Youngstown Daily Legal News

Evidence still admissible after it was seized during a search based on 'stale tip'

JESSICA SHAMBAUGH
Special to the Legal News
Published: October 9, 2013

In a recent opinion the 10th District Court of Appeals affirmed a Franklin County Court of Common Pleas judgment convicting Tommy Edwards of possession of marijuana.

Edwards appealed his conviction and argued that the evidence against him should have been suppressed after it was recovered during a search based on a stale tip.

He also claimed the state improperly weighed the drugs found in his possession.

The facts of the case show that the Reynoldsburg Police Department received an anonymous tip in January 2008 that Edwards was living on Chatterly Lane and selling marijuana by the pound in Reynoldsburg and on the east side of Columbus.

A background check verified Edwards’ address on Chatterly Lane and his history of drug charges.

Police later arrested a man leaving a house on Weirton Drive with two pounds of marijuana.

The man told the officers that Edwards had instructed him to take the marijuana from the house.

After stopping four people leaving the Weirton Drive house, the officers seized more than 10 pounds of marijuana.

Detective Ty Downard then started investigating the Chatterly Lane house and conducted multiple trash pulls.

The pulls yielded mail connecting Edwards to the house as well as what appeared to be marijuana stems and seeds.

The substance later tested positive for marijuana.

After a second trash pull in September 2008 resulted in more marijuana stems and seeds, a letter of residence and four roaches, Downard obtained a search warrant for narcotics.

Edwards was later charged with one count of possession of marijuana as a fifth-degree felony.

In the common pleas court, he moved to suppress evidence of marijuana seized during the search of the Chatterly Lane house because it was the result of a warrant that he claimed lacked probable cause.

The trial court denied his motion and the state admitted evidence that SWAT entered Edwards’ home on Sept. 30, 2008, and found a Walmart bag containing nine smaller bags of marijuana, a digital scale, baggies and a letter of residence placing Edwards at the house.

A forensic drug chemist testified that the substance seized was marijuana and that the nine bags weighed 212 grams.

However, the chemist told the court that she only actually tested seven of the bags.

The jury found Edwards guilty and he later appealed that decision.

On appeal, he renewed his argument that the evidence from the search should have been suppressed.

“Specifically, appellant argues the anonymous tip was stale, in that it was eight months between the tip and the search and that the search warrant for his residence lacked sufficient indicia of drug trafficking to establish probably cause, or in the alternative, officers lacked good faith in executing the warrant,” 10th District Judge Lisa Sadler wrote for the court.

The three-judge appellate panel disagreed.

It ruled that a judge must consider the totality of the circumstances before issuing a search warrant, meaning the judge had to consider the statements made by the men leaving the Weirton Drive house, the trash pulls and the anonymous tip.

It found the issuing judge also had Downard’s observations of Edwards frequently coming and going at the Chatterly Lane residence and the information from Edwards’ background check.

“Based on the above, we find the issuing judge had a substantial basis to conclude probably cause existed to issue a search warrant,” Judge Sadler stated.

The judges also ruled the jury had discretion to find the forensic chemist’s testimony regarding the substance in all nine bags credible, despite her only testing seven of them.

Refusing to overturn the jury’s findings, the appellate panel affirmed the lower court’s ruling.

Presiding Judge William Klatt and retired Judge John McCormac concurred.

The case is cited State v. Edwards, 2013-Ohio-4342.

[Back]