS LAWFUL BECAUSE THE JACKET WAS EITHER ABANDONED
        OR WAS AN UNATTENDED ITEM THAT POLICE HAD THE RIGHT TO
        SEARCH TO DETERMINE ITS OWNER. THERE IS NO REQUIREMENT
        THAT BEFORE SEARCHING AN UNATTENDED ITEM POLICE MUST
        ASK EVERY PERSON IN THE VICINITY OF THE ITEM IF THEY OWN
        IT.

        {¶5}    In its sole assignment of error, the State argues the trial court erred in granting Mr.

Carpenter’s motion to suppress evidence. For the reasons that follow, we agree.

                                          Standard of Review

        {¶6}    A motion to suppress evidence presents a mixed question of law and fact. State v.

Burnside, 100 Ohio St.3d 152, 2003-Ohio-5372, ¶ 8. “When considering a motion to suppress,

the trial court assumes the role of trier of fact and is therefore in the best position to resolve factual

questions and evaluate the credibility of witnesses.” Id., citing State v. Mills, 62 Ohio St.3d 357,

366 (1992). Thus, a reviewing court “must accept the trial court’s findings of fact if they are

supported by competent, credible evidence.” Burnside at ¶ 8. “Accepting these facts as true, the

appellate court must then independently determine, without deference to the conclusion of the trial

court, whether the facts satisfy the applicable legal standard.” Id., citing State v. McNamara, 124

Ohio App.3d 706 (4th Dist.1997). We emphasize, however, that “[t]his Court must only accept the
                                                  3

trial court’s findings of fact if they are supported by competent, credible evidence.” State v.

Hendrix, 9th Dist. Summit Nos. 26648, 26649, 2013-Ohio-2430, ¶ 14, quoting State v. Figueroa,

9th Dist. Lorain No. 09CA009612, 2010-Ohio-189, ¶ 20.

       {¶7}    At the suppression hearing, Officer Sipos testified that the Wadsworth Police had

received a call about a disturbance that occurred at a residence involving Mr. Carpenter and his

companion, H.C. Several patrol units were looking for the couple when Officer Sipos spotted

them outside of a tanning shop. Officer Sipos discovered that H.C. had an outstanding warrant for

her arrest and proceeded to take her into custody. As part of that arrest, Officer Sipos conducted

a search of a bag that H.C. had been wearing. During the search of that bag, Officer Sipos located

drug paraphernalia. While Officer Sipos was processing that evidence, her colleague began a frisk

of Mr. Carpenter. While that frisk was happening, Officer Sipos went over to the table that H.C.

had been seated at when Officer Sipos pulled into the parking lot of the tanning salon. Officer

Sipos testified that she began to search a jacket that was on the table to see who it belonged to,

because “I wasn’t sure whose it was. Since [H.C.] was sitting there and [Mr. Carpenter] had

already come closer to me when I first pulled up, I wasn’t sure if it could have been hers or whose

it could have been.”

       {¶8}    A factual finding upon which the trial court based its decision was that “[a]t no time

after Officer Sipos arrived was either [Mr.] Carpenter or [H.C] seated at the table.” Therefore,

the trial court found the jacket was “temporarily unattended” as opposed to “truly unattended or

lost property[,]” The trial court relied on this factual finding in granting Mr. Carpenter’s motion to

suppress. However, this factual finding is not supported by the evidence in the record. Officer

Sipos’ body camera footage shows that when she gets out of her vehicle, [H.C.] remains seated at

the table with the jacket, while Mr. Carpenter is walking towards Officer Sipos’ vehicle.
                                                   4

Eventually, H.C. gets up and walks away from the table to approach the officer, but both the body

camera shows, and the officer testified that, H.C. had remained seated at the table after the officer’s

arrival. Additionally, the trial court stated in its factual findings that “[i]nside the [jacket] pocket,

Officer Sipos located [Mr.] Carpenter’s wallet and some drug paraphernalia.” However, the body

camera footage shows that in the jacket pocket, Officer Sipos located a mesh wallet, and that items

belonging to Mr. Carpenter and the drug paraphernalia were inside that mesh wallet. The body

camera footage further shows that it was possible to see through the mesh into the wallet to some

degree even prior to the wallet being opened or items being removed from it.

        {¶9}    While we note that instead of applying a Fourth Amendment analysis to the search

of the jacket, the trial court improperly focused on a distinction between “temporarily unattended”

and “truly unattended” property, a distinction not found in the law. However, we cannot address

the trial court’s application of the law at this time, as the trial court’s factual findings are not

supported by competent, credible evidence. See State v. Liscoe, 9th Dist. Summit No. 25441,

2011-Ohio-1054, ¶ 14; State v. Stambaugh, 9th Dist. Wayne No. 12CA0027, 2012-Ohio-5568, ¶

12-19. Because the evidence does not support the trial court’s factual findings, we must conclude

that the trial court erred by granting Mr. Carpenter’s motion to suppress. The State’s sole

assignment of error is sustained on that basis.

        {¶10} The State’s sole assignment of error is sustained.

                                                  III.

        {¶11} The State’s sole assignment of error is sustained. The judgment of the trial court is

reversed and the cause is remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion.

                                                                                   Judgment reversed,
                                                                                 and caused remanded.
                                                 5

       There were reasonable grounds for this appeal.

       We order that a special mandate issue out of this Court, directing the Court of Common

Pleas, County of Medina, State of Ohio, to carry this judgment into execution. A certified copy of

this journal entry shall constitute the mandate, pursuant to App.R. 27.

       Immediately upon the filing hereof, this document shall constitute the journal entry of

judgment, and it shall be file stamped by the Clerk of the Court of Appeals at which time the period

for review shall begin to run. App.R. 22(C). The Clerk of the Court of Appeals is instructed to

mail a notice of entry of this judgment to the parties and to make a notation of the mailing in the

docket, pursuant to App.R. 30.

       Costs taxed to Appellee.

                                                     BETTY SUTTON
                                                     FOR THE COURT

FLAGG LANZINGER, J.
CONCURS.

CARR, J.
CONCURRING IN JUDGMENT ONLY.

       {¶12} I concur in the majority’s judgment, but I would undertake a different analysis.

“Before we subject the [S]tate’s conduct to Fourth Amendment scrutiny, we must first consider

the threshold question of whether this constitutional provision applies in the present case. The

crucial issue to be resolved is whether the [A]ppellant had a reasonable expectation of privacy with
                                                 6

regard to his jacket.” (Internal quotations omitted.) See People v. Juan, 175 Cal.App.3d 1064,

1067-1068 (1985). “[T]he Fourth Amendment protects people, not places. What a person

knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth

Amendment protection. But what he seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the

public, may be constitutionally protected.” (Internal citations omitted.) Katz v. United States, 389

U.S. 347, 351 (1967). Notably, “business and commercial premises are not as private as residential

premises, and [] consequently there are various police investigative procedures which may be

directed at such premises without the police conduct constituting a Fourth Amendment search.”

(Citation omitted.) State v. Gary, 2d Dist. Montgomery No. 27829, 2018-Ohio-3696, ¶ 23. Thus,

if one relinquishes control of property by placing it in an area of a public space where the person

has no possessory interest, the person has no reasonable expectation of privacy and cannot sustain

a challenge to the legality of the subsequent search and seizure on Fourth Amendment grounds.

United States v. Alewelt, 532 F.2d 1165, 1168 (7th Cir.1976).

       {¶13} Accordingly, I would conclude that when Carpenter and H.C. left the jacket at the

table and walked away, Carpenter lacked a reasonable expectation of privacy in that jacket. See

Juan at 1069. “By leaving his jacket unattended [in a public place], [Carpenter] exposed it to the

public and he cannot assert that he possessed a reasonable expectation of privacy in the pockets of

his jacket.   The ‘search’ of [the] jacket was therefore lawful since it did not violate his

constitutional rights.” Id.; see also Alewelt at 1168. Accordingly, I concur in the majority’s

judgment.
                                           7

APPEARANCES:

S. FORREST THOMPSON, Prosecuting Attorney, and VINCENT V. VIGLUICCI, Assistant
Prosecuting Attorney, for Appellant.

COLE F. OBERLI, Attorney at Law, for Appellee.